Al Agnew

Wayne, I think you're not quite right about greens being "well-off". Having been rather active in several green groups at different times, I can tell you that the overall economic status of members is probably about even with the average economic status of the country as a whole. There aren't many rich people in them, and not many really poor people, but lots of people in between. The thing that maybe sets green individuals apart from everybody else is more in their priorities. For many of them, protecting the environment comes before protecting the economy. Because of that priority, they do sometimes have half-baked beliefs and advocate unrealistic actions. However, at least some of the things advocated by green groups are portrayed as horrendous for the country's economy when, in reality, there would be winners and losers but the economy overall wouldn't suffer. I'm realistic enough to know that this country will not sacrifice its economy for action doing something really serious about global warming...at least until the reality is staring us in the face and is irrefutable. And although we're still the biggest producer of greenhouse gases, there are enough other developing countries coming along that even if we did, it might not stave off the worst of what may be coming. What continues to tick me off about the whole situation, though, is that we KNOW that our dependence upon fossil fuels is MAYBE seriously contributing to global warming, but is for SURE bad for us in other ways, not the least of which is that it makes our whole economy extremely vulnerable to crackpots and medieval religious idiots that happen to control countries sitting atop a lot of oil. If there should be one priority in this country overriding everything else, it should be a crash program to develop alternative sources of energy, with all the resources of this country mobilized to do so. But too many powerful corporations would be losers if that happened, and too many politicians are in their pockets.

As a dedicated smallmouth chaser but only a casual smallmouth flyfisher, here are some random thoughts on flyfishing for smallies... First mistake most flyfishers make if they are used to flyfishing for trout is that they use flies that are too small. While smallmouths will take small stuff, if you want to catch more bigger fish, usually something bigger will work better. Second mistake...dead-drifting usually won't work as well as giving the fly some action, no matter what kind of fly you're using. Third mistake..."matching the hatch" has considerably less validity with smallmouths than with trout. Smallies react to movement first, size second, depth third, color fourth. It doesn't have to look much like a crawdad if it moves a bit like a crawdad, and it doesn't even have to move like a crawdad if it's of a size that the fish can swallow. Fourth mistake...concentrating too much on the bottom in deeper water. If the water temp is above 60 degrees and the fish are active, they'll usually be looking up. You can waste a lot of time fishing slow and deep in places where there AREN'T active fish. Active fish will be where the food is, and the food is mostly in or very near shallow water with some current. On a creek like the Little Piney, 18 inches is not too shallow as long as there is some cover for the fish to go to for security, and 6 feet is often too deep. Keep in mind I'm talking about warm water periods...late autumn and winter is a whole different story. So...a selection of smallmouth flies should include a lot of unweighted or slightly weighted streamers. Big woolybuggers are always good. I really like marabou muddlers, fished unweighted. Various poppers, deer hair, balsa, or foam, will work. Hook sizes don't matter except to make sure you have enough hook gap for the material around the hook, but the average smallmouth fly should be at least 2.5 inches long, and can be up to 5 inches long. I've been experimenting with smallie flies, and today I came up with a prototype that I think I'm going to be very happy with. It consists of a piece of chamois cloth (white) cut into the shape of a curly tail grub, coming off the rear of the hook shank, then some chartreuse bucktail tied so that it sweeps backward about halfway back along the chamois, then a grizzly cross-cut rabbit strip wound around the front part of the hook. In the water, the whole thing is about 4 inches long with the tail straightened and waving, and about an inch wide in the body. It will sink VERY slowly (tied with no weight), and I plan on fishing it with long, medium speed strips so that it moves steadily for about 2-3 feet with tail waving, then stops and just starts to sink, then strip again and repeat. It will run just under the surface so that it actually makes a wake on the surface. Why do I think it will work? Because it looks just like my favorite handmade spinnerbait, only without the spinners, when it's in the water...and I KNOW that works! Maybe this will give you some indication of what kind of smallie flies to look for. Again, this is all just my opinion, and there are plenty of smallmouth fly fishermen who are more experienced at it than I am. I'm just always looking for ways to adapt the things that I KNOW work in non-flyfishing to flyfishing applications.

Interesting, MTM and Wayne... Nope, I want no part of fighting fires, it's a difficult, dangerous business. But for the companies who supply the equipment, chemicals, etc. it's also highly profitable. Nothing wrong with profit, but once a fire gets to a certain size, as MTM said, it's pretty much unstoppable, so why not concentrate all your effort in trying to protect what needs protection the most. The question remains, how do you get the forests of the West back into a condition where they are fire resistant. I'll be the first to admit that "letting it burn" won't always work, either. Take a look at Yellowstone Park after the big fires. Yep, it's all regenerating and it's all good for wildlife, etc. But you can just look at all those regenerating forests jam-packed with little trees, and know that they are another disastrous fire waiting to happen, simply because they are too crowded. I didn't say it was the timber companies' fault, necessarily, that the forests got to be the way they are. Mismanagement runs all through the history of the public lands. But the thing is, the genie is out of the bottle. How do you get the forests back into fire resistant shape, with big trees spaced widely apart and mostly grass growing on the ground between them? You can't do it by removing more mature timber. You could do it by thinning timber and clearing brush only where you've got maturing timber that's too thick already, THEN letting fires burn. But then you have the problems associated with road building and subsequent erosion. And Wayne, harvesting small timber may be profitable, but is it profitable when you can only take a limited percentage of the small timber, or if you have take the small timber without damaging any big trees interspersed with it? Helicopter logging? How many places and situations is that profitable? How much second and third growth forest, not yet mature, is there? How much effort and money would it cost to get all the public land forests back into fire resistance? Huge taxpayer dollar amounts any way you look at it. The problem with some green groups is the same as the problem with animal rights idiots...they either don't understand forest ecology, or they ignore it in favor of "preserving" individual forests and trees, just as the PETA people don't care about ecology, just about saving individual creatures. But there are a lot of thoughtful people who are seeing the problems and wrestling with solutions that don't involve screwing things up worse. As for the money made by the leaders of environmental organizations...ask yourself this, how does it compare with the money made by the leaders of any similar-sized corporation? I'm not excusing exorbitant amounts of money made, but there is a case to be made for paying someone for organizational and management skills when you're talking about running a "company" of that size. And the thing is, they are that size because they are made up of a lot of people sending in money, people who do NOT have the "it's all about money" mindset. Those people may sometimes be misguided, but they don't have nefarious motives. You're right about one thing, for sure...there is seldom any middle ground with much of anything, anymore. It's all one big escalation. Don't know who started it first, companies who didn't care one bit about anything but profit, or organizations that didn't care about anything but their own narrow goals. But you get people one side who are unwilling to compromise, and then you get people on the other side who are unwilling to budge an inch, and then people on the first side that go overboard to counteract the people on the other side. There is no trust and no respect on either side. I find myself doing it, too. And it ain't no way to get things done right. People like me, who wish to defend wild country and the organizations that are working to protect it, and people like you, who see the other side of the story, really need to get together and work together. There really isn't enough of that going around these days.

About blaming "green groups" for stopping brush clearing. Some environmental groups do oppose it, but most of them oppose the "healthy forests" initiative of the Bush administration, because it is most probably being used as an excuse to cut big, healthy, marketable timber instead of "clearing brush". The fire problem out west is complex, but basically boils down to too much fuel. And there is too much fuel for two main reasons...too much fire suppression over the years until recently, AND too much timber cutting. In order for a western forest to be fire resistant, it needs to consist of large, mature trees, either spaced widely apart with grasses on the ground between them, or spaced closely enough that the shade keeps brush from growing. You need fire to maintain such forests, because otherwise in the widely spaced trees, brush WILL grow. But fires in such forests usually stay on the ground and don't get strong enough to crown. But we've screwed up all this by suppressing fires and letting the brush and small trees grow, giving the fire, when it does happen, a route into the crowns of the larger trees. And, by clear-cutting, you also produce a regenerating forest with lots of trees and brush crowded together. To remedy the situation, you have to clear the brush and smaller trees, while leaving the bigger trees. Who is gonna do this on a large scale? Not the timber companies, because there isn't a profitable market for small trees and brush. It also isn't economical to cut some of the bigger trees and then clear the brush and the waste from what you've cut, which furnishes really good fuel. So you can't blame it all on "green groups." Another thing that kinda bugs me...fire fighting is big business in itself. But when was the last time that a fire was actually put out from all the fire fighting, without major help from the weather? Seems to me that maybe the best thing we could do is, instead of all the heroic (and expensive, paid for by taxpayer dollars) measures that don't really seem to do much good, to concentrate all our effort to building really good fire breaks around stuff we absolutely don't want burned. Just my opinion.

Thanks, Phil... I enjoy seeing old photos like this, but it also makes me sad, to see the White River before the lakes were built. What a magnificent Ozark stream it must have been. The two things that I am most angry at our "forefathers" for doing are number one, building some MANY lakes on the White--was it necessary to totally drown this greatest of all Ozark smallmouth streams? Wouldn't one or two have been enough? And two, building the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, drowning what was probably the most spectacular canyon landscape on earth. I have a lot of old Missouri Conservationist magazines, and in one there is a picture of johnboat floaters drifting beneath Virgin Bluff on the James River, now half-buried by Table Rock. Makes me sad every time I see it.

I've never driven into the Roberts Field area, but Chuck Tryon's book says there is access and even a boat ramp there. According to him, the ramp is just a few hundred feet above the mouth of Rocky Creek.

9-7, just go up to the pinned:river levels at the top of the Buffalo River board, click on it, and click on the St. Joe site. That's the gage for the Buffalo in the Hwy. 65 area. I go more by the flow in cfs (cubic feet per second)...if you're not familiar with the gage and the river, the river level in feet will mean nothing to you, but you can figure that a flow of 57 cfs, which is what it is right now, will be floatable but you'll scrape bottom in a lot of riffles and have to drag over some of them. My rule of thumb for a medium width river like the Buffalo in that area is...under 50 cfs, it'll be a LOT of work to get down it. 50-75 cfs, you can float it but you'll scrape bottom and may have to walk a few riffles. Over 75 cfs, you'll be able to float most riffles unless you have a heavily loaded canoe full of camping gear. Over 100 cfs, it should be no problem.

Hey riverrat, just a couple of suggestions for the next time you find yourself in that situation... Dingy water, the kind where you can barely see a white lure 1.5-2.5 feet down, try some medium size crankbaits. Something fat that doesn't run too deep. And that kind of water just calls for a big tandem blade spinnerbait, too. Once it gets to be less than about 2 feet of visibility, though, it gets real tough. On a stretch of river you know well and know where the fish usually are, look for current obstructions along the nearby banks like logs and rocks, in water that can be either deep or shallow, and fish the eddies behind them with a big jig and pig. Do the same thing anywhere water is running into the river. If that doesn't work, just sit back and enjoy the scenery!

Hey...I got two sheds AND a chicken house. But I didn't think it would make a good user name. Dang, I wish I'da thought of that. Let's see... 3outbuildings? boatshedgardenshedhenhouse? triplesheddage? toomanytools? The possibilities are endless. Thanks for opening up a whole new cyberworld.

30 cfs is simply too low...you WILL be walking most of the riffles, even with an almost empty canoe. Which is not impossible, but it will be work.

The acid rain thing was and is real. As it turns out, there are natural buffering processes that have slowed the effects, and pollution controls under the Clean Air Act really did work to limit the damage, but some forests in the northeast have died and fish populations in some lakes have plummeted. There are other, more subtle effects that are continuing, as well, and may be bigger problems than we realize. Both acid rain and declining ozone layer are often cited by "anti-environmentalists" as scares that didn't materialize. But they conveniently ignore the fact that a big reason why they aren't the problems we were warned about was because we actually DID something about them.

About whether this is a government problem or we the people's problem...it's both. As long as the government does everything it can to subsidize and support fossil fuel use instead of letting the market decide, we the people are going to go with what we got. If the price of oil gets too high and we can't afford to drive big SUVs, we'll demand more fuel efficiency. But it takes a while for the market to respond, when the pressures are all still going to be to preserve and defend our fossil fuel based economy. We need real leadership and we need a lot less obstructionism, we need the government to be saying by word and deed and speaking with one voice that this is a big problem and something really serious should be done about it. As long as the government is pretty much in the pockets of big oil and big coal and the other big fossil fuel corporations, the government will defend the status quo.

You know, I've been following this whole global warming thing avidly ever since it first came onto the radar screen. It really didn't take too long for the majority of scientists in the relevant fields to get on board with the basic theory, and agree that human induced global warming was likely. As evidence for actual warming mounted, the vast majority of scientists agreed that anthropogenic (human caused) global warming was the best explanation for observed warming trends, based upon the ever-increasing amount of greenhouse gases being thrown into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the anti-AGW people started out saying global warming wasn't happening and wasn't going to happen. When the evidence began to show that to be wrong, they then said that there was no way we insignificant humans could in any way cause any of it. Now, some of them are to the point where they are saying that, well, maybe we might be contributing to it, but there isn't anything we can really do about it without wrecking our economy, and besides, it may be a GOOD thing. Fact...the earth does have climate cycles. The causes of these cycles are not completely understood, but the evidence is that many climate changes happen on the order of hundreds or thousands of years. The present climate change, if even the middle of the road computer models are right, will be as significant as any in the past, and take place in less than 200 years, considerably faster than past changes likely took place. Fact...due entirely to human activity, the amount of various greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is up something like 30% over pre-incustrial levels, and climbing. Fact...global temperatures HAVE risen a little over a degree F in the last 100 years or so. Doesn't sound like much, but a DROP of 4-5 degrees would put us in a full-blown ice age. And the last 10 years or so have mostly been hotter than anything previously recorded, so the trend doesn't look good. Now, we can't PROVE that the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity is CAUSING the present global warming, because we don't KNOW all the complexities of the atmosphere. But the circumstantial evidence is pretty compelling. We also can't really predict the final outcome. That stupid movie about the sudden freezing of New York due to global climate change, forgot the name of it, had a grain of truth in that one theory is when enough glacial ice melts in Iceland and Greenland, it will cool off and stop the Gulf Stream, resulting in excessive COLD climate in northeastern North America and Europe. That's just one example of possible results from global warming. As for whether it would be a good thing...yes, it might expand the growing season and growing climate for some crops. It might make some crops do better with increased CO2. Balance that with the fact that it would also disrupt whole economies based upon agriculture, as the people had to change to adapt to changed growing conditions. And the fact that natural systems, especially wild plant species and the animals that depend upon them, can't just pick up and move a few hundred miles north if their climate changes too fast on them. Bottom line is, we are perpetrating a grand, uncontrolled experiment on our atmosphere, the results of which we have no certainty. And, we have ample other reasons to stop this experiment as soon as possible. We KNOW that dependence upon fossil fuels is not good for the environment, our health, or our economy. Yep, we might damage our economy by draconian measures to limit greenhouse gases. But right now, not only the US but the world's economy is totally dependent upon a bunch of countries run by despots and medieval religious fanatics and really shaky regimes and self-avowed enemies of Western society that just happen by geologic accident to have most of the world's supply of oil underneath them. How much more reason do we NEED to wean ourselves off fossil fuel use?

Sorry I didn't find this post until Dano just messaged me about it... Charlie Schwartz designed all the MO trout stamps until 1983, when they made it a competition. Terry Martin won the first competition, which was the rainbow lying in the grass in the pictures above. I entered the contest for the 1984 stamp and won it, with a brown trout underwater. I entered again in 1987, when the requirements were that there had to be a historical context to the design, and won that one with a brown lying in gravel with an old cane fly rod and in the background, some sepia-tone depictions of stocking trout from old trucks and milk cans. Those were the only ones I entered, though I helped judge at least one other contest. I think they stopped the stamp program at the same time that the licensing became computerized as it is now, with a print-out license. It was easier and cheaper to just print out the trout permit on the list of permits you were purchasing. After all, printing the stamps entailed some expense. There was a print program to go along with the stamps, but the artist was responsible for getting the prints produced. When I won the first one, I was just starting out as a professional artist. In fact, winning it was a lot of what gave me the confidence (probably misplaced) to try to make it as an artist. I thought I'd make a bunch of money off the sale of the prints. Alas, Missouri's trout stamp program was not much of a money maker for the artist. I was commissioned to do that Arkansas stamp...it wasn't a contest. By that time I'd won the 1984 and 87 MO, and also had designed the Texas saltwater conservation stamp, so I was contacted by the guy who ran the print program in conjunction with AR F&G, as I remember he was responsible for "picking" who would design the stamp. There was an edition of prints produced from that one, along with the sales posters. I suspect that you may be able to find somebody who wants to sell their print if you search the web. Eventually, I ended up winning the first Nevada trout stamp (the only one I ever made a significant amount of money from), along with being commissioned to do two California stamps, and winning the Illinois stamp contest one year. The Nevada was of a Lahontan cutthroat, which I'd never seen, and I designed it from photos I obtained secondhand from the Nevada Fish and Game Department. The California stamps were of a golden trout and a steelhead. The Illinois was of a coho salmon. the only two contests I entered and didn't win were Nevada a few years later when they wanted a lake trout, and Illinois the first time I entered it. That one was interesting. I did what I thought was a very good rainbow (better than the coho I won with the next year). On the day of the judging I got a call from the Illinois people. Here is what was said: "Mr. Agnew, we have some good news and some bad news for you." "Okay...what's the good news?" "You tied for first place in the trout stamp judging!" "So...what's the bad news?" "Well, we decided it by flipping a coin, and you lost." True story!

I've been shooting the Nikon D100 for a couple or three years, since not too long after it came onto the scene. Chose it originally because I'd always used Nikon SLRs so I already had some lenses. It's been a good camera body. As an artist, I don't try to take publishable quality images, I'm mainly looking for pictures of reasonably good sharpness to use as reference for my paintings. I'm now pretty much shooting all digital--before I was shooting both slides and prints, because the slides gave you better color but the prints were easier to work with. Now I get pretty good, true to life color which I've learned to manipulate in Photoshop to get MORE true to life, or change the color of the light if I want. As for lenses, the 28-80 Nikon autofocus lens is my standard for landscapes, but I really love the Sigma 50-500 zoom for wildlife work. It's not a real fast lens, but you don't need as fast a lens with digital as I did with print and slides to get usable results. And you can put a 2x doubler on that sucker and get some nice closeups. If the light is good, I can even stack two doublers, giving me something like a 2000 mm lens! Don't expect to get super sharp photos with such a set-up, but if that grizzly is out there 500 yards away and you know it ain't gonna come closer, at least you can get some usable photos of it.

Thing is, it's all about cost. The cheapest way to get gravel is to dig it out of a stream bed, without regard to any damage you are causing, and without doing anything to remedy the damage afterwards. As long as that sort of thing is allowed, the costs are going to be artificially low, because they don't take into account the costs of damage done. But nobody wants to pay more for anything than they have to. There ARE ways of mining gravel that are LESS damaging to streams. But it's never totally benign. As for fixing the damage after it's done (restoring habitat), it sounds good but it really isn't possible. Once the stream bed is altered to the extent that gravel mining usually alters it, the effects travel upstream and downstream, and you can't put any of it back the way it was. Your point about the damage done to downstream (and upstream) landowners is a good one, but often it isn't obvious to everybody that the gravel mining caused the damage. A hydrologist can see it immediately, but the average person doesn't equate filled in pools and siltation miles downstream, and eroded banks and such upstream, with gravel mining in a particular place. There are too many people who still think it's a GOOD thing to get all that gravel out of the stream. Leave aside the fact that maybe a little restraint upon growth might not be a bad thing, anyway. At least, if we were more responsible about where and how we get our building materials, we'd understand more of the TRUE costs of doing so.

Wayne, spotted bass are NOT native to the Gasconade. Until about 20 years ago, there were none in either the Gasconade or the Meramec river systems. And yes, they did colonize both rivers from the downstream ends, so it makes sense that the farther downstream you go, the more spotted bass. And yes, be VERY alarmed, because I suspect that given the habitat in the Gasconade, spotted bass will eventually colonize the whole river, to the great detriment of smallmouths. The situation on the Gasconade parallels that of the Meramec, which I am very familiar with since I've fished the Meramec river system all my life. I first started seeing spotted bass in the Meramec river in the area downstream from St. Clair in the mid-1980s. They showed up on the lower portion of Big River, below the lowest mill dam, about the same time, and also on the Bourbeuse below the Guths Mill dam. The Bourbeuse and Big River were perfect habitat for them, and in a matter of 10 years they had moved up Big River a good 50 miles, and the Bourbeuse about 35 miles. And in those stretches, they quickly became the dominant bass species. Now, they have colonized over 100 miles of Big River, and are starting to show up in heavy numbers 80 miles up the Bourbeuse. In the Meramec itself, the habitat wasn't quite so perfect for them, and they seem to have reached an equilibrium with the smallmouths in the area between Meramec State Park and the mouth of the Bourbeuse, with just small populations upstream (the Meramec is apparently just cool enough to discourage them a bit, being more heavily springfed than Big River or the Bourbeuse). I'm hoping that the springs in the middle portion of the Gasconade might keep it cool enough to control their population, and also that the Big Piney is heavily springfed enough to discourage them. But I'm afraid it's a forlorn hope on the Gasconade. The Niangua below Bennett Spring was pretty much spotted bass free for many years, even though there is a large population in Lake of the Ozarks, because Bennett kept it too cool. I haven't been on the Niangua in several years...I hope it's still that way. So where did they come from if they weren't native to these streams? First possibility...we know that somebody stocked them in Lake of the Ozarks many years ago. We don't know who or when, but they were not native to the Osage river system. They could have come from there, moving downstream through the Osage to the Missouri, then up the Gasconade and Meramec. Second possibility...MDC misguidedly stocked them in a number of streams that ran into the Missouri River from the north, thinking that they would be a good game fish in streams that were too muddy for smallmouths. They could have come down those streams, into the Missouri, etc. Third possibility, and this is my own theory but I think it's the most likely one...spotted bass ARE native to Ozark streams flowing south, including the Castor River in southeast Missouri. The Castor used to flow far down through the flat land into Arkansas before entering the Mississippi. But back around 1900, the Diversion Channel was built to drain the swamps of the bootheel, and it diverted the Castor to where it flows directly into the Mississippi just south of Cape Girardeau. So the spotted bass had a direct route into the Mississippi, not far from where other Ozark streams flow into it. However, they probably couldn't use this route because the Mississippi was too polluted, and too muddy. But...then the big reservoirs were built on the upper Missouri in the Dakotas, which cut its sediment load to a fraction of what it once was, and thus made the Mississippi a lot less muddy as well. And...the Clean Water Act came along, and the Mississippi got a lot less polluted as well. It's no coincidence, I don't think, that spotted bass showed up first in Apple Creek, the farthest south Ozark stream entering the Mississippi (above Cape Girardeau), in the early 1970s. Then they showed up in Saline Creek, the next one to the north, in the late 1970s. Then in Joachim Creek, the next one to the north, in the early 1980s. And finally, in the Meramec, the next and last Ozark tributary of the Mississippi, in the mid-1980s. Did they move up the Missouri to the Gasconade? Maybe not. Maybe the Gasconade fish came from one of the other two scenarios. It would be interesting to do a genetic study of spotted bass from the various river systems. Ironic, though, that it very well could be that dams built two or three states away, a swamp-draining project built a century ago, and a landmark pollution control law, could have together spelled doom for what was probably the best big smallmouth fisheries in Missouri (Big River and the Bourbeuse), and maybe doom as well for the other two best big smallie fisheries (Meramec and Gasconade).

The Spring isn't the only river suffering from this problem, and the feds taking it over won't solve it. Current River has a lot of the same problems, even with a limit on rental canoes and supposed federal enforcement. The problem won't be solved until everybody is on the same page. That means the local people and businesses, the county law enforcement and politicians, the state, the Fish and Game people. It really doesn't take that much law enforcement, just some very visible and well-publicized, cooperative crackdowns by all appropriate law enforcement agencies for a few weeks, and the doofuses start looking for another river to terrorize. But it takes the will, and the support from both the people and the powers that be.

I've done enough paintings of browns, and studied them enough, to maybe give you a good answer... Color varies with individual fish, time of year, clarity of water, etc. AS A GENERAL RULE, the red spots on bigger browns will have a more or less visible lighter (not white) ring around them. You'll see traces of a lighter color around some of the dark spots on the sides, as well, although usually not on the spots that are up closer to the back. The thing is, every skin mount MUST be repainted, since the life colors totally disappear in the process of curing and mounting the skin. Ditto with replica mounts. So the realism of your mounted fish is totally dependent upon the artistry of the taxidermist. Most taxidermists use an airbrush to paint the fish, but that's not how a real fish looks. The red spots actually cover a cluster of about 3-5 scales, have darker outlines around each scale, and then there is a ring of scales around that cluster that is lighter than the "background" color. The colors of a live adult brown trout are very difficult to reproduce, because the colors are iridescent and change under different lighting conditions. There is actually a lot of blue and violet showing in the background color of the sides of the fish under some light conditions, and the scales in that ring around the red spots tend to have a somewhat faded and less iridescent color than the other scales in the same area. In studying various mounted fish and talking to taxidermists, I believe that trout are one of the most difficult fish to produce a good mount job. The skin is fragile and there are a lot of areas that shrink considerably in the curing process. Most skin mounts of trout are pretty ugly, in my opinion.

Good smallmouth water starts somewhere around Round Spring, and from there on down there is a good smallie population. You could do Round Spring to Two Rivers, a good two day trip, and use Two Rivers Canoe Rental. Powdermill to Van Buren is a long two days, with several good outfitters in the Van Buren area. Lots of big jetboats below Van Buren, but the fishing is still good, however, I don't know the canoe rentals that operate below Van Buren. I think there are better numbers of fish upstream from Van Buren, but your chances at a big smallie are a little better below.

I agree with Dano...long two days, reasonably short 3 days. Last fall when we floated it in very low water, we put in at Buffalo Point and floated 3 days, but we weren't fishing real hard.

Wayne, assuming a normally dry summer, don't expect to have a lot of water. The lower end of the Buffalo can easily be low enough that you'll do a lot of scraping bottom in the riffles with a loaded canoe. It's a slow stretch with lots of pools and not a lot of fast water. It's also an absolutely gorgeous stretch of river, maybe the second most beautiful stretch in the Ozarks (the most spectacular being the upper Buffalo from Ponca to a few miles below Kyles). You'll find PLENTY of excellent gravel bars for camping. The fishing can be pretty good. The river should be very clear at that time, and long casts are a must, but I once had a spectacular trip on that section at that time using buzzbaits. You won't see a LOT of people, but you may encounter a few. Taking out at Buffalo City IS a pain...even when they aren't running a lot of generators at Bull Shoals. You have to paddle up about 50 yards of a what is a strong riffle at low water and a raging torrent during high water, and then several hundred yards of slower water and across the White. There are two downstream take-outs on the White, one at Cartney about 3.5 miles downstream from the Buffalo and one at Shipps Ferry about 5 or 6 miles downstream. Both are reached from the north (opposite) side of the White, both are about the same shuttle distance (LONG), and both aren't real obvious but if you visit them beforehand and you keep your eye out you won't miss them. Both are shown on the Delorme atlas. You can also take out at Norfork, 11 miles downstream, if you want to esperience some interesting scenery and fishing on the White. I know that Dillard's was willing to do a shuttle to any of those places last fall when I last did that float. They also told me that I could pay for parking and have the vehicle left at a private place at Buffalo City that was closer to the mouth of the Buffalo than the public access, and that the vehicle would be safer there overnight. But that place was still at the top of the riffle, so I just had them move the vehicle on the day I was planning to take out.

Braid has two main advantages for use on spinning reels. The first is as I said before...it all but eliminates problems associated with line twist and memory. The other is that because it does not stretch, it is very sensitive. You can feel the bottom and feel subtle takes MUCH better with braid. A third thing that is often an advantage is that because it doesn't stretch, you can set hooks much more effectively with light action rods. Braids also have disadvantages. They ARE more visible. Whether this is really important is debatable, but it's one reason why I use the 2/10 Power Pro rather than a heavier braid. It really is about the same diameter as 2 pound test mono, but it is opaque, so it is still a bit more visible. Braids also tend to fray when abraded, making them even more visible, even though it doesn't seem to weaken them much. They are also much more affected by wind than mono, and aren't real pleasant to fish on windy days when you're trying to fish something slow and deep. Their limpness makes them a bit more susceptible to wrapping around your rod tip when you get some slack line. And they flatten out when you tie a knot on a hook eye, and the thin diameter braids will actually slip through the gap in the eye of some hooks. I remedy this problem by tying a double palomar knot. And, you gotta have something sharp to cut them, because you can't break them and you can't bite them. Thing is, even with all their disadvantages, I won't use anything else on spinning tackle, because I HATE the problems associated with line twist. I just live with the disadvantages. I never liked Spiderwire. Don't like fused lines like Fireline. Power Pro is the best braided line I've found so far.

You heard right, it doesn't have much of a smallmouth fishery. As for the aluminum hatch, it's probably a little less populated than Cedargrove to Akers, but it can still have lots of idiots at times. It's a pretty stretch of river, though.

I missed this thread back when everybody was talking about it, so thought I'd put in a few thoughts now that I read it... Nobody ever has much of a problem with putting line on baitcasting reels...as long as you have the line spool turning on a pencil or something with the line coming off the top of the spool and onto your reel, everything is fine. The problem is always with putting line on spinning reels. Why? Because spinning reels INHERENTLY twist line. Doesn't matter how you do it, you WILL be putting some twist in your line. Doing it the right way means LESS twist, not no twist. Worst way...laying the spool flat but with the wrong side up. Next worst way...putting the spool on a pencil so it revolves. Best way...laying the spool flat with the right side up. So how do you figure which is the right side up? Not by just guessing and flipping it if the line starts to twist. Hold your reel up in front of your face with the rod pointing straight away from you. Turn the handle. See which way the line pickup is rotating. Most, but not all, reels, the line pickup rotates counterclockwise. Now, lay the spool on the ground so that the line comes off of it THE SAME WAY it is going onto the reel. That means that you will get the least amount of twist. But you'll still get SOME twist. Why? Because the reel spool is a much different diameter than the line spool. The bigger the difference, the more twist. The line is coming off the line spool with a twist for every coil that comes off, but as it goes on to the reel spool, that twist is being partially removed. If the line is coming off the line spool in the opposite direction from how it's going onto the reel spool, each coil coming off the line spool adds twist, and each coil going onto the reel spool adds MORE twist. Why does bringing line off a rotating spool give you more twist? Because it's coming off the spool with NO twist, but is getting a twist with every coil going onto the reel spool. So...do it the best way, and THEN lay about two cast lengths out on the lawn and reel it back in under tension with nothing on the end of it. Or lay it out behind a moving boat. Or lay it out while standing at the top of a long riffle and let the current take out the residual twist. You'll still get twist in the normal course of fishing. Rotating lures, reeling against a slipping drag, etc. The twist and the line memory both conspire to cause those nasty loops in the line when you close the bail at the end of a cast, which result in horrific tangles when you try to make the next cast. You can minimize them by closing the bail by hand or by pulling on the line by hand before starting to reel, or perhaps by just lifting up on the rod sharply before starting to reel...but geez, you can't always fish effectively if you have to do all that stuff. Another option, and the one I use, is to not fish with monofilament on spinning reels. I use braided line (Power Pro) on my spinning reels. I go very light, 2 pound diameter 10 pound test Power Pro. This braided line twists just as much as mono, BUT it has no memory, and it's limp enough that the twist very seldom results in a loop in the line when the bail is closed. It almost COMPLETELY eliminates all the problems caused by line twist and line memory. Braid has its own drawbacks, but compared to monofilament it is almost trouble free on spinning reels.