tjm

The dam doesn't make any water, whatever water there is, is what there is. It's not a flood control dam nor used to store water, it's just there to raise the head height. Dam removal would not take any water out of the river's flow, it would mean that some lake front property becomes 'lost in the woods' property, but it would also mean that floaters would not have to portage the dam, and that the river would become wild again over time. Take out Bagnell too and over enough time the eels might return to Niangua River. The USGS gage shows 282CFS and that should be plenty for a float, it's more than twice what Little Sugar is flowing and everyone says it's floatable. I doubt that they allow floating through the construction though, so during that time you'd be right about no floating.

Potato Planting Day! It's always a marvel to me how many people become both Irish and Catholic that one day each year. I have thought that bars/pubs should not not have parking lots. Only loading zones, make it part of the building code or licensing requirements. Area Pub Crawls should sponsor a trolley bus transport for the revelers, with constant bus circulation the party could make the rounds two or three times to all the participating pubs.

Better on the river perhaps than on the highway? The argument could made that no place is a good place to be blotto? Such people always need a babysitter no matter where they are?

You think the party people are not part of the public that has access to the gravel for recreation? A party is recreation, isn't it?

The foresters always look at marketable timber and burn scars hurt the $ value of a forest. What they didn't always realize is that the longer between burns, the more fuel is accumulated and the greater the damage. Every year burns would prevent almost all fire damage, but would have so little fuel that it would be hard to keep the fire going, three years has just about the right amount of fuel for a sustained fire with minimum damage, and that is slowly being taught to the state foresters, younger ones learn faster than the people that grew up with Smokey. I think that if we had a time machine and went back to about 1800 that we'd find very little timber across the Ozarks by comparison to today. My grandfather told me that when he was a boy, 1890s, all this local forest was savanna, and that his father told him it was almost all prairie during the Civil War. When Henry Schoolcraft explored the Ozarks 1818 he is said to have carried a packhorse load of campfire wood with him because of distance between stands of trees.

Old timers used to burn parts of the land every three years on rotation to prevent worse fires and to promote grass and wild berries. And March was usually when they burned. So if 1/3 of the Ozarks is burning, that's just about right. Huckleberries need fires and blackberries, raspberries like fires. Three years more or less fits their cycle and doesn't allow too much accumulation of fuel, fire prevention is bad for healthy forestland. Smokey Bear should be skinned and made into a rug. Try not to pick a wind storm day to burn though, as you do want to contain the burn.

A "funny story", when I lived in the east, I had been there 8-10 years and was an avid fly fisher when one of the national fishing magazines did a feature story about fly fishing (using "shad darts") for shad as they made their spawning run up a river three miles from my house, and before reading that article I had not been aware that anyone ever fly fished that river or that it was a "destination". In the past the shad had been so numerous there that a shad processing factory had stood there. I had heard of the "Shad Factory Pond" and knew that salt anglers dip netted bait fish there. After reading that, I did stop there a few times each year until we moved, but I never caught it when the shad were active; I did talk to guys that had caught them and they said that if anyone shouts 'fish on' that everyone else should reel up and get out of the water as the shad tend to make several long fast runs and the angler would have to chase it. Since that time the shad have declined to the point that the last time I checked, likely 20 years ago, there was doubt that shad were still returning there. Shad are said to have been George Washington's favorite food, and may have saved his troops from starvation.

I've forgotten the details, but shad was the biggest or one of the biggest exports from the USA for a hundred years or so. A IIRC the decline of shad along the east coast was one of the reasons for establishing the US Fish Commission in 1871, the same folks that brought us common carp and brown trout from Germany, and redband trout from California.

Too late. Pears are too wide spread now for even fully coordinated landowner and government efforts to do anything about them. Think Mimosa, Sericea Lespedeza, Kudzu, Burdock and almost all other Eurasian species. When is an introduced species change status from "introduced" to "invasive" to "naturalized" or "established"? How is that determination made?

As I said, no belief that all those streams claimed to fit Elder really do. How? do you do water samples and lab work on the streams you fish? Mo has no laws keeping streams open to the public, just a presumption that most streams would fit a case law precedent if so tested; and as outlined above it is thought that many would not pass that test in court. If there is enough doubt that the courts would rule a stream to fit the Elder standards that we don't want such cases; then it can be presumed that those streams are not legally public thoroughfares. What is fact is that no stream is a public thoroughfare in Mo. until it is tested in court, with the exception of the federally navigable rivers. A number of smaller streams have been tested in court and now are legally public thoroughfares, but on the rest we are there at the landowners pleasure, mostly because they too fear the outcome of a court test. A coalition of anglers and floaters could raise the funds to take one stream at a time through the court process. So what if the county court rules adversely, that is what appeals courts are for.

Thanks for bringing this up @Ham, I won't be over there where you are, but I will try to stop by the one in Springdale.

I imagine that happens a lot and is the primary reason that all Mo, streams have not been in court and opened up. Until someone does take it through the process, the access remains questionable enough that landowners and deputies can restrict access somewhat by various means. If the landowner just once fails to drop the charges, then the court has to do an Elder-Delcour determination. ButI think that they can involve the law a thousand times to remove people that are allegedly trespassing because the stream laws are vague and later drop the charges and the stream stays a "maybe".

I once watched lightening run from nail to nail on partially stripped concrete forms 30-40' inside a building and within inches of my workmate's hard hat, out the window opening and into the sky. It does have a peculiar smell to it. My uncle was opening a barbwire gate in the rain when the unseen lightening juice ran through his bridle reins and killed his horse dead. Unpredictable stuff. @dan hufferd that is pole barn erection machine. Drill the holes, set the poles, and swing the trusses.

So no real belief that the popular interpretation of Elder is legally correct.

Any thing that is suspected as being not legal should be taken to court. Any creek that has not been taken to court can be assumed to not be public access just as easily it can be assumed to be public access. Get up a case and press for a ruling. Do that for any creek that we want to access. Once the courts make a ruling, there is no longer any doubt and the landowners will know where they stand.

104 week end days 8 Federal days 10+ vacation days 5+ personal days 6+ sick days =133 days or about 4.4 months that most Americans have free time off and they still think it takes a time change to allow time for golf.

That's when I'm least likely to visit them as they are closed during the week and crowded on the weekends.

You won't need the trout permit at Bennett or RRSP until C&R during the winter, this time of year it's all daily tags in the parks. Need on Taney year round though. Only need it to keep trout on other waters. I'm an out of stater in Ar and need a trout permit on all the trout waters there. And I need to renew that too, just in case I wander over the state line.

well he does very poorly there, but we don't know if that is his best or just a show, the next ten shots might make one ragged hole. I'm skeptical that anyone carrying a gun would shoot that badly when serious, but then I don't know the guy, so maybe ....

More reason not to laugh at or taunt him, with that poor shooting, folks could accidentally die. Laughing at a man with a gun could be construed as suicidal behavior. Of course the display or brandishing of a gun is illegal, and this guy is lucky that no charges resulted, but in the case of an accident, the dead person won't care that the shooter may be prosecuted, he'll just be dead. It won't matter if alcohol, drug use, or line breeding played a part, accidentally dead is still dead. Guns deserve respect and you should never assume that the user won't accidentally commit homicide. Especially if he is outnumbered or feels threatened.

Griffith's even though some maps get it wrong.

My familiarity with the local creeks only goes back to the early 1950s, but yes there were 'roads' built on the ROW adjacent the bigger bridges and parking under them as well as pullout parking built by the highway department in some areas. MODOT closed, removed, and/or posted all the accesses on the state highways in this area, including areas where the roads and creeks run parallel and adjacent, over the past 30 years or so and back when it first started I was told (by the backhoe operator doing the work) that it was at the request of the canoe rental places, they wanted control of where and how many floaters were on the streams, and the revenue from liveries. I never confirmed that, but I later heard similar from other sources. I've seen deputies ticketing cars on the county roads and I've seen vehicles towed away from a couple of the low water crossings. My family has been in this area for ~150 years and I still find it prudent to knock on doors and confirm that it's still okay to use the land. Not all the current landowners are "natives" that might know the family, and not all are nice, but they do own the land under the creeks and they get taxed for it at the same rate as if were crop land. And, about the "high water mark"; I'm not sure that's in any law, but, on a creek that normally is less than 30' wide, the annual floods (some years several floods) can easily put the high water marks 400'-600' apart and no angler needs to be 200 yards from the water, it might be better to talk about use of the clean washed gravel rather than the high water mark that covers whole fields, if we want to get along with the landowners. @Al Agnew what is your interpretation of Elder as pertains to "intermittent streams" or to streams that have run dry at least once in the past 50-60 years?

USPS is setup for self-destruction by those in charge, enjoy it while it lasts.

Part of Elder v Delcour, and it may be the most important part, is that per an old Federal case, each and every stream must be judged on it's own merits to find if it meets the public thoroughfare requirements. that means that unless a particular stream has been in a Court and determined to be a public thoroughfare, it can be argued that it is not one. I don't think any of the Elk drainage has been adjudicated in a Court, but I'm not sure of that. On another note, I'm not sure there are any " legal bridge accesses" in McDonald county as most of them are posted "No Parking" and at all that I can think of the road easement is no wider than the road. The county road that I use has only a 30' easement/row, and in most places the fences make that smaller. The degree of harassment encountered seems to vary a little with who is the county sheriff at the time, and also who is the prosecutor; and what they will take to court.

He's absolutely right with this. There are about vaguely worded 20-50 questions that they ask every time I visit the VA and all are to prove you are a danger either to yourself or to others. An intended humorous answer is taken as being serious and will require followup questions. The correct answers are (if you want to walk out at the end of the session) 'I feel great' "my pain level is manageable'' " I sleep well" I'm not afraid of my spouse or family" I feel safe" "75 ain't old"