tjm

L.Sugar is now down to 1560 CFS after peaking ~3550 and the low water bridge will reappear at ~500. We might need rain again in 3-4 weeks.

Put a mink in the boat it will kill and eat the muskrats.

Yeah we had plenty of rain by a day or two ago, all that has fallen in the past 48 hours is wasted runoff. That creek is up to 2,580 CFS from 48 CFS

In my mind all modern trout are artificial. In the few places where indigenous trout remain, I think most species have been contaminated by stocking of other species or subspecies. Hard to justify protecting a fish that exists only to be stocked for recreational use. If my memory serves, there were no native trout east of the Mississippi, only the two chars; brook trout and lake trout. Rainbow Trout and the char Dolly Varden were native only to the streams draining directly into the Pacific. The Great Basin and the Rockies had only Cutthroat trout and and the char Bull Trout. Browns were strictly European. As were the common carp that were imported at the same time. I was going to refresh my memory but apparently the USGS no longer has a website.

If the Federal stocking is in mitigation of the lost native fisheries, as I think it is, the Feds would be legally obligated to furnish trout from some other source. A certain number of trout annually is typically a part of the negotiations when the Army wants to build a dam that has out flow cold enough to kill the native fishery. I'm not sure that is true on the White and the Northfork, but presume that it is.

From here in the rocking chair, it sounds like time to install a cooling unit and an air compressor. Might cost a bit but if this is an ongoing condition of the lake, then the alternative would be to convert the hatchery to producing crappie. It does sound like the tailwater itself is marginal for trout survival though if it is getting water at the same depth and conditions.

Greer https://waterwatch.usgs.gov/?m=real&r=mo

Some people would say oh no, no, wild trout are different; or oh no this river is special because it's a "spring creek" and you have to use 18' leaders with triple aerial mends. But I'll bet you are right trout are pretty much fish brained and try tasting everything to see if it is food. I guess I didn't find those short stretches.

Enforcement costs money and is pretty scarce everywhere, I can't recall the last time I saw an Agent in the park at RR and although I saw agents on streams three times last year (the first in several years) none of them asked me for a license. I did notice that they were in pairs which didn't used to be the case.

Nope, just telling it like I saw it. People lined up wading into the stream and following each other down river a step at a time to get out and repeat. Other people "Fly fishing" with spinning rods. The prettiest part of the park stream was the bait area as best I recall. I think we stayed there in passing three times in the mid/late '80s and I never went back until year before last and again last spring. From my perspective it's just as bad now as it was then. The pool was DNR and had zilch to do with fishing and dredging and chairs take away from fishing. That's one of the things MDC did to down grade RRSP is extensive dredging and stream modification in the lower section of the Park. But I was probably spoiled at that time having been fishing in the North East for 9-10 years, where it was rare to see two other anglers on any given piece of water other than the Bay. And none of the streams had been "improved" or "maintained" since the mills stopped using water power.

Doesn't that park have a stream nearby that is more or less wild and natural where a person could actually fly fish? I've always considered the parks as "almost fly fishing", because there are always other people in the way. 3/4s of which will walk right into a fly line. Or cast a spinner across your line. Some day I will learn to dangle a fly under a bobber, but so far it hasn't worked for me. I try that method once or twice a year whenever I find a nice bobber by the creek. The same with those balls, I've been picking them at RRSP up in mint condition for 40 years and try all of the ones I find, but have yet to catch a single fish with one. It's crazy, because I've seen hundreds of trout caught by both those methods. I've even asked others exactly how to set up a bobber rig. I think the first time that I fished BSSP was in the mid '80s and it did not have any "real fly fishing" even then. It's why I've been back there so infrequently since. I did kill some good sized trout, but it was not "fun". Montauk was nicer than BSSP back then with some green stuff and bushes by the stream, but the fish were smaller on the days I was there. Truth is you can't have thousands of people walking back and forth without destroying the vegetation and eventually the banks. And I appreciate the Parks most for the fact that they keep all those people in one place, leaving the White Ribbon areas and "warm" streams for antisocials like myself. We need to plant more stinging nettle.

Well, yes the limit is now 4. But the fish are not the Park when it comes to talking about upkeep or improvement, the number of vehicles and the number of people dumping trash or using the toilets etc. would affect Park maintenance expense and need for personnel, but those would be on the DNR. Some days at RRSP the dog walkers and hikers have outnumbered the anglers and they have no qualms about dragging their dogs and leashes through the fishing areas. None of those users buy tags but they all cause park wear and tear. Hatchery maintenance, improvement and fish quality, on the other hand are MDC's responsibility and expense. I'm confused about what your complaints target, are you disappointed in the fish or in the park management? I'm quite curious how the daily tag money is divided up, part to the concessionaire, part to DNR, part to MDC, or does the concessionaire keep it all? and how big are the parts? Why do we have the same guy as concessionaire at multiple parks and why doesn't that change every year with a bid process?

Well that's too bad, RRSP tore out all the tent sites and converted them to concrete parking for those things. Pulled out all the trees that they had planted 30 years ago too, digging electric and water lines. I haven't been over there for months but I suppose the whole place is now as interesting as a Walmart Parking lot. One of the things that I hate about BSSP is having to see the massive parking lot near the stream. They need to tear the bridges out not improve them. Wrench's comment had me thinking about how pleasantly run RRSP was in the 80s-00s and how shabby it seems now, rather like wench's view of BSSP. and wondering if it was DNR spoiling the place or just We The People trashing it.

Would you say that those years of the 70-90s had more users than today?

Maintaining the park falls on DNR, MDC just deals with the fish and the hatchery. Perhaps some stream work that would affect the fish. Any decision about maintaining the park would be one of to do or not to do by DNR which is politically dependent so on the Politicians.

That's a surprise. I would have thought they'd just pile on more time and more money. That is the usual route with low bid construction. Some contractors seem to count on it when bidding. No surprise that the subs are pulling out though they have no contract with the state and the GC is their paymaster. If the GC goes there's nothing left for any of the subs. Probably double the cost of the project by the time another contractor is found and all the work done over, or least fully inspected and repaired, Might take years as has been said, and it might take decades. Entertaining to speculate anyway. Shame that governments use low bidders rather than qualified bidders.

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2668 The folks in Marionville will dispute that. There was a population of the black squirrels near Bella Vista along L.Sugar Creek in the Caverna/Jane area for years, I don't know if they are still or not.

The hard brown paper towels that you sometimes see in public toilets work better than any soft towel, I think, The coffee filters sound like winner.

they just got into the graffiti while the paint was still wet. i saw a cat jump up on a fresh painted bench and lay down. Both the painter and cat owner were into the bad words.

Not much difference between flyrodding for SMB and and flyrodding for trout. They eat all the same foods and live in similar water. Reading the water is going to require the same skills and figuring out the presentation angles is the same set of problems. Anywhere in the Ozarks is a good place to fly fish with the possible exception of the reservoirs. It can be a bit hazardous to wade when boats are flying by and throwing wakes.

There is a ramp just below the dam. And I have seen boats come up from down river, perhaps from another ramp down about three miles at Bertrand access. But there is a safety zone adjacent to the dam.

All stockers, some are holdovers but they were hauled there too. It's been a decade or two since I fished there regularly, but back then I always caught trout on flies between the dam and Parker and my bait fishing son in law caught bigger trout near Spider Creek. IMO the area is only fit for put and take because it is as Ollie put so scoured out and because the water fluctuates so frequently apparently without schedules. That doesn't lead to great fertility or food growth. And to add to Ollie's list of reasons not to go there, on two occasions the water came up very fast with no warning that I heard. It was kinda scary for a few minutes. When they started trying to mange it as some kind of special fishery, I thought that they had lost the plot. But even back then the guys doing the shocking were finding quite few large trout with one they said exceeded 16#, so some found enough food to grow. The best quality NWA trout fishing back then was in western Benton county in places we can no longer fish or that have been built over.

I think practicing the fly cast should be done in a non-fishing situation, so that you can concentrate on one thing at a time. When I started fly fishing back in the '70s catching fish on the fly was so easy that it took me almost twenty years to learn to cast and I'm still not very good at it. Fish are a major distraction. If you want to catch fish and the spinners are working , just keep doing that. On the other hand if fly casting interests you, lock the spinning rod in the attic, leave it there until you master the fly rod. Take a casting lesson or two and cut the hook off a couple of practice flies, then make those nice casts into muscle memory before going after fish again. When you do go fly rod fishing, the most important thing is not your cast, but where you stand, the location of your feet make the angle and distance of the cast good or bad. And nothing can really fix a bad casting position except moving to where the water is helping rather than hindering your presentation. On whether Rockbridge is worth the price or not, that's up to the individual, it would not be to me, I would not even drive there to fish if it was free because I'd have to pass too many other streams to get there, but it obviously is to each and all of their satisfied customers. And if I were spending that $210 day as a means of learning, I'm sure that I'd be better off to put up some more $$$ and find a guide willing to give instruction. It's good that you enjoyed the outing and now you have an idea of what you like and if you even like trout fishing.

If you smoke in the car/truck and want to clean that film off the windshield, you can use rubbing alcohol/isopropyl to cut it off pretty quick, just soak a paper towel and scrub and repeat, the do the vinegar spray on or wipe on with a clean rag and polish dry with the newspaper. Microfiber or some brands of paper towel might work but I not had good results with either. .

White vinegar and newsprint. (black and white print pages only)