Al Agnew

Chief Graybear...you will note that the article you quoted basically says degraded habitat is a guess as to why spotted bass invaded the Meramec. You will also note that it wasn't very specific about when the degradation of habitat started, while it was very specific about when the spotted bass invasion began. (I will note, however, that I caught a few hybrids in middle Big River back in the mid-1970s--but then never caught another or a pure spot until about 1983 on the Meramec around the mouth of the Bourbeuse.) I will also say again that I've been ON these rivers since well before the spotted bass invasion began, and I think I've always been a pretty observant river user. I also know a lot about the history of these streams. So I'll say it again...the habitat back in the 1960s (on Big River) and early 1970s was certainly no better than it was in the 1980s or 1990s. Most of the really bad land use practices that resulted in habitat degredation on these streams happened in the early 20th century. By the 1930s and 1940s these rivers were in REALLY bad shape. Better land use practices after that made habitat improve steadily into the mid-1980s when spotted bass first appeared. On the lower and middle Meramec, habitat started declining BEGINNING in the 1980s. Habitat is still holding steady on Big River. I don't know as much about the Bourbeuse, but it's a fact that articles from MDC in the late 1970s rated the Bourbeuse as having one of the most healthy riparian corridors in the state. MDC is basically using the spotted bass situation as a vehicle for advocating improvement of land use practices. There is no doubt that improvement would be a good thing. But habitat degradation is NOT the cause of spotted bass invasion, nor will whatever habitat improvement that can be done take care of the spotted bass problem in these streams. The simple fact is that spotted bass were not native to these streams, and would have had to travel very long distances up or down fairly inhospitable waterways in order to reach them. One way or another, humans furnished a pathway for the spotted bass to reach these streams, and when they got there they found habitat to their liking. But that habitat was also VERY MUCH to the liking of smallmouth. In the 1970s and early 1980s, there is little doubt that the Meramec was the best stream in the state for BIG smallmouth. Big River and the Bourbeuse weren't far behind. If it wasn't for two things--spotted bass and GREATLY increased angling pressure due to the advent of jetboats--the Meramec would STILL be one of the very best smallie streams in the Ozarks. And middle to upper Big and Bourbeuse would be right behind it.

No, it wasn't Kevin that I went electroshocking with. Kevin is a friend, and he is an advocate of doing something about spotted bass in the Meramec river system. But I've had a running argument with him and other MDC people for years about the so-called habitat changes. As far as I know, they have zero data to show what kind of habitat changes there have been in the mainstream Meramec, Big, and Bourbeuse, but they "suspect" that habitat changes have favored spotted bass spread. I've been on these rivers for longer than Kevin, or as far as I know any other biologist they have, and what I have observed is NOT habitat changes favoring spotted bass. Consider...according to what we think we know, spotted bass like water that is slower, murkier, and warmer than typical Ozark smallmouth water. You can't change a stream to make it slower (unless you dam it), that's a function of gradient. It's possible that if the rivers are staying considerably lower than they used to be, that could favor spotted bass, but at the time spots started showing up, there was zero evidence of this. We had a long drought back in the late 90s and early 2000s, but spotted bass were already well established in much of the places they are now by that point. Murkier? Definitely not. I don't know about the Bourbeuse, but the Meramec and Big River have both gotten clearer during the time I've been fishing them (Big River since 1960 or so, the Meramec since the early 1970s). As I mentioned before, this is probably because of less row-cropping in the watershed and better erosion control. Warmer? I don't think there is any kind of big difference in water temps than what there was before spotted bass entered these streams. Maybe they stayed a few degrees warmer during the aforementioned drought due to hot summer weather and low water, but again, that was AFTER the spots were well-established. Don't get me wrong...there HAVE been habitat changes. On the middle and lower Meramec, there has been more bank erosion and some filling of pools with gravel compared to what it was like when I first started fishing it. I believe, but can't prove, that at least a part of the cause of this is damage to narrow zones along the banks due to jetboat wakes, that gives the turbulence of high water a spot to "work on". At least I KNOW that I've seen more bank erosion and movement of gravel on the Meramec since jetboats came onto the scene in the mid-1980s. At the same time, I have seen IMPROVEMENTS in habitat on Big River. More control of the lead mine waste in the upper watershed has allowed some stretches that were once full of the tailings to at least deepen a bit. And there has certainly been no more bank erosion on the stretches of Big River that I always fished than there ever was. As far as I know, habitat changes such as shallowing of pools and erosion of banks really doesn't favor EITHER spotted bass or smallies. And there is no doubt in my mind that many stretches of Big River that are suffering greatly from spotted bass are actually in better shape habitat-wise than they were when I was a whole lot younger. There's also no doubt that habitat changes CAN favor spotted bass over smallmouth. The perfect example of this is lower Black River, below Clearwater Dam, which was quite clear for many miles downstream before the dam was built and was mostly smallmouth habitat for a good 40 miles below the dam, even though spotted bass are native to this river system. But the dam is strictly for flood control, and unlike the big White River lakes, the water is released off the surface of the lake. Clearwater is not really very clear, either. So the river below the dam became warmer and murkier once it was built, and now smallies are rare below the dam. But I haven't seen anything like that kind of habitat change anywhere in the Meramec river system.

No, MDC doesn't kill the spotted bass they electroshock. The last time I went with one of their biologists on an electroshocking trip on Big River, it just about killed me to have to measure and release the huge numbers of spotted bass we got. Why don't they? Same reason they ONLY put on a 12 fish, no length limit on spots in the Meramec river system...fear of what anglers would say and do if they did what they REALLY know needs to be done. To too many people, spotted bass are bass and bass are to be protected no matter what. If it was known that they killed all those spotted bass they electroshocked, there would be a tremendous hue and cry from everybody from bass clubs to PETA types. I agree that it should be mandatory to kill every spotted bass you catch in the Meramec and Gasconade river systems. Couple that with complete protection of smallmouth bass everywhere that spots are present in any kind of numbers in those two river systems. That's the only way you'll REALLY help the smallies.

Some of your pictures are definitely channel cats, a couple of them could be blues. The last picture in the bunch is definitely a channel. Look at the anal fin. The outer edges of a blue's anal fin is a more or less straight line, the outer edge of a channel's is rounded. If the anal fin is rounded it's a channel. Bigger male channels are often grayish blue in color and have few or no spots. I used to catch a lot of them on Big River when I was a kid and I was sure they were blue catfish because of the blueish color and lack of spots, but once I learned to look at the anal fins, I found out they were always channels. The whole walleye thing is interesting. It's true that the native river strain walleye of the White and tribs were always uncommon and reproduced slowly, and once the lakes were built they suffered greatly. They need river riffles to spawn, and the riffles have to be pretty big and strong-flowing. When the lakes were first built the river strain fish trapped in them grew big and did well for a while, but gradually dwindled due to lack of spawning success in what was left of the rivers above the lakes. MO and AR both stocked lake strain walleye to replenish the disappearing populations, but the lake strain fish just didn't grow as big. Chances are that any really big walleye (over 12 pounds or so) that is now caught in the White River system is a survivor of the old river strain fish (or at least has some river strain genetics--it's possible that some of the lake strain walleye will still migrate up the rivers to spawn, along with the few river strain fish that might be left). Which begs the question...where are these James River walleye coming from? Lake strain fish that are migrating up the rivers? Remnant river strain populations that have always been there but are now for some reason doing better? A couple years ago I caught a nice walleye, about 25 inches, on Big River not far below Bonne Terre. I grew up on Big River and have fished that section for more than 40 years, and that's the first walleye I ever caught there. As far as I knew, walleye never got up above the dam at Morse Mill, 40 miles or more downstream. An MDC biologist told me he shocked several walleye from the same spot the autumn before--and he'd never heard of them being in that area before. One little school that happened to move up that far and liked it there? Will they spread?

Lots of thoughtful comments from everybody...let's see... Whoever back on the first page that asked about stocked, native, and hatchery trout out West--the only native trout over much of the West was the various subspecies of cutthroats (and a minor species, bull trout). Rainbow trout were ONLY native to streams along the Pacific Coast. Browns, of course, were a European species. Rainbows, and soon after browns, were stocked over most of the West, and were directly responsible for decimating native cutthroat populations. Brook trout were also stocked in some streams, and also did their share to wipe out cutthroats. A number of cutthroat subspecies have been wiped out except in headwater areas above major waterfalls that the rainbows couldn't negotiate. The biggest reason the Yellowstone cutthroat is still a common species in the upper Yellowstone and tributaries is because of the great falls of the Yellowstone, which have kept rainbows and browns from colonizing the river above the falls. Yellowstone Lake and the large headwater watershed of the Yellowstone keeps the cutthroat population high enough to keep furnishing cutthroats far down the river and its tributaries. I've caught cutthroats as far downstream as the stretch between Livingston and Big Timber. Most trout populations in the West are now self-sustaining, no matter what the species. There are still hatchery trout raised to stock in certain lakes that have a lack of suitable spawning habitat, but the trout in most streams are wild. The difference between Missouri streams, especially the larger ones below the trout parks, and Western streams is that on the larger Missouri streams the water temperature isn't right during the window of time that trout spawn. They may spawn, but the eggs don't hatch. Once in a while, in some areas and on some smaller streams, the water temp window and the spawning window match up closely enough to get some reproduction, but on most streams the populations could never be self-sustaining. Trout, especially rainbows, can do a lot of traveling when the water temps are right. They tend to spread during the winter and a lot of them end up dying during the summer if they are trapped in water that's too warm. Missouri isn't the only place this happens--I was floating the John Day River in Oregon one time; it's a warm water smallmouth fishery in the summer, but has rainbows in the headwaters (and a steelhead migration in the fall). There was a spot where a tributary stream came down a canyon and then trickled under a pile of rock from a landslide just before entering the river. The water coming out from under the rockpile was very cool, but was just a trickle, not much more water coming out than you'd have coming out of a garden hose. The rest of the river in July is probably in the high 70 degree range. There were a half dozen trout nosed up into this little trickle in about a foot of water in an area no bigger than a washtub, trying to survive. Perhaps the best example of a stream where the warm-water fish population suffers, and has always suffered, from too much spring flow is the upper Current. If you look at water temps during the summer on the Current, the water is 60 degrees or less when it leaves Montauk Park, gradually warms into the upper 60s as you get close to Cedargrove, with other springs locally keeping temps down a bit between Cedargrove and Welch Spring. Welch Spring is big enough to drop the water back down into the low 60s, and other good sized springs keep it in the 60s until you get close to Round Spring. Round Spring isn't all that big, and below it the water temps quickly climb into the 70s. I fished the upper Current before there was any serious trout stocking, and there were plenty of trout escapees from Montauk through much of the stretch down to Cedargrove. There was a localized population around Welch Spring. But there were few trout between Cedargrove and Welch Spring--and a pretty decent population of smallies. However, below Welch Spring, even though there were few trout once you got a mile or so below, the smallie and rock bass population was pretty thin until you got close to Round Spring. Trout weren't the limiting factor, cold water probably was. I suspect that the cold water lasted that far down because the upper Current has few big, dead pools, and most of the river is well-shaded. On the other hand, the Meramec and Niangua are bigger to begin with, less spring-fed below the two major springs, are wider with less shade in the summer, and have longer pools. All this makes them warm rather quickly to temps that are still marginal for trout but also livable for smallies. The smallmouth in the trout section of the Meramec tend to stay in bigger, slower holes during the summer, leaving the better aerated waters of the riffle areas to the trout. I suspect that, except for the area right around the big springs, smallies always did well in the Meramec and Niangua. The trout parks PROBABLY once were major thermal refuges for warm-water gamefish. However, it would also be interesting to know what they looked like before trout management. Were they fast and shallow, or did they have deeper areas. Winter smallies LIKE warmer water, but they NEED depth, cover, and sanctuary from strong current. I'm not absolutely CERTAIN the big spring branches themselves were extremely important thermal refuges. On the other hand, in really cold water periods, the areas JUST below the spring branches are far more important than the whole trout sections. I've fished below Maramec Spring in the winter when the water just above the spring was around 38 degrees. The water at the mouth of the spring was 55. A half mile downstream, surface temps on the same side of the river were back down around 46 (and since cold water sinks until it gets down into the upper 30s, you have to figure that if anything the deeper water was colder yet). Three miles downstream the river was back down to around 40. There is no doubt that the first half mile below the spring is an important thermal refuge for smallmouth and rock bass. What you have to wonder, though, is how far the smallmouth move to get to that thermal refuge...since they don't NEED the warmer water--they can survive in extremely cold water. It could be that there are fewer BIG smallies in the area of the Meramec within a few miles of the mouth of the spring than there used to be, though--smallies in 50 plus degree water have to feed, so those which spend the winters in thermal refuges will keep eating and keep growing, while those which stay in stream sections that get extremely cold don't feed much in the winter. Or it may be a wash...if those fish stay in spring-influenced water year-round, they probably grow more steadily but eat less and grow less during the summer. Re smallies and spotted bass--it's very true that spots and smallies co-exist quite well in the streams of SW MO, but as was said before, they evolved together in those streams. Over much of the central and southern Ozarks where spots are native, they tend to keep separate from smallies, the spots relegated to slower, murkier downstream sections of the streams, smallmouths dominating where the streams are faster and clearer. The exceptions are the streams above the major reservoirs, where spots continually move up the streams from strong reservoir populations. The James and Bryant Creek are two examples of this. Spots were not native to the north-flowing streams. But those streams have ALWAYS had a lot of good spotted bass habitat. Big River, Bourbeuse River, the lower portions of the Meramec, the lower half of the Gasconade, are all relatively slow and murky compared to many of the more southern Ozark streams. Smallmouths actually thrived in them AS LONG AS they didn't have to compete with spotted bass, and the more fertile water allowed the smallies to not only thrive but grow big. Once the spots moved into habitat they liked, however, the smallies which had NOT evolved with them were at a competitive and reproductive disadvantage. It's beginning to look like these streams will end up somewhat like Shoal Creek and a few other SW MO streams, where the smallies and spots are in equilibrium, but since the Meramec, it's tribs, and the Gasconade are slower (and gradient seems to be a big limiting factor for spotted bass) that equilibrium will more completely favor spotted bass. But it isn't really man-made changes to the habitat that caused the spotted bass problem in the Meramec and Gasconade. If anything, water quality has improved in the last 30 years due to better conservation and land use practices (and probably a lot more pasturage and less plowing and row-cropping over the watersheds) in the main stems of these streams. Yet the spotted bass moved in and thrived during that time. I tend to agree that trout are not the serious problem that illegal gigging, spotted bass, gravel mining, factory farms, poaching, and probably a few other problems are...at least over the whole of the Ozarks. In small, localized areas trout MIGHT be a serious problem.

I don't think catfish migrate much. Chances are that low water would not make them move much at all. They should still be there, but with really low water they are probably much more active at night. On most Ozark streams, the farther downstream you go the more catfish there are, but the Meramec has been good catfish water anywhere from about Steelville on down. I'd still concentrate my efforts from the mouth of the Bourbeuse on down, though. Trying to catch them on flies is a challenge, and I suspect that the farther upstream you go the clearer the water gets and the more likely that they will be active only at night.

Hope Dan052 is still reading, at least... First assertion, that the little guy can't stop a dam if the state wants it. I guarantee you, it won't be just the trout fishermen who would fight these proposed dams. Every environmental organization in the country would join in, and in fact would carry most of the fight. The MO Conservation Federation, I'm sure, will be against the dams. Fact is, there have been, as far as I know, no dams on significant streams built since the late 1970s, and that is mainly because the whole environmental movement got powerful enough to win their battles. And the Meramec Dam had a starring role in that win. It was the first, and perhaps the ONLY, big dam project that actually went to a vote of the people that would be affected...and lost almost 2 to 1. Since then, politicians have seen dam projects as politically risky. Fort Smith has been trying to get a dam going on Lee Creek for more than a decade, and are not any farther along on it than when they first proposed it. Cape Girardeau wanted a dam on the Whitewater...it never had a chance. There is another reason why these projects are going to face considerable opposition...pure and simple, it will be the money it takes to build a dam. Dam projects have a history of tremendous cost over-runs, due to everything from environmental impact mitigation to lawsuits to simple inflation. Neither Springfield nor any of the other towns in SW MO have enough money lying around to pay out the many millions it will REALLY cost to build these dams. So they will ask for money from the state and federal government. It's gotten to where it's really difficult to get politicians from outside your own area to agree to pay out money just for the benefit of one city or one small region. That's especially true in the current economic climate. In my opinion, the people who are proposing these dams just might not have any idea of the kind of opposition they will face IF they get far enough along in the process that it really looks like there is a chance they'll be built. However...there are always economic interests with money and influence that will back these projects. It's far from a foregone conclusion that they WOULD be stopped. Which is why early and vocal opposition is important. Once a project gets momentum, stopping it becomes much more difficult. Perhaps the thing that Dan said that bugs me the most is his assertion that a new ecosystem (the lake) would be created for the benefit of wildlife and for people to enjoy. The fact is that artificial lakes are artificial ecosystems that are less diverse and inherently less healthy than natural ecosystems in good condition. Artificial lakes are also VERY common, there is nothing special or unique about them. Each Ozark stream is its own unique ecosystem, and losing even one more of them is, in effect, impoverishing ourselves and our children. You can't make a Crane Creek any more than you can make a White River...you can't even get one back after you've screwed it up with a dam. There will always be people wanting dams, not caring about the streams they would be dooming. I for one will always be one of those fighting them.

Very interesting topic... I agree with most everybody else that trout in MO mainly live in stream sections that would otherwise have somewhat of a shortage of game fish. They don't seem to compete directly with any other fish to the extent that they are very harmful to the other fish's population. One thing that occurs to me, however, if we're talking true conservation...We know that trout have been in most of the spring branches and stream sections for many years, actually far before people started worrying much about native species. The question is, what WERE the big spring branches and the stream sections that are heavily spring-fed enough to have trout before the trout were first stocked? Were there native fish in them that we don't even remember now, that were wiped out by the trout? Or other organisms? I can't imagine that trout had NO real effect on the other denizens of such streams. I wonder if we were considering first introducing trout today, whether we would find some species that would be in danger if the trout were stocked. Here's another thought...consider the big spring branches, especially Maramec and Bennett. These branches flow into streams that have thriving smallmouth and rock bass populations both upstream and down. We know that a significant number of smallies and goggle-eye migrate into warmer, spring-fed areas in the winter. You gotta suspect that a large number of them once went up into the spring branches and spent their winters there before trout. Now, the trout are so thick, and keep the natural food base so low, that maybe they are precluding the smallies and other game fish from moving up into the spring branches anymore. Now...I haven't noticed that there is a tremendous shortage of smallmouth on the Meramec above Maremec Spring, or the Niangua above Bennett, but I suppose it's possible that smallie populations BELOW the spring branches might have once been much greater. Point is, though, that we simply don't know. Trout have been in MO so long that we don't have the data to tell us just how they DID impact the waters of the state when they were first introduced. Heck, there could have been species in some of the spring branches that became extinct because of trout, and we'll never know it. I like trout and trout fishing. I like it a little better out West where the trout are self-sustaining. But I find it enough of a challenge here in MO to make it interesting. And I gotta admit, as cool as I think it is to catch native cutthroat out of the Yellowstone ecosystem, the browns and rainbows fight better!

I do the matching the color to the color of the bottom thing in winter-clear water. But if the water has just a little color, black seems to work very well. I don't have a favorite brand, just buy whichever ones that have the colors I'm looking for.

2300 acres is a pretty big lake. That's nearly four square miles. Or, figure a lake that's 8 miles long and averages a half mile wide. I'd say the whole Indian Creek arm of Table Rock would be about that size.

I always use the same rig with tubes...insert a big split shot into the tube. Use an EWG hook that is the right size to go through the nose and out, then insert the point just in front of the tentacles, through both sides of the body and out, then skin hook the point. In really cold weather, go to small tubes...2 inchers. Otherwise the 3.5 inchers will work. I mostly drag them slowly across the bottom in cold water. No hops, no quick raises of the rod tip. I want the tube on the bottom most of the time. Frequent pauses. Occasionally if I think it's sitting in a prime spot, just jiggle the rod tip. I use a spinning rod and 2/10 Power Pro braid in the clear water of winter. Perhaps the biggest key to fishing tubes in the winter is that the fish will NOT move more than a couple of feet at most to take one. You really have to almost KNOW where the fish is lying. Some of my best spots to catch big wintertime smallies on tubes are big, sunken, isolated logs that lie in the middle of pools in fairly deep water. Anchor or hold the boat a cast length off the log and fish it carefully. I have less luck in and around big rocks on tubes, for some reason, and I seldom even try to fish them in rocky bottoms that don't have something that stands out. I have a few choice logs in my favorite stretches that have produced multiple big fish in the winter, and most of them are not obvious until the water gets extremely clear...they are too deep and too far off the banks. And I do have a few specific spots around rocks that I know to within a few feet where the fish are going to be, and I'll catch fish on them with tubes. But I have never had much luck using the tube more as a search bait. For some reason, hair jigs have worked better for me when I'm just prospecting a pool for winter smallies.

If you like blackened redfish, you'll like blackened drum...they are in the same family (the drum is the only freshwater member) and taste almost exactly alike. Guys I know that fish for them usually use crawdad tails, still in the shell, rather than whole crawdads...don't know why. I've caught quite a few of them while bass fishing. They are good fighters.

Chief...you're right, I know of a number of small dams on decent sized streams that were built for water supply. The difference between existing dams like on Shoal Creek, and a dam on Crane Creek, is that Shoal Creek is large enough and has enough flow that a dam on it is really only there to make a more stable pool from which to take the existing water flow. Crane Creek isn't that big. A dam on it for water supply would necessarily have to be bigger, in order to hold enough water to have a reliable supply even when the creek is very low and little water is flowing into the lake. In other words, the lake would have to hold a lot more water, and would necessarily fluctuate a lot more, in order to work as a water supply dam. And when you start talking about lakes like that, you'd also be looking at possibly more severe restrictions on recreational use, since the water flowing into the lake would be sitting there in the lake for a while instead of circulating through it. You'd have to preserve the quality of that water as much as possible...no gasoline motors, perhaps? There are lakes in other parts of the country like that (California and New York come to mind) where there are restrictions on everything from development around the lakes to motor use to body contact (swimming) in order to protect water quality as much as possible for municipal water use. Not saying this would definitely be the case, but I wouldn't rule it out until the whole thing is in place. As for whether the dam would affect the trout section, even though it wouldn't back water up into it...maybe, maybe not. On the one hand, it's quite possible (see above) that the upper watershed would get more protection from development and other things that might affect water quality or water quantity (restrictions on ground water use to protect the spring flow?). On the other hand, reservoirs on Ozark streams DO affect the streams above the reservoirs, due to rough fish that thrive in the reservoirs continually moving upstream into the free-flowing sections. Also, unless there is a good buffer zone between normal reservoir backwater and totally free-flowing stream, in floods the reservoir would temporarily slow stream flow for miles above it, causing siltation and gravel filling of the usually free-flowing section.

Line--it's more important to match your line to your rod and reel and the lures you will be using. There is NO reason to use anything less than 6 pound mono, co-poly, or fluoro for Ozark smallmouth. As creek wader said, going down to 4 pound will eventually lose you some nice fish. I use 8 pound co-poly (McCoys Mean Green) on light baitcasting tackle, and braided line (2/10, 4/15, or 6/20 Power Pro) on spinning. I'm not TOTALLY convinced that smallmouth in clear water pay NO attention to the line, but I catch plenty of fish on the braid without a leader, and I like braid on spinning tackle because it gives you almost no problem with line twist. Expect the Buffalo to be quite clear (and low). It will be more important to make fairly long casts and to be stealthy and quiet than it will be to use the "right" line.

I don't know what the problem could be...I'm supposed to be one of the staff members but I know very little about the actual running of the site. I'll contact the other staff members and see if I can find anything out.

Well, Dutch, that was a great troll. Taneycomo isn't much of a comparison. When it was built, it cut the White River in half, but didn't really affect very many miles of the river. The rest of the river at that time was still free-flowing. It just meant you could no longer float for 3 or 4 weeks from Galena to Cotter, you had to only do 2 two-week floats. And the native fish thrived in the small, shallow lake. It wasn't until Table Rock was built that Taney became a trout fishery. And although it's now an excellent fishery, it's pretty easy to find similar cold water fisheries in various parts of the country. Crane Creek, on the other hand, as others have pointed out, is entirely unique. A dam on it would TOTALLY ruin what makes it unique. And probably wouldn't raise your property values, given that it would be one small reservoir, possibly with restrictions on its use since it would be totally for water supply, in an area that has a plethora of big reservoirs nearby.

Yeah, I put away the multi-hook lures when the leaves are on the water. One of the lures I go to then is a Superfluke rigged the way I always do, texas rigged with no weight. It's easy to fish in the leaves but doesn't always work. When it doesn't, I'll go to the tubes and jigs. I also use a buzzbait at times, it will come through the leaves reasonably well.

I've always thought that for the stream smallmouth angler, fall is one of the worst times. From about late September to the end of October has always been my worst time to fish. Gig boats running up and down the bigger rivers half the night seems to put the fish down for half the next day. Leaves on the water make fishing difficult. The usually low, clear water also makes things tougher. The fish are starting to move to wintering holes, and don't seem to hold in consistent places. The fall feeding spree is a myth on many streams. Ah, but the beauty of fall makes up for the shortcomings! And if the weather cooperates, November can be a terrific month to fish for the big ones.

That's cold, Gavin Kill them and get them on ice immediately. I don't see any reason for bleeding fish like crappie. The quicker you ice them down and get them really cold, the better.

Since I went completely digital a few years back, I've already amassed many thousands of reference photos that I use in my artwork. I don't know what I'd do without Bridge on my Photoshop CS3 to sort and edit them. But as you might guess, I have many TENS of thousands of slides and prints that I took before going digital. So far I have not been able to find a good way to get them scanned. The slides are especially troublesome because they are so difficult to view without a light box and loupe (which I have but it's still a pain) and pretty much unusable while I'm actually painting unless I scan them and print them out. My dedicated slide scanner takes a good 5-10 minutes to scan one slide, then I have to print it, and since I'm only printing occasionally, my printer ends up having the ink clog up between printing sessions. I'm actually considering taking a batch of slides down to my basement photo room that I use for taking photos of my artwork, projecting them onto a screen, and photographing them with the digital camera. I hear that when you take slides to Costco to have them digitized, that's how they do it. Any other ideas, thoughts, hardware you know of that might work? I can get them done professionally, but the cost for that many slides is prohibitive.

The snake is a harmless northern watersnake. Copperheads don't look much like that. In fact, if you actually see a copperhead, and don't look at it through pure panic like most folks do, you'll never mistake any other snake for it. But remember this one simple rule of thumb...if the dark blotches are hourglass-shaped with the thinnest part of each hourglass in the middle of the snake's back, it's a copperhead, if not, it ain't. Your chances of actually seeing a copperhead while on the water are practically nil, anyway...they don't hang around water except incidentally. In all my years of being on Ozark streams, I've only seen two copperheads swimming the stream. If it's on, in, or very near the water, it almost certainly ISN'T a copperhead. (MIGHT be a cottonmouth, though! I've seen a number of cottonmouths on the Gasconade, Big Piney, and Jacks Fork in recent years.) Very nice photos!

Excellent! I think you also experienced the frustrations of fishing the walking lures...lots of heart-stopping blow-ups that come up empty. One tip...if you keep working the lure after a missed strike and the fish doesn't come back after it again, next time one swings and misses, stop the lure, let it sit for a couple seconds, then barely twitch it. Once in a while that works. Lipping a fish with a big lure full of trebles draped across its face is always a challenge. I've gotten pretty good at it, but it ain't easy. If it's a small fish, under 12 or 13 inches, I often just grab the lure body as firmly as I can, then put the rod under my arm and use the other hand to get a grip on the fish's lower jaw. If it's a big one, I get its head up out of the water and look for a way to grab its jaw around the lure. But the most important thing is to expect the fish to give its head one good shake when you first grip its jaw. So when you grab it, grab it HARD.

Decide how much water you want to cover in two days, and then look for accesses that fit that amount. If you have your own watercraft and you're doing your own shuttle, you can pretty much avoid the idiots except for those in jetboats by simply putting in out of synch with the rental crowd. For instance, if you want to cover a lot of water, Birds Nest to Onondaga is a good two day float. If you put in at Bird's Nest at daylight, you'll be two or three hours ahead of any of the canoes that Garrison's puts in there. It's five miles from there to Garrison's, so you should be hitting Garrison's about mid-day, still well ahead of the canoes they put in above, but behind those that they put at their place to go on down. Cover enough water to camp about 5 miles below Garrisons, which will put you close to Ozark Outdoors' put-in at The Bluffs. Get an early start the next morning and you'll be well ahead of the canoes that put in at The Bluffs. You shouldn't hit a lot of idiots until you get to the mouth of the Huzzah. From then on you'll be in with whatever canoes Ozark Outdoors puts in up on Courtois Creek, but you should have at least half the day idiot free except for jetboats, which don't travel the river on schedules like the rental canoes. If you want a shorter float, you could put in at daybreak at Onondaga, float just past Campbell Bridge, about 5 miles, and the idiots won't be catching up to you until late in the day. Then get an early start the next morning for Blue Springs Creek, and the canoes that put in at Campbell bridge won't be getting to you until late. Or you could do the early put-in, fish until the idiots start to catch up, sit on a gravel bar and watch them pass for couple of hours (this works better in the summer when the bikini hatch is out), and then finish the day's float behind most of them.

In one of the other boards there was a post that included having to get a hook out of the angler's anatomy. He related that he pushed the hook on through and clipped the barb, then removed it. This is both an unnecessarily difficult and unnecessarily painful way to do it, and I think that since the chances of it happening to any angler are very good, it only makes sense to be prepared and to know how to do it the easy way. I've had to get hooks out of myself a few times, and have also removed hooks from several other people. The method has worked every time with ease and little pain. It will save you trips to the emergency room, where it never ceases to amaze me that most doctors don't know the trick, either (or maybe they just want to cut around on you to justify the money you or your insurance company will be paying them). First, you should carry a pair of side cutters IF you use lures with multiple treble hooks. If you're a fly fisherman that only uses single hook flies, you don't need them. Second, it's nice, but not necessary, to have a length of strong cord, something like an eighth inch in diameter and a couple feet long. Third, you have to evaluate where the hook is buried. Anywhere in skin or meat, you have no problem. Nerves, veins and arteries, joints and tendons, around your eyes, big problem that definitely calls for an emergency room visit. Fourth, there are some parts of your anatomy that are very difficult, but not totally impossible, to get hooks out if you are alone. It generally takes two hands to get it done, so if you're stuck in one hand or arm you are going to have to go for help or improvise. Same thing if it's in an area you can't see or can't reach. Now, here's how it works. Once you decide that it's safe to mess with it, you'll need to get the hook off the lure if it's a treble on a hard bait. Easiest way to do it is to clip the split ring that most hard baits have holding the hook onto the lure. If it's attached some other way, use your own judgment as to how to get it off. I suppose it's possible to get the hook out without getting it off the lure, but it will be MUCH more difficult. Spinnerbait hooks can also be a problem, and may need to be clipped with the side cutters right up against the lead head part of the lure. Leave as much of the hook intact as possible, however. You'll need that piece of cord, or something similar. I've never had a piece of cord handy when I've had to remove a hook, so I've used a shoelace, a length of fly line, a piece of monofilament doubled and redoubled so that it's plenty strong, and a nylon fishing stringer at various times. Any piece of line that's strong and that you can get a grip on will work. Now, what you do is turn the hook so that the bend is coming straight up out of the wound, and the shank is parallel to your skin. Then press the eye of the hook down against your skin. This is the most painful part, depending upon how the hook originally went in. Loop the line or cord around the exposed part of the bend of the hook. Press down firmly on the eye and push it toward the buried barb. This pushes the hook point in the opposite direction from the barb, and opens up a space through which the barb can come out. Now, keeping the pressure on the eye, pull hard and sharply on the cord, directly away from the eye of the hook. The hook should pop right out instantly. Here is the process in pictures: If you're by yourself and it's in your hand, you may be able to manipulate your hand to where you can use some solid object to do the pressing on the eye of the hook. I used a corner on my boat one time to do this. Another time it was in my thumb and I was able to reach the eye with my finger. But it's very important to be able to press down on the eye firmly and in the proper direction. I've never had the hook NOT come out on the first tug of the cord, but I suspect it would be pretty painful if it failed, so you want to be pressing perfectly on the eye of the hook when you tug. I guess that above all you need to have confidence this will work, because if you're tentative about the tug, it might not. The first time I ever did it, I was operating on my wife, who had buried a Rattletrap hook in her elbow area. She asked me if I'd ever done this before, and not wanting to worry her, I assured her that I'd done it several times. Sometimes one SHOULD lie to one's spouse. So when it came time to do the tug, I REALLY tugged very hard and sharply, because I really wanted this to work. There was a barely audible "plink", and the hook went flying off into the brush somewhere. She was amazed that it didn't hurt at all. I breathed a BIG sigh of relief!

Ouch. It really bugs me that any angler doesn't know the EASY way to get hooks out. Pushing the barb on through is NOT the easy way. I guess I'll have to post the instructions again...see the general angling forum.