Al Agnew

Guys, it just makes you sound like you've been doing nothing but listening to the worst of the talk show hosts when you say stuff like Obama's plan for the country is marxist, and he voted against the country. Not only that, but it's insulting to people like me. We can disagree on what the right direction for the country is, but don't you dare accuse me of not loving this country just because I'm for Obama...and that, by inference, is what you're doing. If you want to get specific about which votes Obama cast that you don't like, we can debate the merits of them, but just throwing out those little sniping snippets does nobody any good. Geez, it sounds like you're rooting for a sports team...our guy is great and your guy sucks. As for Palin...I see both good and bad there. I don't think you can judge her credentials to be (almost) President at this point. I don't necessarily believe she's UNqualified due to lack of experience. A short time as governor of Alaska is in reality her ONLY credentials on the executive side. I don't think you can honestly tout being mayor of Wasilla as being valuable executive experience, which would be the same as saying that because one of my friends was mayor of Piedmont, MO, he has executive experience that would qualify him to be President. Trust me, he ain't qualified. And the issues that Alaska faces are far from the same issues that the country faces. On the other hand, it's valid to bring up Obama's lack of experience as well. That is his weakest point. But what we should watch with Palin is how she handles herself in the time we have remaining until the election. Obama, like it or not, has proven one thing, and that's his ability to inspire people. Just because you aren't inspired by him doesn't negate the fact that a whole lot of people are. And he's been in the limelight and under constant scrutiny for a year now...people across the country have seen enough of him to do some evaluation one way or another. Palin, being governor of a state that most people can't find on a map, except that it must be near Hawaii because it's always shown that way on a weather map, and that never gets much notice from the rest of us unless we're flyfishermen or moose hunters, is a virtual unknown at this point. That's why I say that we CANNOT judge her qualifications to be President if something happened to McCain...we just don't know enough about her. If she goes quiet and unnoticed after this first flurry of activity and we don't see much of her between now and the election, we WON'T know enough about her even then. If she stays in the news and visible in the campaign, we may get to know her well enough. What we CAN do is look at what record she does have. Being an athlete, hockey mom, former Miss Alaska candidate, hunter and angler, float plane pilot, etc. means very little to me. I came from a wholesome family, like to hunt and fish, work for a living (and not always that cushy job as an artist), and probably a bunch of other stuff that would convince you that I was a regular guy, but I know I ain't qualified. The question is, what has she said and done on issues related to governing? She has challenged the status quo in Alaska, although not to quite the extent that some say...she's still good friends with Stevens and supports him. But there is no doubt but that she has been a reformer. She's challenged the oil companies on a couple of issues but has also sided with them on many points. I'd say that in the reform department and "good government" department, she's a cut above the average politician. That may be a function of her relative inexperience, but even that, in this instance, is not a bad thing. When you don't have the experience, you don't have the connections of convenience that help you get things done but also put you "in bed" with unsavory characters, and you also don't know how hard some things are to do, and have the enthusiasm to get them done. On the issues facing the country, she has most clearly weighed in on energy issues. She seems to be mostly on the same page with McCain, and NOT on the same page with the more conservative elements, in acknowledging that we have to work on climate change and energy independence. But I DON'T at all like her insistence on drilling ANWR, an action that will do little to help with energy independence and is a short term (well, not so short since it wouldn't produce anything for more than 10 years) action with long term bad consequences. I don't much like her stands on some of the social issues, but that's why the conservatives like her. All in all, I think she's a gamble for McCain that could turn out well or ill. I'm waiting to see which way it goes.

As I slid the canoe into the water, it really felt like I was once again visiting an old friend, neither of us the same as we once were when we first got to know each other, but still alive and kicking. I think a river is a live thing, and while nature is always impartial, some rivers never seem to be aloof and impersonal. When the current catches the canoe I can't help but pause and think of how glad I am to be there, and with a river that's as familiar as an old friend, I think how nice it is to see it again. The river's name is Big, and if I was the river I'd be disappointed in the lack of imagination of the pioneer who named it. "Big River" just doesn't have the poetry of "Current River" or "Gasconade River". I grew up within a mile of the river, a little farther upstream, and I didn't "meet" this stretch north of the town of Bonne Terre until I had spent a lot of time with my "home" stretch around Desloge. I remember well the first time we met. At the end of a drive down a steep hillside on a rutted rocky road, my friend's father pulled up to a ramshackle cabin in the woods, and Rick and I jumped out of the car and ran to the riverbank to behold a quiet pool, bigger and a bit murkier than what we expected from our days on the upper river. We were 13 years old and veterans of days and nights fishing, swimming, and camping on the river near our homes, a stretch of stream that was almost urban in character with highways and houses and quarries and mine dumps as visible as bluffs and gravel bars. This spot, halfway through a stretch that was more than 8 miles between bridges, seemed like wilderness to us. We spent the night in the cabin, ran a few limblines and caught a few channel catfish. We wondered whether the river was always this murky, and we wondered if there were smallmouth bass in it like there were upstream. We vowed to come back and try for bass. Rick's dad disposed of the cabin soon afterwards, and we never spent another night in it. But our imaginations were fired, and the next summer Rick and I, along with another buddy Jeff, cajoled our parents into transporting us to that stretch of river for our first long float trip, three days on the river from the bridge north of Bonne Terre to Washington State Park. On that float, I found a friend. Beautiful pools, big gravel bars, high bluffs and solitude were all a part of it, but the clincher was that I caught the biggest smallmouth I'd ever seen up to that time, a legitimate four pounder. Forty two years ago, and I can still remember that fish. I remember exactly where I caught it, and exactly how it took the little Rapala minnow I was casting. So I visited my friend whenever I could. There were other stretches of river I liked as well, but the stretch from St. Francois State Park a mile above the Highway 67 bridge where we put in on that first float to the little settlement of Blackwell about 13 miles downstream became one of my favorite parts of the river. The fish seemed a bit bigger and more numerous there, and as I grew up the fishing became only a part of the experience of floating, and I appreciated the scenic quality of that reach. As time went by, I never missed the chance to float the "park to Blackwell" stretch at least once a year. So now it's the summer of 2008, and this would be my first visit of the year. The river at the park was a bit low, though not nearly as low as I've seen it, and fairly clear. But I noted a bit of a smell. It's one manifestation of how unkind civilization has been to Big River. With five cities and numerous real estate developments and 40,000 or so humans living upstream, with barely adequate sewage treatment plants and overloaded septic systems and a whole lot of livestock in the valley, the river suffers from what is ephemistically called "overfertilization". To be honest, the water gets a little funky during hot weather, with a fecund smell and some unsightly blackish green algae coating the bottom and floating to the surface in mats. It used to be worse when I was a kid on the upper river, and I can still remember one town meeting when I was not long out of high school. Upgrading the Desloge sewage lagoon was being debated, and one city official stood up and said, "The water coming out of our sewage lagoon is clean enough to drink." And I wished that I had a glass of that sickly green water to hand him and say, "Then drink some." But the fish are still there, and in the first pool I caught a nice 14 inch smallmouth. I was glad to see it. One of the many ills Big River is suffering is the invasion of non-native spotted bass, and in this stretch they started showing up about 7 or 8 years ago. For a while it looked like they would completely overrun the native smallmouth, but in the last couple of years the spot population seems to have stabilized and the smallmouth are apparently holding their own, still outnumbering spotted bass by a small margin. Like old friends sharing stories, every pool and riffle of a river you know well holds memories. I passed the pool where I learned how to fish for February redhorse suckers with worms, and the pool where I once hooked and lost two huge smallmouth in the space of four casts. That second pool, I noted, had changed, and not for the better. The current had shifted due to a channel change in the riffle upstream, and sand laced with mine waste had filled in part of what had been a deep run along a vertical clay bank. The character of the river in this stretch is not as defined by the waste from the old lead mines as it is upstream, but the fine sand and gravel that is the residue of millions of tons of crushed ore, washed into the river with every rain for a hundred years, is a fact of life on Big River. It fills in the pools and makes this river shallower than the average Ozark stream, and worse, it fills in the spaces that are abundant in the coarse gravel and cobble bottoms of most Ozark rivers, spaces that furnish the habitat for the bottom organisms and crayfish that feed the web of life and ultimately feed my quarry, the smallmouth. By the time I drifted under the 67 bridge with its roaring non-stop traffic rattling the span, I'd caught a dozen or so bass of all three species. Not far below, I came to a spot with more recent memories, a sharp-dropping little riffle with an eddy below that gave me a 21 inch smallmouth a few years ago. The next few miles, to the Highway E bridge, hold several such spots where I've caught or hooked big fish throughout the years, but that one was one of the biggest from this whole stretch. On this day the eddy yielded a small spotted bass, a bit of a let-down. It was nearing lunchtime when I came to the E bridge, and as always when I float this long reach of river, I knew I was running late and had a lot of water to cover in the afternoon. I stopped at my usual lunch spot, a shady gravel bar across from a nice bluff a half mile below the bridge, far enough away that the occasional traffic on the highway wasn't noticeable. This float is actually too long to fish really thoroughly in a day, but I never want to cut it shorter, and other than the Highway 67 bridge, all the intermediate accesses are private. I usually visit the owners each year and get permission to use them, but never seem to take advantage of it. So I fish hard through the morning to figure out a pattern of where most of the fish are holding, and then concentrate my fishing in optimum spots in the afternoon. When I come to the pool where two years ago I caught the only two walleye I've ever seen on the upper river, I fish it thoroughly with a deep-diving crankbait to see if those walleye are still there. No luck. But when I switch back to my homemade shallow running crankbait in the riffle below, I immediately connect with a pretty 17 inch smallmouth. Today the fish are mostly very near the heads or tails of riffles, if not in the pockets within them, and so the afternoon passes in leisurely paddling through the quiet pools, soaking up the beauty that's still to be found in my old friend, and carefully fishing the areas with noticeable current. This stretch of river is slow by Ozark standards, so there is plenty of water to paddle through, including the Settle Hole, which is nearly a mile long. The fishing today is rather slow as well, which is alright by me. At times in the past, the fishing has been hotter, and the fish have seemed to be everywhere in the river. And when it's like that, I just can't pass up any spot that looks good and end up fishing almost frantically and then having to paddle out the last few miles in the dark. That wouldn't be an option this time, since my wife is expecting to pick me up at Blackwell at 7 PM. There is a stretch, running past where my childhood buddy's cabin was, that is a series of those slow pools. At the end of it begins one of my favorite pieces of this whole stretch. It starts with a chain of riffles, comes out onto a shallow reach with a flat bedrock bottom, flows over a wide solid rock riffle (called, appropriately, Rocky Riffle) and continues for another half mile or so in shallow runs and riffles. It doesn't look like much as far as bass habitat, but it is always full of fish. Well, almost always. Today, I don't catch a single smallmouth from it until I near the end of the reach. I've had days when I caught twenty or thirty smallmouths from this mile long stretch of shallows. A few of them were big ones, too. At the end of the shallow reach is the Big Sandy Hole. I learned the names of these places along the river from an old-timer who had spent his entire life on it. I guess I'm getting close to qualifying for old-timer status myself now. He was an inveterate noodler, and probably caught more catfish by hand from the river than any one person ever did with hook and line. He loved noodling in the big boulders beneath the bluff at the Big Sandy Hole, and I spent several nights there myself, camped out on overnight floats and fishing for those catfish with rod and reel--I never had any interest in sticking my hand into holes underwater. I remember one time when my buddy Rick and I were camped there. It was late, and he had given up on the catfishing and crawled into his sleeping bag under the stars. I was still awake, and walked down to the water to check on the rods, still baited and out in the river. One of them had a fish on. I reeled it in to discover it was a 3 foot long eel, the first eel I'd ever seen. Then I got a nasty idea. I walked back to Rick with the eel dangling from my rod tip, and let its slimy, writhing tail swipe his upturned face. He awoke to the sensation of slime and this huge snake-like creature gleaming in the firelight right in his face. I ended up in the river soon afterwards. The river had changed in the spot I always considered one of the prettiest on the whole river, not far below the Big Sandy. It was a long, fast, rock-studded riffle angling out of a pool, and you looked down the open corridor of the riffle to a high, rugged, reddish stained bluff. I've painted it a couple of times in the past, and I always look forward to seeing it again. But last spring's flooding shifted the riffle to the other side of the gravel bar it had flowed through, into a narrow channel closed in with tree canopy, and the bluff was mostly obscured by the foliage. Rivers change all the time, but somehow Big River in this area seemed to have changed less than most, and it was a bit of a shock to see this particular alteration. I came to the private low water bridge at Cole's Landing. In the little pool just below the bridge, I hook a big smallmouth, probably 18 inches or better, but I don't have it on long. The river leaves the pool and goes into a piece of fast water where I once ran over a cow. The Dickenson family, which owns the land in the big horseshoe bend at Cole's, has had a herd of dairy cattle there for as long as I can remember, and one day I was floating by myself in my old aluminum Grumman canoe, and came to that riffle. The river was up a bit and flowing pretty fast, and as I came around a blind bend in the middle of the fast water, there was a big cow standing udder-deep dead ahead. I knew I couldn't avoid her, and I knew that trying to avoid her would turn the canoe broadside and be sure disaster, so I just kept the canoe pointed straight at her and held on. The prow of the canoe hit her square in the ribs and bowled her completely over onto her side underwater, and then the canoe slid right over her before she knew what happened. I looked back as she came up bawling and spitting and snorting, and watched as she clambered out of the water apparently none the worse for wear, but I suspect she had some bruised ribs. There is a rock submerged right in the middle of the next pool. It's not a big rock, nor is it a deep pool. You can barely see the rock, but I always make sure to fish it carefully, because over the years I've taken several big fish off that rock. This time I catch a fish, but it barely makes 12 inches. But there is also another obscure rock toward the lower end of the pool which has occasionally produced a good fish, and today I get a strike from something that seems big, but miss it. I pause and realize again that on this river, I fish with memories. There was the float I made in November, during an unseasonably warm deer season, and when I came to that rock, there was a hunter in a tree stand near the riffle at the bottom of the pool who watched me take a 20 inch smallmouth off that rock on a buzzbait. He said nothing, and I didn't let on like I'd seen him, but I often wonder whether he wished he'd been fishing instead of hunting. The river runs beneath an impressive bluff as it rounds the big horseshoe bend, with a long pool lined with boulders that always holds fish. On the opposite bank, however, the cattle have unlimited access to the water, and it seems like they are always there, beating down the bank, fouling the gravel bar. One more ill my friend has to suffer; it's sometimes amazing to me that the river still harbors anything but carp. Then it runs down a dead pool that I always paddle through, even though the memory always comes back of the second time I was ever on this stretch and had two big fish blow up on a Tiny Torpedo in that pool without getting hooked. Below a riffle comes the next long pool and the biggest spring on Big River. It comes in beneath the bluff over a jumble of moss-covered rocks, and as Ozark springs go it isn't very impressive--Big River isn't as heavily spring-fed as many Ozarkian waters. It's starting to get late. I still have a couple miles to go, and only 45 minutes in which to cover them. So I paddle a little faster, and fish only the very best spots. But there is one small spot I slow down and fish carefully. It doesn't look like much. There is a long, dead pool above and a longer, deader pool below, and the spot is where a small wet-weather creek comes in between those two pools. The creek has deposited a little bar of small rock at its mouth that narrows the river a bit, and a gravel bar on the other side narrows it a bit more. The rock bar is covered with water willow. There are a couple of slightly larger rocks along the water willow in no more than 2 feet of water, and that's about all there is to recommend this place. But this is where I caught that 4 pounder on that first ever float trip. Over the years since, it has produced other big fish, but maybe the most memorable was a 17 inch smallmouth with a deformed, crooked back that I caught one summer close to 15 years ago. I released it, and the next summer I caught what was obviously the same fish, same crooked back, same lure, but it had grown an inch. The following summer I floated this stretch a couple of times and didn't find that fish, so I figured somebody else had caught it or it had died from some natural cause--or maybe it had simply gotten too wary to catch. However, late that autumn I floated the river one more time, and caught that fish again, although this time it had moved to the lower end of the long pool below. It had grown another inch, becoming a 19 incher that would have gone over 20 inches had its back been straight. I felt fortunate to renew my acquaintance with old crooked back one more time. I passed Mill Creek coming in on the left, getting close to the take-out. The landowner at the mouth of the creek had been bulldozing brush and putting in a gravel ramp to the water. A bit more intrusion into the river's solitude, a bit more pressure on it, but that is not the worst insult to the river that Mill Creek represents. One summer day back in 1975, a buddy and I were planning on floating this stretch and were running our shuttle shortly after daybreak. It had rained rather hard the night before, although not hard enough to muddy the river upstream. But as we got to the old Blackwell bridge, we were shocked to see the river running solid red mud, so thick it looked like you could walk on it. We altered our plans and floated farther upstream that morning, and learned that evening that a barite mine dam had failed up on Mill Creek the night before and dumped millions of tons of red silt into the creek and down it to the river. The silt was so thick it totally wiped out almost all life on the river from there to Washington State Park, and it took more than 10 years for the river to recover. There are other "tiff" dams up Mill Creek and within the watershed, some of them no safer than the one that failed, so perhaps it's only a matter of time until another disaster occurs. The take-out at Blackwell has always been problematical. There was once a ricketty old iron bridge high over the water, and the only access was down a short, steep bank off the Engledow Road near the intersection at the bridge. You had to drag the canoe up a five foot high rock outcrop to get it out of the water. For a while the Conservation Department had an access a mile upstream, but to get to the river there you had to either get off MDC land on onto the adjacent landowner's property, or cross a small creek with 8 foot high vertical banks. At times the landowners of the bottom fields above the bridge would allow people to drive across their land to get to the river, but I'm sure that's a thing of the past--why is that people seem to be so much less respectful of others' property these days? And a few years ago, the county finally replaced the old iron bridge with a high new span, and re-shaped the intersection at the bridge so that there is almost no place to park. They raised the road there as well, so the bank leading down to the river is much higher and just as steep. It isn't an easy take-out after a long day of floating, and the parking is such a problem that I don't leave a vehicle there anymore. I'm thankful I have such a forgiving and accomodating wife, who will consent to driving the hour from home to pick me up there once or twice a year. She arrives just as I'm dragging the little canoe up the bank, with supper and a milk shake. I tie the canoe onto the car and take one more look at my old friend, the deep, quiet pool there reflecting the bankside trees and sky beginning to color with sunset. Farewell, old friend, until the next time.

Yep, most politicians of either party have feet of clay. So you vote for them and are usually disappointed in the results. But you still vote for them hoping they are better than the opposition, who you usually KNOW you'll get bad results from. And the real bummer is, whenever you vote for a national candidate--Senate, President, etc.--even though you're voting maybe based on a few key issues to you, you're actually saying to them, "Yep, I believe in EVERYTHING you stand for." And usually, they seem to end up pushing through the stuff you DON'T like and ignoring the stuff you really care about. We need to start the Green Sportsman's Party.

The unpleasant truth is, that in this as in a lot of issues like this, we are "avoiding" the true costs of "feeding the world". We like to pay lower prices at the grocery store, but those lower prices don't reflect the true costs because growing our beef and pork and chicken and eggs in CAFOs is more economical, but costs a lot more in pollution. The people living in the areas around improperly regulated CAFOs pay THOSE costs all by themselves, in polluted water, ground water, stench, etc. If we avoided industrial scale CAFOs, they wouldn't have to pay those costs. If we were REALLY as strict as we should be about regulating them, we'd ALL pay the true costs because the price of groceries would be higher. But feeding the world isn't the right question to ask. Very few countries eat the amount of beef and pork and other domesticated meats we do. It could easily be argued that if we ate less beef and pork and put more of our agricultural efforts into growing grains and vegetables to feed US and not to feed cattle and pigs, there would be plenty to go around to "help feed the world". I like eating meat as much as anybody, but I'm willing to eat less of it both for health reasons and for helping make those CAFOs a bit less necessary. (And by the way, my wife and I eat mostly beef and pork raised by her brother, raised to finish on his own farm, no growth hormones and antibiotics. I can't remember the last time we bought chops, steaks, roasts, or hamburger in a grocery store. I know non-CAFO raised meat is more expensive, but if you can afford it, it's a lot healthier and better tasting.)

Here's one of those 30 second soundbytes..."Democrats want to take away our guns, Republicans want to take away our places to use them." The gun issue is one that I struggle with when it comes time to vote. If I could wave a magic wand and make a law that would keep guns out of the hands of criminals and insane people while not affecting the vast majority of gun owners who are neither, I would. but I KNOW that is impossible. I support waiting periods and background checks, but that's about it. And I know that the average Democrat would like to wave the magic wand and make guns disappear, and most of their gun control proposals are just about that stupid. Yet I cannot support Republicans to whom wildlife and wild places always take a backseat to industry and profit. As sportsmen, we all face those choices. CAFO next to Roaring River? Republican supported. Unregulated gravel mining? Supported by Republicans. Selling off national forest land? Supported by Republicans. Now, not all Republicans support such things...or at least not all of them support them wholeheartedly without restrictions. Not all Democrats are environmental saints, either. And the fact is that most politicians of both parties are beholden to some extent to the resource-exploiting industries who contribute to their campaigns, and whose lobbyists have almost unlimited access to them. But at least the Democrats tend to be a little less beholden. I think, and hope, that with the recent Supreme Court decision, the second amendment has been better delineated. And maybe the Democrats are finally beginning to get it...if you're going to propose gun control laws, they better be smart and they better not unduly tick off all of us out here in the sticks. I do not expect a party that depends upon urban areas for a lot of its support to ever totally drop the gun control thing, but I also don't think they are making it a big deal this election. Other than that, I don't know what else to say to those of you who vote Republican based upon the gun control thing, other than, showing up at NRA meetings and bass tournaments does not necessarily mean they truly care enough about the land and waters which we depend upon.

Yeah, if you think CAFOs are "regulated to death", you don't know the MO DNR. DNR has only a handful of inspectors to cover the whole state. You think they are keeping close tabs on CAFOs? Not to mention that under the current administration, DNR has been pretty quick to rubber stamp anything that is agribusiness friendly. CAFO sewage lagoons fail. And their contents, like water, flows downhill. Just because it isn't near a major stream doesn't mean the stuff doesn't get to the major stream.

I agree that it's probably not a good idea to argue politics in this forum at this point, although IF we could keep it both civil and factual it could actually do some good. Few people who have their minds made up will ever change them, but if somebody hasn't decided, FACTUAL information might help. That's why I was glad that Okieflyfisher posted the Snopes link. Please, instead of just repeating the mantra that Obama will raise your taxes, read the link and see what he has and has NOT proposed. There is way too much simplistic and misleading "info" being thrown around on the internet (and on the average talk radio show) about both candidates' positions, just an extension of the 30 second soundbytes that dominate political "discussion" these days. "Ugh. Obama raise taxes! Bad!" "Ugh. McCain keep troops in Iraq 100 years. Bad!"

Guys, stop looking at the water level graph on the gage, and look at the flow in cfs. Any flow less than 100 cfs and you'll be doing some getting out and dragging and quite a bit of scraping bottom in a loaded canoe, although I've floated that stretch with flows of about 65 cfs. You need a flow of at least 150 cfs to float the lower end of the river without scraping bottom in some places. For the most part, when you're trying to figure out whether any Ozark stream is floatable, you can use this rule of thumb--wider streams like the lower Buffalo, you need over 100 cfs to float without some dragging. Narrow streams like the Jacks Fork in MO, you need about 75 cfs. Those are absolute minimums for "pleasant" floating, where you will get through nearly all riffles without having to get out and walk, although you'll still scrape bottom occasionally. If you're willing to work at it and don't mind walking some, not all, riffles, you can float most streams at flows as low as 50 cfs. And if you're a nut like me who likes those little creeks that most people never float, you can get a canoe down them at 20 cfs!

Every act of environmental protection is only a holding action at best, because as long as there are this many people in the world--and more all the time--and as long as we are addicted to the non-renewable materials that Kevin talked about, the pressures on the environment will only grow. There are things that COULD be done--switch a lot of stuff over to renewable and recyclable materials, get really serious about conservation, etc.--that would lessen the pressure, but as long as there are this many of us and everybody wants the "American" lifestyle, there simply aren't enough raw materials to go around without chasing after them everywhere they are found. Every time I think about this, I get more pessimistic. I think our only long range hope is to develop the techology to mine other planets. But in the short range, we still oughta be able to protect places as spectacular as that area.

I agree with ya, Chief...pointless to "debate" with all the so-called "facts" that Taxi threw out there. Sorriest thing is, a whole lot of people believe them. My dear old aunt, who is 80-something and was introduced to the computer about 5 years ago, is on the email list of just about every radical religious right nutjob in existence due to visiting a lot of religious websites, and is constantly forwarding that kind of stuff to us. Just a couple of questions to Trav...Do you REALLY believe that Obama is a Muslim? Do you REALLY believe he would favor Muslims in the governance of this country? And, maybe a little food for thought...do you think it is POSSIBLE that having a bit of actual exposure to the Muslim religion in his youth might turn out to be a good thing, in that he would actually UNDERSTAND them a bit better than somebody who's only religious experience was with a single Christian church? If nothing else..."know thine enemy."

I'm going to get serious here for a moment... I very seldom vote for Republicans, because of a number of reasons...first and foremost, I cannot support most of their stances on the environment and I think their usual stances on energy issues are wrong as well. There are other reasons that I won't go into here. I am also very seldom happy with Democrats. While I agree more with their stated positions on some issues I think are very important, they seldom seem to follow through with those positions, and there are a few positions on other issues on which I disagree with them strongly--gun control issues, for instance. That is one issue that I'm GLAD they never seem to follow through. Which brings me to this election. Of all the Republican candidates, I was happiest with McCain. Had the 2000 election been between McCain and Bradley instead of Bush and Gore, I'd have been very happy and wouldn't have cared much who won. Since McCain has gotten the nomination, however, I've been less happy with him. In my opinion, he is doing the worst sort of pandering on the energy thing in pushing for offshore drilling and at least implying that it will do something to lower current gasoline prices, when he KNOWS, and so does anybody else who knows anything about the issue, that it will do nothing of the kind. While he pays lip service to developing alternative energy sources, he seems to have made the offshore drilling thing the centerpiece of his energy proposals. Don't get me wrong...I'm not totally against offshore drilling (although I AM totally against drilling in ANWR), but I would really like to see a lot more emphasis placed upon energy conservation and alternative sources. Which brings me to Obama. He was NOT my first choice of the Democrats (neither was Hillary). I think he has some potential, but he hasn't shown me much, and some of his ideas are obviously pandering as well, and just won't work. At least his ideas are a bit more in line with what I think we need on energy issues. But, I think energy is our most important issue facing the U.S. this election. It is obviously heavily linked with the economy, the environment, even the war in Iraq. And NEITHER of these candidates are telling it like it is on energy. Neither is telling us the truth, that these energy problems won't be fixed without pain and they won't be fixed easily or quickly. Neither is being a leader, both are simply being politicians running for office. This may really be the most important Presidential election we've faced in many years, and I hate it that neither candidate is exciting me. I'm going to say one more thing...no matter who is elected, we simply cannot AFFORD the partisan crap any more. We can't afford the silly attacks over insignificant issues, and the mean-spirited, deceptive sniping. I hope that we can get past that stuff, and support as much as possible whoever is elected, because it ain't gonna be an easy job and these guys are going to need all the help they can get. Okay, I'm off my soapbox.

Piragis Northwoods is another good online source for a variety of dry bags. I've been getting mine from the Alpine Shop in St. Louis for the last few years...they have a great selection.

Welcome, Rick! Can't wait to see the pictures, and I'm glad to see another fanatic river smallmouth angler on this site. Shawncat, no fair showing pictures of fish caught up north somewhere! CWC, I agree totally on the gigging thing. I just don't know that anything can ever be done about it. In my opinion, it is a very significant factor limiting the number of really big smallmouth on Ozark streams. And I too would like to see the gigging season pushed back, not only because of accidental gigging due to murkier water, but also because early in the season the big fish are more active at night, and more likely to be in shallower water where they are easier to gig. Steve, very nice fish from the Jacks Fork!

Yeah, any trout fishing is pretty far off I-55, especially once you get a decent distance away from St. Louis. Maramec Spring and the Meramec River would be the closest, but if you're leaving St. Louis, that doesn't get you far on the way to Memphis. Montauk and the upper Current is 2-3 hours off I-55, so would mean at least 4 hours extra drive time. And anywhere else with trout fishing is much farther. The problem with driving to Memphis is that once you get down I-55 to Cape Girardeau, your fishing and camping choices are rather limited. The rest of the trip is through the Bootheel of Missouri and the delta country of Arkansas--nothing for fishing but swamps, dead slow muddy rivers, and swampy lakes. Camping in some places is nice but not in the summer when the mosquitos are gonna be bad. Maybe your best bet would be to go down I-55 to Hwy. 67 at Festus, down 67 to Hwy. 34, across 34 to Hwy. 60, west on 60 to Hwy. 19, down 19 to Greer Spring and the Eleven Point. Several good campgrounds in that area, and the Eleven Point is good trout fishing. Then, leaving the Eleven Point, go on south to Hwy. 62 in Arkansas and take 62 and 63 back over toward Memphis. That route also takes you right to Mammoth Spring and the Spring River, which would be an alternate place to trout fish.

It wasn't because I read the article in the St. Louis newspaper (see the thread in the Meramec River message board), honest. I'd already planned to drive over and fish that stretch of the Gasconade this week. In fact, when I read the article it kinda bummed me out--it could possibly bring a drove of people to that stretch of the Gasconade. I called my dad and told him to be ready one day this week, I was taking the jetboat to the Gasconade. I asked my wife Mary if she wanted to go, too. As it turned out, she was only free to go today (Wednesday), so that's when we decided to go. It's a bit over two hours from my house to the Gasconade. We left before 7 AM and got to the river a little after 9. It had been close to 30 years since I'd been on that particular stretch. I still remembered the first time I was ever on it. The river was a couple feet higher than normal, and I was used to fishing rivers the size of Big River. The Gasconade impressed me as being HUGE. The fishing, probably due to the high water, was mediocre. The last time I had been on it was in early November. The fall colors that year were spectacular, and we were on that stretch the last day of a four day float trip. The fishing (again) was mediocre at best. I was hoping for better things today. We motored several miles upriver before starting to fish. The first fish I caught was a 17.5 incher. It had a deformed spine and was rather crooked...had it been straight it would have been over 18. Here it is: It came on one of my homemade crankbaits. After that auspicious beginning, the fishing pretty much died for a while. Dad was throwing a spinnerbait, but not getting bit. I tried topwater and my homemade spinnerbait with little to show for it. Mary...well, she was disappointed because I had failed to bring any of her favorite lure, a Rattletrap. So she was casting one of the homemade crankbaits occasionally between periods of reading and soaking up the atmosphere. I think she was the one to hook the next fish, losing it close to the boat. By the time we stopped for lunch, Dad had switched to a soft jerkbait, while I continued to experiment. But after lunch, things began to pick up. We all started catching some fish, mostly smallies 13-14 inches, fun fish to catch. Then I heard Dad grunt, and looked back to see his rod well-bent. The fish was the biggest of the day (that we actually touched, anyway), a fine 18 incher:. Shortly afterwards, Mary decided to fish for a while, and almost immediately hooked a fish that looked to be a twin of Dad's, but it just wasn't Mary's day--this one got loose near the boat. A bit later, I had one that looked a bit bigger yet take my crankbait, but it wasn't on long. We drifted down and reached the access a little before 5 PM. We'd probably caught around 40 bass among the three of us. Certainly not an exceptional day numbers-wise, and I've had some better days with big fish. But it was still an exceptional day of fishing--gorgeous scenery, great weather, enough fish to keep it interesting, a stretch of river I'd been wanting to fish again for years, an eagle sighting...and a day spent with the two people I love most in the world.

I hope he posts pictures of those fish, especially the 26 incher. I've seen (in the water) one Ozark smallmouth that I'm pretty sure would have been over 24 inches, perhaps 25 inches. I posted here about it last year. I'd caught a 20 earlier in the day, and this fish was so much bigger it was amazing. However, it doesn't surprise me that those fish were caught in February.

Yeah, but the article said his two biggest fish came from the Meramec. There WERE good old days on the Meramec. I started fishing it in the 1970s, and back then I'm certain it was the best river in the Ozarks for big smallmouth. I fully expected to catch at least one fish over 18 inches every time I went. Back around 1980, there were a couple of articles in MO Game and Fish magazine touting the lower river in the St. Clair area, with pictures that were obviously of fish as big as they said they were...fish in the 21 inch, four to five pound class. The stretch from St. Clair to Moselle was full of really big smallies, and the whole river harbored some big fish, even Shawncat's stretch down by Pacific. Why so good? The Meramec had it all, fertile but cool water, excellent cover, and not really a lot of fishing pressure. As long as you avoided the weekend aluminum hatch and didn't use lures that were too small, you stood a good chance to catch big fish. But the fishing dropped off drastically starting in the mid-80s. The spotted bass exploded on the lower river below St. Clair, and jetboats proliferated on the river, bringing greatly increased fishing pressure (and illegal gigging pressure). By 1990 or so much of the river was a far cry from the great fishing it was before. I'd go so far as to say your chances of catching a truly big fish on the Meramec dropped by something like 90%. The river has since rebounded a bit in some sections. I've been fishing it more often the last few years after just about giving up on it for a ten year period. I catch a few 18-20 inchers every year now from it. Of all the Smallmouth Special Management areas, the one on the Meramec is the most disappointing to me, because that stretch is just about the LEAST likely stretch of the river to grow lots of really big fish. It's too cold yet from Maramec Spring, and not quite the habitat that some stretches are. Nevertheless, as Shawncat mentioned, even the trout management area can produce the occasional big smallie. I've caught several from it that went 18 inches or so. Weights--I gotta assume, without evidence to the contrary, that the guy in the article actually weighed those fish and didn't stretch the truth. But I agree that it's almost a given that the average angler greatly over-estimates the weight of river smallies. I think one gets so used to catching the usual 12-14 inch fish that when they stumble onto an 18 incher it looks so much bigger that they think it just has to weigh four or five pounds. In actuality, a healthy Ozark river smallie of 18 inches will weigh 3 pounds or a bit under, and a 20 incher will usually weigh a bit under 4 pounds. Catch one during the early summer after the spawn, and that 20 incher will probably weigh 3.5 at most. If you catch it in late fall/winter and it's in very good condition it will weigh 4.5, although I've caught 20 inch winter fish that wouldn't make 4.

Last time I was on the Mineral Fork was last year...haven't been on it at all this year. At that time F Hwy. was still a good access, and 47 Hwy. was usable. The Kingston Ranch people had put up a fence across the path leading to the river at 47, with a big sign that said something to the effect that you had to have a valid fishing license to use the river there...I think they were trying to keep out the swimmers and party animals, but not the anglers. Maybe somebody else has been there recently and will chime in. Since there is good road shoulder parking at 47 and you can stay on highway right of way to get to the creek, they SHOULDN'T be able to keep you off. It's a long, hard trek to the river there, but doable. Assuming that's the case, the choices are as Gavin said. Scenery is best above 47, but it is 10 miles from Hwy. F, and that's a LONG way in low water.

Some of it depends upon what time of year they are caught. Late autumn to early spring smallies are almost always heavier than summer fish. And I have noticed in recent years that the smallmouth on the Meramec seem to be thicker, healthier fish in general than they were back when I fished the Meramec religiously years ago. In the past I caught several Meramec smallies that were 21-22 inches, and the heaviest of them, caught in mid-summer, weighed 5 pounds even. But I've caught a couple of 20 inch fish in the last few years that were probably well over 4.5. For that reason, I much prefer to judge river smallies by length instead of weight. A 22+ inch river smallmouth is a HUGE fish no matter what it weighs, and just as old, just as rare, and just as tough to catch no matter whether it weighs 4 pounds or 6 pounds. My biggest ever was 22.5 inches, and I've only heard of a very few that were longer...and I've only seen two or possibly three that would have gone past 23 inches. I know some excellent river anglers, and it seems like their biggest fish are also right around that 22 inch mark. So, while I can envision the possibility of a 22-23 inch Meramec smallmouth that weighed 6 pounds, I too would be very interested to know the lengths of the fish mentioned.

There are some channel catfish up above the spring in the bigger pools, but I certainly wouldn't classify it as a GOOD spot to go catfishing. If fishing with pole and line, you'll probably catch quite a few bullhead catfish if you're in the right spot, but the channels will be a lot less common.

I agree with CDC, if you're wanting to keep fish, keep goggle-eye and sunfish, and release everything else unless you catch a channel catfish. As he said, those are the best-eating fish. If you happen to catch a white bass (you won't catch yellow bass, don't worry about it--they are rare to non-existent in MO) you might as well release it since they taste pretty mediocre anyway. It really isn't difficult to avoid breaking the rules as long as you're not looking to keep everything you catch. By the way, "grabbing" is another term for snagging fish with a treble hook. It is usually practiced on suckers in the spring and on paddlefish. You simply toss out a treble hook attached to your line into a place where you think there are fish and start jerking (actually there is more to it than that, but that's a simple definition). You'd hook fish anywhere on their bodies that way. It's illegal to do on fish other than rough fish and paddlefish, and there are specific seasons when it's legal to do it even on those fish. It would always help if you were able to go with somebody who is more experienced so that they can help you ID fish (and learn more about catching them) until you get a bit of "seasoning". But you can do it yourself...just decide what kind of fish you want to keep, learn to ID those fish, and release everything else. Like I said before, on Elk River and other Ozark streams, you might as well keep goggle-eye (rock bass) and sunfish (green sunfish, longear sunfish, bluegill). They are pretty easy to ID, easy to catch, and good to eat. Take a small disposable camera along in case you catch something big or something you can't ID, and send the pictures to us here and we'll either tell you what a great catch it was or tell you what kind of fish it was!

Well, I've been back in MO a couple of weeks after most of the summer in Montana, anxious to get back into the stream smallie fishing. Things haven't been going too well--my first time on the river was this past Tuesday, and circumstances forced me to float a stretch of river that I don't really like. The upper half of this float is much better than the lower half, which I REALLY don't like, but a rain the night before had the river close to muddy in the upper half, and I caught few fish. The river cleared enough by midway through the float, and I caught some fish in the "bad" water, but caught less than 40 fish total and none of them over 15 inches. Not only that, but I made the mistake of not drinking enough liquids on that hot day, and was sick that night. Friday evening I did a short wade trip on one of my favorite small local creeks. It was also murkier than normal, which may have affected the fishing, but it just seemed like the fish weren't there like they have been the last few years. I caught a dozen or so, biggest about 14 inches. One interesting thing was that the creek was absolutely jammed with 4-5 inch young of the year largemouths. I suspect they had been washed out of a couple of large private lakes in the watershed. Just about every cast I'd have a wolf pack of little largemouths nipping at the lure. So my brother called me and wanted to go somewhere this morning. There is a float I've been wanting to do for a while, hadn't done it either this year or last year. It's a stretch that is marginally floatable at best this time of year, and a good 7.5 miles, but we decided to try it, planning on putting in a daybreak, fishing the best water through the morning, paddling through the last mile or so which is very poor water, and hopefully getting off the river by noon, to beat the worst of the heat. The stream was not as low as it had been the last time I floated it, a couple years ago. Then, on a solo trip, I basically walked every riffle (and even some of the pools). This time, the two of us in the tandem canoe were able to float most of the riffles, though almost never without scraping bottom. I'd say the stream was flowing about 20 cfs. It was an odd day. The morning stayed cool and mostly cloudy, with one small thunderstorm threatening for a bit but never getting to us. The river was clear in the moving water and a bit murky in the bigger pools. What usually happens in these conditions is that everything you catch is in the shorter pools and at the heads and especially the tails of the larger pools, and the fish are often in very shallow water. The last time I'd floated this stretch it had been like that and I'd had a 100 fish day. This time, the pattern held, but the fishing was hot and cold. We'd go through water that SHOULD have produced a lot of fish without much of anything, and then go through a stretch no better that was non-stop action. Like one time when I had probably gone a half hour without a fish, and then caught 4 nice fish on five casts. The other odd thing was that we caught considerably more largemouths than smallmouths, highly unusual for this stretch. But when it was good, it was fun. Buzzbaits and topwater lures, along with my homemade spinnerbait fished fast enough to make a wake on the surface, were the order of the day, and it was a morning of watching wakes coming from 10 feet away in the shallow water to blast the lures, or having fish hit the very instant the lrue hit the water, like they had seen it coming and positioned themselves under it like a center fielder. And the largemouths were averaging 15 inches, with a couple going up around 17-18. The smallmouths were chunky, and we caught three of them that were in the 16 inch class, along with a lot of 13-14 inchers. Total for two of us was 60 some-odd fish, and considering we only caught fish out of about half the water we could have, had the fish been consistent we would have REALLY had a great morning. We finished the float at 12:30 PM, almost on time. It was great to fish with my brother again, and great to have the kind of day I expect to have on an Ozark creek!

Nope, you don't need permits for kayaks. Nearly all canoe rentals furnish shuttles in their service area, though some can be pretty expensive--they've gotten to where they charge as much for a shuttle as they do to rent their canoes AND shuttle. Google the different rivers to find canoe rentals. The following SEMO rivers are served by canoe rentals: Castor River--a couple of canoe rentals in the Hwy. 34 area. Castor is pretty small water above Hwy. 34 in late summer. St. Francis River--only one canoe rental at Sam A Baker State Park...not sure how far up the river they shuttle. They also service Big Creek, but it would probably be marginal floating at best this time of year. Black River--a plethora of canoe rentals in the Lesterville area...sure you can find one that will shuttle you for a float from Lesterville to Hwy. K, which is a nice distance for a two day float. But you'll likely not have the river to yourself even on weekdays. I think there is still one canoe rental below Clearwater Dam, and you'll encounter a lot fewer people down there but may run into some jetboats. Current River--LOTS of canoe rentals all over the river...upper end for trout, rest of the river for smallmouths, Akers Ferry to Round Spring is the most popular stretch and the worst fishing. Jacks Fork--lots of canoe rentals here too...upper river probably too low to float this time of year. Eleven Point River--good canoe rentals in the Alton area, Greer to Riverton is a classic two day trout float, above Greer a tough two day float that's usually too low this time of year. Meramec River--lots of canoe rentals all over the river. Huzzah and Courtois Creeks--good canoe rentals, but limited water.

I've been a member for many years and I'm on the blue ribbon panel mentioned earlier. Problem with the website is that since it's a volunteer organization, it's been difficult to find anybody to take care of the website.

While I certainly agree that enforcement needs to be better, restrictive regulations actually have two purposes. The obvious one is to protect the resource directly. The less obvious one, but important in my view, is in educating the public about the value of that resource. In other words, greater regulatory protection of stream smallmouth bass sends the message that these fish are valuable in the stream and IN NEED of that protection. It's an incremental thing. Sure, there are always going to be those who ignore the regs and those who are willfully ignorant of them. But the more restrictive regs will serve the purpose of making more anglers aware of the value of stream smallies, and some of those anglers at least, who would have thoughtlessly kept either their legal limits or whatever they caught, might just think twice before keeping them. Gradually, more and more anglers become aware of the issue, and gradually, fewer and fewer ignore the regs and peer pressure takes hold. The true lawbreakers get more and more careful and harder to catch, but they also are less likely to do it for an ego trip. There are still counties in the Ozarks where the county leaders--judges, law enforcement, etc.--wink and look the other way, or even actively participate in illegally killing fish. But as regs get more restrictive and more people in the county begin to see the possible value of the fish in the stream, hopefully it will no longer be politically expedient to thumb your nose at the "game warden". It won't happen overnight, but things are slowly changing.