Al Agnew

Saw that article on Facebook. I hate to say it, but I have my doubts that EPA will accomplish much. The Newberry Riffle linked in the article is pretty questionable. The link went to a paper that explained the Riffle, and said, among other things, that the rocks in it would soon enough be rearranged by floods to where it would be passable by canoes and kayaks. Well, there have been several big floods on Big River since it was put in, and the rocks haven't moved much at all...it's still a real pain in the butt for floaters. And it COULD have been designed to where it was passable at least to experienced floaters. The Riffle is basically a low dam, but to allow fish passage, it was built by stringing four rows of big rocks across the river in a stairstep fashion, with about a foot of drop between each step. There are deeper troughs in between each step. There are gaps in the rocks wide enough to get a canoe through at each step, but the problem is, the gaps don't come anywhere close to lining up, so you have to shoot the first gap, then scoot the boat sideways (a long way, like 10 feet or more) to hit a gap in the next step. And...the steps are too close together, only about 10-15 feet. So you can't stop the canoe, turn it sideways, shoot it over (still in pretty fast water) to the next step, and get it lined up into that gap. Had they just made the spaces in between each step about 20 feet, it would have been doable. As it is, you have to walk the boat through the whole thing, and even that is exceedingly difficult, because it's all big rocks 2-4 feet in diameter, both in the rows of rocks and lining the troughs in between, and mostly the troughs are about waist deep with these big rocks on the bottom. It's a great recipe for breaking an ankle in lower water levels, and in higher levels it's almost impossible to walk down it, you have to drag the canoe over the big rocks lining the bank. When I was through there a few weeks ago, it looked like they had been scraping up some of the sediment at the head of the pool backed up behind the Riffle. Sediment seems to be settling at the head of the pool, but most of the pool is still pretty deep. The digging removed a bunch of young willow trees growing along the edges, and made the whole thing pretty ugly. And it seems to me that for this idea to have any chance of working, you'll need a Newberry Riffle about every mile for a 20 mile stretch. Might as well forget about floating the river if that actually happened, but I don't expect it to happen. Maybe just digging out the sediment in many spots along the river would work, but it sure would mess up the river for a long time, too.

This an old story from 2011, more than seven years ago, but I was reading through old posts looking for a couple of posts I remember making long ago when I came across it, and thought I'd update it...that fish is still alive and swimming in the pond. In the years before I caught it, I'd see two swirls of big fish taking off from the bank, in different parts of the pond so I knew they were two different fish, whenever I was walking the banks and the conditions were right for them to be up in the shallows. But in the couple years before I caught that fish, I hadn't seen but one swirl at a time. Since that day, I've never seen but one swirl at a time, so I'm pretty sure it was the only grass carp left even back then. But I'm still seeing that fish take off now and then...it's exceedingly spooky, so I never get a good look at it. I don't know how long grass carp live, but I stocked those three grass carp back about 1995, so it's something like 23 years old at this point. I'm glad Tim was wrong and it survived!

Hmm...a lot depends upon what exactly you're looking for, and whether or not you need some canoe rental place for canoes or shuttle. It also depends upon how much water you want to cover. Personally, when I think of 3-4 day floats, I'm thinking 30-40 miles. And you do have to decide which is most important...multi-species availability, scenery, solitude, lack of jetboats? Because just about every major float stream, and a lot of smaller ones, in the Ozarks has enough floatable water for three or four days. If you want to push the envelope a bit and do some of the smaller creeks in lower water levels, where you will have to drag and scrape over some of the riffles, your choices expand even more. Here are some off the wall suggestions, though... 1. Niangua River ABOVE Bennett Spring--there is a lot of water above the spring, something like 30 miles that is at least somewhat floatable even during the summer. If you wanted you could extend it or start a little lower and include the trout section. Of course, you could also do Bennett Spring to Lake Niangua and get the best of both worlds as well. Just pick gravel bars that don't have roads or houses within sight, since lower Niangua landowners are notorious for harassing camping floaters at times. 2. Gasconade River far above the stretches the others have mentioned. Scenery isn't as good, but solitude abounds and the fishing is good for both smallmouth and largemouth, as well as the other usual suspects. There is a LOT of water, with decent access, on the upper Gasconade...nearly 75 miles above Hazelgreen. 3. St. Francis River--mostly a do-it-yourself float...you might possibly get the canoe rental place at Sam A. Baker Park to shuttle you far upstream, I don't know. But Highway C-N bridge to Baker Park is a wonderful, if a little short for three or four days, float where you'll catch all three kinds of bass and probably have the river pretty much to yourself. Or if you're adventurous, put in farther upstream at the Highway E bridge, where you'll be in the granite country of the St. Francois Mountains at least for the first day, with a couple of interesting rapids and some spectacular and different scenery. 4. Upper Black River--if you can get somebody to shuttle you from Lesterville to the upper end of Clearwater Lake, that's a great three day float on the clearest water in the Ozarks (or at least ONE of the clearest stretches), with good smallmouth fishing, pleasant and wild-looking scenery (not much agriculture in the valley), and huge gravel bars everywhere. Just don't do it over a summer weekend, because you'll be overrun with ATV idiots totally disregarding the law against riding in the river. 5. North Fork--you can put in up at Topaz and have at least two or three days of smallmouth fishing before getting into the trout water. Then just decide how far down into the trout water you want to go. Blair Bridge is a nice take-out for that float. Upper North Fork isn't floated all that much and is pretty nice as far as scenery. 6. Bryant Creek--there are 40 some odd miles of somewhat floatable water, with several access possibilities for short three day floats to long 4 day trips. Pick your poison. Nice scenery though not quite on a par with the North Fork, water level can be iffy at times, but fishing is good and it doesn't see all that many floaters. 7.Beaver Creek--another one with over 40 miles of floatable water. I've done Brownbranch to Kissee Mills in three days in the middle of the summer, with enough water to float. It gets skinnier above there but is doable. Nice scenery, good fishing.

I don't think it matters, within reason. I wouldn't use 20 pound test, but I think the difference between 4 pound and 8 pound test is insignificant to the fish. In fly fishing, I NEVER go lighter than 6X, and that's only for very small flies...I match my line size to the size of the flies so that the line doesn't overpower the fly and make it do strange things in the water. I don't think it matters to the fish. They can see 2 pound or 4 pound, don't kid yourself that they can't. They can also see 8 pound, they can see the hook coming out the butt of the fly, too. The only question is whether such things put them off or make them more wary.

Love the sculpin paint job!

Yeah, those dark bars are tricky. Most of them run from about the lateral line downwards, and above the lateral line there are irregular spots and blotches, not bars. There is a lot more detail to do with smallmouth than with largemouth, and unless the taxidermist is very meticulous and has a good photo to work with of the exact fish he's trying to reproduce, he won't get it anywhere near right. Plus, the smallmouth's chameleon-like ability to change colors can really mess things up, as well.

Yeah, if the taxidermy work requires quite a bit of artistic ability, doing a good painting of the fish would really entail the same...if I was doing it, it would probably cost at least $1000. However, you could make sure to take a good photo of the fish, lying flat, fins and tail spread, and put it in a photo editing program. Edit the fish out of the background, blow it up to the exact length of the real fish, and print it out on quality printing paper. Frame as is, or cut the fish out of the paper, cut the outline out of a wood plank and glue the fish print onto it.

Guys, how good a replica fish you will get from a taxidermist depends upon several things. First, how close to YOUR fish the body shape of the replica is. Second, whether the replica has translucent fins. Third, how much of an airbrush artist the taxidermist is. Fish are one the most difficult things to get a good product, because they always involve painting it, and most taxidermists are mediocre painters at best. As an artist who actually paints a LOT of fish, I know exactly what to look for in a replica mount. Just for fun, I went to all four websites mentioned so far and will critique them... Don's Taxidermy--pretty darned good on fish, probably the best of all of them mentioned. His largemouth bass are pretty close to spot on in color pattern. I always look at the shape of the dark band running down the side on largemouth. It's pretty easy to find good photos of largemouth showing the band and other markings, but it seems that a whole lot of taxidermists just don't get it right. The band starts out being a series of barely connected blotches, up close to the head, but by the time you get to the last one third of the body toward the tail, the blotches have blended together to a solid band with only slightly irregular edges. The blotches on the more blotchy area are only slightly wider than that more solid dark band. Most taxidermists either miss the difference from front to back and make the whole thing blotchy, or they make the blotches a lot wider toward the front. He's a little off on the dark stripes on the sides of the bass's head, though, and the darker blotches on the upper sides and back of his bass (they don't always show up on live bass) are a little more off. His trout aren't quite as good, but still pretty good. Timberland Taxidermy--I didn't see any trout on their website, so can't judge. Trout are pretty difficult to paint, even more so than bass. His bass are not quite as good as Don's in my opinion but still pretty good. King Sailfish Mounts--their trout look darned good. If the trout in the post is any indication, other than the lack of enough spots, they got the colors good. Only question is how close a replica they can find to your trout, and whether the paint job is typical--some of their trout on their website weren't quite as good. Koch Taxidermy--I hope he's not a good friend of you guys, because I felt he's the worst of the bunch. His bass are pretty poor. His striped bass are really bad. Some of his trout, probably the replicas, are pretty good, but the skin mounts are a disaster. Which isn't too surprising, though, because doing a skin mount of a trout is exceedingly difficult. The adipose fin and head structures shrink and wrinkle as they dry, and the skin of a trout is thin, and any imperfection shows up more because the scales are so small. Big scales really help to hold a skin in shape and keep it from bulging and wrinkling at inopportune places. I think he'd do a decent replica trout for you, but no way I'd recommend him for bass. Oh, the translucent fin thing...all fish have translucent fins. A solid, opaque fin is very unnatural-looking. If I was designing replicas, I'd make all the fins translucent AND make them bigger, as in the rays extending out farther, so they could be trimmed by the taxidermist to the size and shape of YOUR fish's fins. Fin size and shape varies in individual fish. I've seen a few replicas with translucent fins, and I'd really look for that in the ones your taxidermist uses.

Still finding a few chants behind the house, including right in the back yard, but they aren't exactly thriving. Nearly all are the smooth underside ones, which the book I have says are inferior in taste to the ones with gills. I don't know whether that's true or not, because they still seem pretty tasty.

Nope, the tongue is a muscle. And as much as I like a good steak, I like tongue better. It's different because it's cooked differently, but done well it's like the most tender, melt in your mouth beef you'll ever eat.

Mainly it's that tight line nymphing without an indicator, the other kind I do, is difficult to impossible to do well at long distances. You often can't wade out far enough to reach those good runs except with a long cast. It's pretty tough to do the mending you need to do on longer casts without jerking the flies around as well, not to mention a lot harder to detect takes. Pretty much 100% of my nymphing on the larger rivers is done with an indicator, but I often tight line nymph on smaller streams where most of my casts are less than 20 feet away.

I've gotten an Excalibur out one time. It wasn't a problem, mainly because the hook is thin wire and has a small, sharp-edged barb. Just have to push down hard on the eye, and really give it a jerk. I don't think it made any bigger of a wound than any other hook. As for the Triple Grip, I don't think it would be a problem, either. The hook that absolutely won't come out is that outbarb hook--can't think of who makes it--that has the barb on the outside. I refuse to use those hooks.

I like beef heart okay. Can't stand liver.

I routinely cast a two nymph rig with an indicator 5-7 feet above the split shot out West. I almost never go with more separation than that...I figure if the water is deeper than four or five feet, I probably won't catch the fish in it anyway. You can cast such a rig the normal fly-cast way with backcast and all, though it isn't really all that much the fly line carrying the rig as the whole thing kinda going back and forth. I use the water-load and flip thing a lot, but only if I'm fishing water that's no more than 15-20 feet from where I'm standing. If I'm reaching out farther, I use an ordinary cast. The indicator fishing really shines when you're on a big river and trying make a drift 40 feet away from you. If I'm on a smaller stream where almost all my nymphing is done in close, I don't use the indicator.

String trick might not have worked on that one. You gotta have a skin surface to push the eye of the hook against...I think it would have been tough to push the eye in the right direction when it's hanging out there in mid-air. Pretty sure I could have gotten the hook out of Semble's throat with the string trick, though. A good pair of sidecutters and a length of heavy line of some kind should be in every angler's tackle bag...I keep a couple feet of old 6 weight fly line in mine. Along with some instructions on how to use the string trick. Heck, it's been a good 6 months or so since I've had to get a hook out of myself using the trick.

I was using a 3/8 ounce War Eagle, but with modifications. It was the slightly translucent white/chartreuse skirt, I had tied in a white rubber curly tail strip, and switched out the bigger blade on the end of the arm for one the same size as the other blade.

I’ve never had much confidence in anything fished slowly in ultra-clear water. I’m always going on the theory that I don’t want the fish to take long to decide. I did toss the HD Craw to a few spots where I’d seen fish so I knew they were there, and got a couple that way.

I'm going to miss my annual three-day solo float on my "secret" creek this year, but yesterday and today I got the chance to do a 2 day trip. The river will remain nameless, even though probably many will know what it is from the trip report anyway. The canoe rental guy asked me if I wanted to do the 16 mile trip or the 20 plus mile trip. It was 9 AM, and I already knew I was going to do the long one. So a short while later he put me in. The river was, in reality, too low to float up here, probably flowing no more than 40-50 cfs. And as usual with this water, it was almost as clear as air. I called Mary before pushing off to tell her I'd made it to the river, and she said she had a feeling I was going to catch 100 bass this day. I wasn't so sure. I knew the habitat wasn't all that great this far up. I'd be in better habitat by the afternoon, but I didn't really expect to catch a lot of fish before then. Under these conditions, my go-to lures are always a walk the dog topwater--a smaller one for this smaller water, a buzzbait, and my homemade twin spin. The topwater started getting some action from small fish. The buzzbait wasn't working. The twin spin was doing a bit better than the topwater. I got into the groove of picking up the twin spin in the current below the riffles, and fishing the topwater in the slower water. Everything was small; before I stopped for lunch, the biggest I'd caught was no more than 14 inches. But action was steady, and I had caught over 40 fish by then. It was also about 2 PM, and I wasn't even close to the tributary that would come in and improve the habitat. I pulled up on a gravel bar, dived into the water to cool off, and then called Mary while I ate, to tell her I wasn't quite on schedule to catch 100 but I was doing okay. Lunch seemed to change things. I was in a bit better habitat, but suddenly the bigger fish started taking the twin spin very regularly. All were in current below riffles, often without cover. Then I got my first big one, a beautiful 18.5 incher on the twin spin. I had swirls from a couple more big fish. I caught a number of 15-16 inchers. The twin spin was magic. Then I got to the tributary. Suddenly the twin spin wasn't working, and neither was much of anything else. I was in civilized water, though I didn't see any people until I came upon a raft with two couples in it. I said hi as I passed them, and then started fishing a nice rocky run just downstream. I'd switched back to the walk the dog topwater, a Sammy, and a big smallie blasted in only 50 yards downstream from the rafters. I heard one of them say, "Look, he's got a fish!" The smallmouth jumped completely out of the water. "It's a BIG fish!" I lipped it. "Holy cow, it must weigh six pounds!" Umm...no, it was a 17.5 incher that probably weighed 2.5, but they cheered as if I'd broken a record. That seemed to break the ice again. I started catching fish like crazy. I put on a Whopper Plopper and it was money for a while, and easier and faster to fish than the Sammy. It was getting late and I needed to get past the civilized water to find a secluded campsite. The sun was down when I selected my camp and checked my phone. One bar. Mary had made me swear to call her if I had reception. I couldn't get a call to go through but I texted her. "Failure...I only caught 99." The mosquitoes drove me into my tent at dark after I'd eaten cold fried chicken and potato salad. It was almost too hot for the tent, but it was better than the bugs. The night was perfectly clear, and dew was heavy on the tent when I crawled out of it at daybreak. Instead of waiting for the tent to dry and eating breakfast, I just broke it down, threw everything in the canoe, and was on the water in 15 minutes to take advantage of early morning fishing. But a half hour later I'd only caught one small bass. Nothing was working. As the sun climbed, I tried several topwater lures, buzzbaits, the Whopper Plopper, my homemade version, the twin spin. Mary called me and somehow the call went through. I told her it didn't look like even a 50 fish day today, I'd only caught 6 fish by that time. I stopped about 9 AM to eat some breakfast of Little Debbie cakes and cold tea, and got the tent out to set it up in the sun to dry. It was HOT already. I jumped into the water to cool off. I had about 7 miles to go, and the fishing had been pretty bad. To be honest, I don't know what made me try it. You see, I have such confidence in the twin spin in super clear water that I never fish any other kind of spinnerbait. I'd never done well with ordinary spinnerbaits in those conditions...but maybe that's because I hadn't fished one in those conditions in a LONG time. Anyway, I decided to tie on a double willow leaf spinnerbait. I didn't have much faith, but about the third cast I caught a fish. Then another. Another. That spinnerbait was pure gold. Fish after fish. Big fish. Fast water. Slow water. My first big one was a 19 incher. A half hour later I beat it with a 19.5. A 17. A 17.5. Then I stopped for lunch. And when I got back on the water, the magic was gone. Oh, I was still catching some fish on the spinnerbait but nothing big anymore. Finally, I gave up on it and picked up my topwater rod with the Sammy. First cast, wham, an 18 incher. But then not much else. So what the heck, I decided to go back to the twin spin...and IT was now magic. Fish after fish. It was a nondescript run, gravelly clay bank with scattered sunken brush from bank erosion, gentle current, running a couple hundred yards. I wasn't fishing as carefully as I should have been, and I let the canoe get a little too close to one piece of brush. The cast was just too short. The twin spin came away from the brush, and then this massive dark bronze form came out of the brush after it. The huge smallmouth was within inches of the lure when it saw the canoe. It was one of the biggest smallies I've seen in a while, well over 20 inches, probably close to 22, and very wide across the back; that's what struck me the most about that fish, it looked like it was 6 inches wide in the water. I thought about resting it and then trying for it with something else, but didn't do it; I've never had success doing that. I was a bit bummed, figuring I'd missed my chance at a truly big fish. Certainly I'd missed the only big one in that run... 50 feet farther downstream the twin spin landed up against the sloping gravelly bank, not really a good-looking spot, but as I started the retrieve the lure stopped dead. I set the hook and saw the broad side of another big fish. People say the big ones don't fight as well as smaller ones. This one didn't read that memo. It drove deep, closer to the canoe, then came up out of the water in one of the most spectacular leaps I've ever seen a big bass make, clearing the surface by more than 3 feet and landing within a few feet of the canoe, the jump having covered at least 5 feet horizontally. I didn't think I'd ever get that fish in. But I finally lipped it. It was over 20 inches on my paddle blade; I'd say 20.5, give or take an eighth inch. That was when things slowed down one more time. I had action from one more big fish the last couple miles of the float. It happened in a very deep bluff pool, and I was fishing the bluff side when I saw just a hint of a wake over toward the other side, though still in fairly deep water. I made a long cast with the Sammy, and on the third twitch there was a huge swirl. I kept walking. Another swirl, then one more. The fish never got hooked. I don't know how big it was, but the swirl weighed five pounds! I didn't make 100 fish this day, either, but after that slow start I ended up with 81. Not bad.

Just saw this...beef tongue is one of my absolute favorite meats. Mary's family butchers their own beef, and fortunately for me, none of them like the tongue, so I get them all, usually about 7 or 8 tongues each year. Mary won't eat it either, so when she fixes it for me, it's all mine, and I get three or four meals from one tongue. It only gets better with re-heating. We did pork tongues one time since they also butcher their own pork some years. It wasn't quite as good as beef tongue, but was still pretty good. Usually, though, the pork tongues go into the head cheese kettles.

My wife has made jelly from about everything you can think of. Blackberry jelly is a staple for us. Wild grape jelly is terrific. We are now working on eating a bunch of jars of serviceberry jelly from berries picked out in Montana, and it's terrific. She made persimmon butter one time and it was wonderful, but tried it two more times since, and apparently got a few not quite ripe enough persimmons in the batch, because the butter turned out to be a little astringent. She made rose hip jelly one time and it was excellent, but it takes a lot of picking to get enough rose hips. Made wild cherry jelly several times. Elderberry a few times when we can find enough. Same with gooseberries. I eat a lot of jelly, and it's probably been 35 years since we actually bought jelly.

If the trout are not turned off by the hook point coming out of the butt of that bug, they probably won't be turned off by the line coming off the hook. However...I almost always use a two nymph set-up when fishing out West, but do it slightly differently than many. I first tie on a piece of tippet to the end of my leader that's about 18 inches long. Then I tie the first fly, usually a bead head something or other, about 6-8 inches down that piece of tippet, using a palomar knot (as long as the eye of that nymph is big enough to get the doubled line through it). The palomar is an exceedingly simple and effective knot that I can tie in my sleep. When I tie it, there will be a long tag end left, like 10-12 inches. So I just tie my second fly, usually a smaller one or often a soft hackle, to the end of that long tag end. Saves time, because it's one less knot to tie. I add split shot just above the knot where that piece of tippet attaches to the leader, and the knot keeps the shot from slipping. So I have shot, then 6-8 inches to the first fly, and 10-12 inches more to the second fly. I haven't noticed any difference in my catch rate doing it this way compared to when I used to tie a separate piece of tippet to the bend of the first fly. Hopper-droppers are classic out West. Everybody uses them on the Yellowstone in hopper season. I tie them the same way as I do the two nymph set-up, and my dropper fly is usually a small bead-head, the bead-head helping to sink the dropper fly. But I also often use a hopper with a small dry fly like an Adams or a caddis imitation, and I also use a bigger attractor dry fly with a very small one at times when the fish are taking something small. It's so hard to see size 16 and smaller dry flies that I want that big fly so that I can see it easily and watch the water around it to see a fish taking the tiny fly.

One thing that might mess with your depth perception with prescription sunglasses compared to your regular glasses, is that if the sunglasses are wrap-around, the lenses that curve a bit around your head, while your regular glasses are more straight across, it will make a significant difference. I once had a pair of prescription sports goggles that wrapped around my face, and there was no way I could shoot a basketball with those things.

Can't imagine why anybody would tell you to stick with a prop for fishing. The motor is just to get you to whatever spot you want to fish, and it doesn't matter what kind it is as long as it gets you there. Inches deep sounds good, but with any prop motor, you need to have the prop in the water fully to go anywhere, and that means at the very least 8-12 inches. A properly set up jet will run in less than 6 inches. The old timers ran Current River below Two Rivers in prop boats, but they knew the river exceedingly well and carried a lot of spare shear pins!

It had been since sometime in June that I'd actually been in the solo canoe on an Ozark float trip, and it was driving me nuts. I really planned to do my annual 3 day solo trip this week, but first the cabin we're building needed attention, and I had to be around to pick up Mary from the airport on Monday, and then I saw the latest weather forecast calling for all kinds of rain and thunderstorms. I don't care to try a multi-day trip with that kind of forecast. So yesterday appeared to be my only window of opportunity for the week. A simple float on one of my favorite sections of my home river was in order. Well, it started out okay. I caught four bass right at the put-in. Then in the next riffle, which almost always produces one or two fish, though often small, I got nothing but a tiny spotted bass. The next pool has gotten progressively deeper and better looking in the last 10 years, to the point where it has produced a couple of 20 inch class smallies for me, but I fished all the way down it with nothing but a swipe from a small largemouth...until I reached the lower end, shallowing out, one more cast, probably a waste of time...and a 19.5 inch largemouth engulfed my twin spin. The next three pools all produced nice largemouth, every one of them right at the lower end. A pattern of sorts, but where were the smallmouth? The pattern was broken in the next pool, when the largemouth hit in the middle of it...and it was significantly bigger than that first one, coming completely out of the water to smash my walk the dog lure, the only good fish all day that hit the topwater. But I don't know exactly how big because it came loose after a short tussle. I finally caught a decent 14 inch smallmouth farther down that pool. But the fishing had gotten really slow for the most part. And I was having plenty of frustrations. Tangled lures. Leaves on the water--it was a somewhat windy day. The wind also made canoe positioning to fish problematical, and I wasn't used to dealing with it. Then my line somehow went completely through the split ring on my twin spin. And shortly afterward, did it again on the belly hook of a Whopper Plopper that I was trying with little success. I hooked a nice largemouth and it got tangled in a dangling grapevine in fast water and broke off. I hooked another nice but not huge fish, and it somehow bent the snap I was using open and made off with my lure. Then the line in the split ring thing happened a third time, on a spinnerbait as I reeled in another nice largemouth. I kicked a rod overboard and had to retrieve it. It seemed like every few minutes I was cussing to myself about something for a while. But finally I settled down, began to fish more efficiently, and also stopped going at it like I was killing snakes and just enjoyed the river. It was hot, the wind was still annoying, but a couple dips in the river and that wind kept me cool by evaporation for quite a while. But the fishing seemed to remain slow. I know this section of river so well I can almost pick the spots where I'll catch a nice fish, but those spots weren't producing well, and the smallmouth were exceedingly slow. The fishing gets better the farther you go downstream on this float, and when I passed the halfway point I expected it to pick up, especially since the very best pool for big fish in the whole stretch was coming up. But the doofus landowner had decided to muck up the willow-covered gravel bar at the head of this pool with a bulldozer, and had changed the upper end considerably. I still caught the best smallmouth of the day there, a 15 incher, but it no longer looked like a big fish spot. Farther down the pool, expecting a few good smallmouth, I was only able to muster a couple more largemouth, though one was a 17 incher. The pool and run below that one is almost as good, but produced nothing but a couple small fish. So the fishing never did get really good. In fact, I was somewhat disappointed overall with it, until I realized, with a mile to go, that I'd caught 70 bass altogether. I caught only one more in that last mile, though, as I paddled through much of it to be at the take-out on time for Mary to pick me up. It actually was a great day for largemouth...I caught 27 of them, and more than half were over 14 inches. I caught 26 spotted bass, with a couple nice ones. And 18 smallmouth. I caught fish on the twin spin, my homemade crankbait, the HD Craw, a few on the Whopper Plopper and a few more on my homemade version of it. So heck, it was actually a pretty darned decent day. Maybe I was just disappointed that more of them weren't smallmouth, or that I never saw a big smallie.

I suspect a lot of it is locational tradition. In other words, the river boats have been used for a long time in the White River country, and people there are used to seeing them and so consider them a viable option. You DON'T see them much on other rivers in Missouri, so nobody in those areas thinks of them. As for which would be better, the jet boats will handle shallower water easier, while you can actually paddle a river john like some of the river boats. You're relegated to using a trolling motor to fish with most if not all jet boats. On the other hand, you don't NEED an "oversized" jet motor. A 40 hp (40/30) or 60 hp (60/40...the lower number is the actual horsepower rating at the business end, since jet motors aren't efficient enough to get the full hp rating in operation) will do just fine on smaller boats like 16 to 18 footers. You won't go real fast but you'll get there, and you'll be going fast enough to get into trouble getting there if you're not careful.