Project Healing Waters

Now here's a great idea from a fly angler who just loves to travel and fish on a budget. Pros and business owners aren't allowed to post. But consumer-anglers review and rate guides, outfitters, lodges, fly shops, fishing destination campgrounds, and more. Pros and owners are encouraged to get their customers to participate...and it's global in scope. Here's the link. I have ZERO affiliation with the website.

I guarantee you...along with every single hydrologist on Earth...that a diluted form of that sewage is making it to Taneycomo. How diluted is the question. And if DNR has issued citations and referred it to the AG with a recommendation for fines I strongly suspect there have been tests done. Law of physics: liquids seek their own level. Thus, ALL liquids flow DOWN through ALL watersheds until they reach the ocean...period. "We all live downstream."

This subdivision is at the top of Skyline Drive up on the hill overlooking Hwy 165 on the same side of the highway as the fly shops, Welk Resort, etc. If you are familiar with the topography, this is an unnamed "ditch" that runs from there down to Taneycomo roughly in the area of Fall Creek. This area is not inside the city limits of Branson, and falls under the jurisdiction of Taney County. And it has long been a source of shoddy infrastructure, blighted neighborhoods, and shady deals regarding utilities. Everything up there is also solid rock. There is very little soil. So there is no such thing as a septic tank or small-scale sewage treatment facility that is going to work properly. These small systems (that keep getting approved by Taney County) rely upon leach-fields. But you can't run a small leach-field array in nothing but rock and expect it to work. It's a cosmetic solution that meets the inadequate standards of the law, but that doesn't actually accomplish what the law was intended to do. But make no mistake about it: this sewage IS entering Taneycomo near or at Fall Creek...perhaps further upstream than that.

Yes, the diameter is actually more important than the strength rating (which is HIGHLY subjective anyway when expressed as an X-factor). I look for the best possible combination of 3 factors: lower price per foot, smaller diameter, and higher test rating. I also see some differences in performance across the board, but they not only vary BY brand, but WITHIN the brand. Some batches are better than others...some have not been transported or stored properly. Personally, I think the best combination of the above factors for ME is Orvis Mirage. But if I could buy Rio Fluoroflex for the same price per foot as I can Orvis Mirage, I would buy Rio. They can keep Froghair. I won't buy Cortland. I won't buy "off-brands." And I just can't even think about affording Seagar/Maxima products...nor do I like the way they are packaged/grouped.

The warmer the water, the lower the DO...all other things being equal. However, temperature is neither the only thing impacting DO, nor is it a problem for trout below 70 degrees. But the water coming through TRD has decent DO at very cold temps and poor DO as soon as it starts to warm a few degrees. It is a correlation, not necessarily a causative relationship. Brown and Rainbow trout can handle much warmer water than is in the upper end of Taneycomo. But they can't deal with the low DO. That's like us trying to live in a thin atmosphere. They don't get enough O2. Thus, exertion wears them out very quickly. Lactic acid builds quickly in fish when they are trying to escape the hook. With low DO, this happens faster...more severely. This build-up of lactic acid can be fatal to fish. For us, it makes our muscles sore. Low DO also causes them to move less to feed and slows digestion. Keep that up for long enough, and fish starve. It is correct that in most trout streams around North America, the water temps are considered "ideal" in the mid-50's to mid-60's. But that is because of higher base-line levels of DO at those temps. The cold water coming off of the bottom of our lakes and thus through our dams into our tailwater trout fisheries is comparatively oxygen-depleted. Thus, a minor change in temp of that water changes its oxygen-bearing capacity enough to turn that water from good trout water to poison.

Yes, fluorocarbon tippet has a higher density than water while monofilament generally does not. Fluorocarbon's refractive index is almost identical to clear water's. Thus, it doesn't "shine" in the water like mono does. These are facts. Beyond that, here are my OBSERVATIONS: 1. I can use a bit of floatant gel on the tippet after treating a fly to keep it afloat better. This doesn't work for hours, but it will work until you catch a few fish. Re-applying is no big deal. 2. One must be more careful to lube knots before cinching down with fluoro. It will cut through itself easier than good mono...all other things being equal. 3. Fluoro gets stress "kinks" easier than mono, which causes me to cut off and re-tie more often than when fishing with mono. 4. Split shot slides on fluoro moreso than mono. Have to use a single overhand knot to keep it in place. 5. The old wive's tale about not being able to tie fluoro-mono joiner knots is BS. Lube them and tie carefully and there is no difference. 6. I believe that fluoro generally lets me use one size larger tippet than if I were using mono to achieve the same detectability results. So, if I had to go down to 7X mono, I could get by with 6X fluoro. 7. If sink rate is important (faster water, etc.) when nymphing or fishing streamers, I use fluoro. It sinks faster...MUCH faster on an upstream wet fly presentation. This allows me to use less weight. 8. Fluorocarbon tippet is about the same price to produce as mono. So why the hell does it cost 3-4 times more at retail? That's BS. 9. If it hurts my dry fly fishing, I haven't noticed. Then again...refer to #1. I used to believe this and only used mono for dries. I catch more fish on dries now than I did back then. But that's not very scientific. Maybe I'm just better at it now? Maybe I do more of it now because I'm better at it now? Maybe I'm fishing better quality water now? All sorts of variables.

They get really line shy and start eating a lot of SURFACE insects. Small tippet and dry flies for the the fly fisherman fishing early and late are the keys. When you see a bunch of trout sitting in the current near the surface, that should tell you they are eating emergers and dries on or near the surface...tiny bugs. And the higher fishing pressure and direct sunlight of summer means you have to use lighter and lighter terminal tackle.

Boat or no boat: that is the question! If wading, I'd go to BS State Park below the dam or Rim Shoals at Cotter. I've had great success at both locations over the years. You may also want to spend one day on the Norfork tailwater. With a boat, I'd float Wildcat and maybe some of the others mentioned here.

Well, we can't contribute money, but I'm sure PHWFF's Southern Region will be good for some labor on such a project. Even wounded soldiers can get a lot of work done.

I stayed at Circle J with a group thing I did recently. It sucked. I can't think of anything good to say. Rocky sites, congested, difficult to park trailers (watched several near-disasters), no extra parking for vehicles if you tent camp, restaurant sucks, staff promises the moon with no intention of delivering, and the only people I worried about pilfering our campsite were the groundskeepers. One of our guys was taking a shower when a young COUPLE came in and decided to shower together in the men's showers. Getting clean was obviously not their only priority. While interesting, NOT A PLACE TO TAKE THE KIDDOS. And the teens were rowdy from sunset to sunrise every night.

Yesterday it was full of grass and algae and not fishing well at all. I fished several stretches between the dam bridge and the spring. The only thing I found productive was to find some pocket water out of the flow that was free of debris and sight fish to whatever fish were holding in there. Caught this little dude on a Red Fox Squirrel Nymph. He's a short but fat Brown that went about 3 lbs or so...maybe more. I'd say he was 19". Caught him on a 3wt full flex rod. So it was a pretty good tussle.

That would be a great addition both for conservation and access reasons. Hope it comes to pass.

We need to establish an annual fly fishing event in his honor and call it the Crackleback Festival or something like that. Ed was a big supporter of Project Healing Waters. Ironically, the board of Ozark Fly Fishers voted in favor of sponsoring a Project Healing Waters program at the VA hospital at Jefferson Barracks last night and signed the paperwork. I got the call first thing this morning. Last I heard, there were still several Project Healing Waters fly rods available for purchase at the store. For every one purchased, $25 goes to www.projecthealingwaters.org Rest in peace, Ed.

Good work by all parties. When these folks realize that modern tech means they are a camera phone msg away from a ticket whenever another angler is within line of sight, that will be like having thousands of more agents on the water. Word will spread, too. So this was a win for the good guys in spite of the lack of a citation.

Kevin, That pond was (I assume) entirely surrounded by your property. Thus, the pond was yours to control access to or not. Flowing waterways are NOT the same deal. This difference is universally accepted in law dating back to the middle ages in Europe and in North America from the earliest settlers. When you buy land along a stream, it's like buying land next to the highway. You cannot control what goes up/down the river. You cannot divert the water from the river for your private benefit. You can no more string a fence across the stream (even if you own both sides) than you could across a highway. And you cannot stand out there and harass people using the stream any more than you could stand by the highway and threaten people for driving by your house. Imagine a car load of young ruffians cruising your neighborhood. So long as they do not break the law, nobody has a right to try to stop them and they have every right to drive around on public roadways. (cruising ordinances notwithstanding because they are questionably constitutional themselves, but on municipal streets the feds won't challenge them) Are you going to stand out there on the edge of your lawn and yell at them and threaten to shoot them, throw rocks at them, or call the police to report that there are some people driving down the road in front of your house that you WISH weren't there? I think not. It is just as unreasonable and ignorant for a property owner to think they can control who uses the stream running through or adjacent to their property. But under NO CIRCUMSTANCE do I have a right to leave the stream and walk up into their yard without their permission. The line of demarcation is the mean high water mark...the historical spot where "high water" stops and flood water starts. In the encounter I recently had on the NFOW river, as soon as I told the landowner to leave me alone, he INSTINCTIVELY retreated (fast) off of the gravel bar and onto his GRASS (right above the mean high water mark). Then he wanted to stand there and argue with me about where the mean high water mark was. LMAO. He KNEW. He was bluffing and trying to bully people. You know why? He has a picnic table on the GRAVEL BAR that he enjoys sitting at in the evenings drinking beer and smoking combustible materials of a dubious nature. (pun intended) Floaters have, in the past, vandalized his picnic table. Ummmm...he's leaving a picnic table on PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE property. He has a right to do that because he owns the land to the center of the stream bed. BUT, he cannot keep the public from using that gravel bar by law. This is a CLASSIC case of how and why this conflict arises: a landowner over-reaching for his own enjoyment and stream users disprespecting private property. BOTH ARE WRONG. BOTH ARE ILLEGAL. Now I...fishing legally...wander along and get to deal with the bullying landowner. Well, I don't cotton to that kind of thing, myself. I didn't create the problem. I didn't make the problem worse. I am not a party to this long-standing feud over the picnic table and gravel bar. And it is ILLEGAL for him to harass me. So...unless he shows me a weapon...I ain't backing down. He threatened to call the cops. I said, "Please do. Somebody needs to explain the law to you because you are the one breaking the law." He didn't call. On my way back down stream, he had 2 lawn chairs and a cooler of beer on the gravel bar. As I approached, he reached out his hand, apologized, and invited me to sit and have a beer with him. I accepted the offer of hospitality. Turns out he is a retired navy master chief frogman who had volunteered the use of his property for an upcoming Project Healing Waters trip to the river. LOL When he asked me, "So, what kind of work do you do?" and I said, "I'm disabled. But I am the regional coordinator and founder of the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing program in the Ozarks..." I thought he was going to die of embarassment. LOL I drank two of his rare, imported beers and made a new "friend." I now have permission to use his HOUSE...let alone that gravel bar. Food for thought.

95% of the time, if you back-track just a bit from the "decision-point" you will find a shallow spot where you can cross without swimming. The shallow side is mostly on the inside bends. So it switches back and forth. But on that stretch of the Current, you won't have this problem. None of it is more than waist deep except for a few structural holes behind boulders and one shoot I can think of. But that shoot is shallow down both sides.

This ONLY establishes legal precedent in Utah. It has no bearing on MO or AR law other than an attorney could cite it to support his argument. But that isn't very persuasive in a MO court. Trespass on private property is a STATE issue. Thus, if you are cited for trespassing, you will face MO courts using MO law and legal precedent. However, the Freedom of Navigation Act addresses this issue on navigable waterways with well-established federal case law. Thus, if someone (private party OR government entity) denies you freedom of movement on a navigable waterway, YOU can sue THEM for a violation of your civil liberties in FEDERAL court. Furthermore, most attempts to deny such movement include an assault, terroristic threats, hunter/angler harassment, or even unlawful restraint. And most of these are higher crimes than trespassing. But...in MO and AR...if you are NOT on a known navigable waterway, you CANNOT legally set foot on the stream bed without landowner consent. Property in MO is owned to the "center of the stream bed." Look at some legal property descriptions on deeds. If the stream is a navigable waterway (meaning it was ever used for commercial navigation...including recreational activities for hire, floating logs or rafts of goods to market, or commercial trapping/fishing) then you have a right to walk/stand/wade on the stream bed below the MEAN (average) HIGH WATER MARK.

I grew up fishing the lakes of East Texas and those within striking distance of DFW. In my opinion, you have 4 types of lakes in Texas: big lakes, small lakes, poor lakes, and Caddo Lake. All but Caddo Lake are man-made impoundments. It is a very unique place, and offers an experience unlike anything else in the Lone Star State. Then you've got your big lakes like Fork, Toledo Bend, Sam Rayburn, Cedar Creek, etc. They all pretty much offer very similar fishing. There are big bass, big crappie, etc. in all of them. And there are miles and miles of water to explore. Small lakes by TX standards are those measuring less than 1,000 surface acres. Anything under 100 acres or so is a POND. The small lakes generally have excellent crappie, bream, and white bass (called sand bass in TX) fishing. But the true lunker largemouth bass of TX are (in my opinion) in farm ponds and lakes under 200 acres. And then there are the just plain bad lakes (for bass) like Palestine or Holbrook. Many of the non-tourist destination lakes actually offer a far better fishing experience than the big names do. Lake Hawkins, Lake Winsboro, Lake O The Pines, etc. There is one every few miles. And these are often the places you can have stellar days of bass or crappie fishing. These are lakes that tend to run in the 1,000 to 15,000 acre range. So, while people sit and discuss which is the best tourist lake in Texas so they can go compete with all the pros and weekend warriors, I'll take almost any lake in the 1,000 to 15,000 acre size range in East Texas any day over the big ones.

I heard that includes the trophy mounts/replicas...cash only...80% off...everything must go! LOL

I beg to differ. I fished from Tan Vat down and upstream all last week. I always catch a lot of nice trout from TV down to Baptist...starting just below Tan Vat. The dead spot...if there is one...is about 1/2 way between the two where the river gets really shallow for awhile. Upstream from Tan Vat is also productive along the bluff-side bank below the big bend in the river below the cabins. Upstream from there to Montauk is well known and well traveled. I caught a BUNCH of Browns and Rainbows between 15 and 20" on small mayfly nymphs 18-24" under a palsa foam indicator below TV and a fair number on size 14 parachute Adams. Best nymph was the size 16-18 bead head soft hackle red fox squirrel nymph. A size 16 bead head pheasant tail nymph was solid as well. Best fish of the week came in this section on a size 16 BH RFSN 20" under a palsa foam on 6X fluorocarbon tippet. It was a 20" Brown with hook jaw. Upstream from TV, the action was great on size 12 Stimulators and size 14 Adams and Patriots in the evenings. I caught ZERO small fish and was pushing something like 40-50 trout over 16" on three evenings of this (1-2 hours per evening). Again, you must use small tippet or you just scare the fish. The water is very clear. The Stimulators were truly big fish magnets and the trout were ATTACKING them, not sipping them. Big, splashy strikes on the drift were common. I used a classic upstream presentation. And while this water is fairly slow, it gets a bit tricky and technical. So the straight upstream presentation was the most productive. Smallest fish I caught on the Stimulator was 17" and largest was 20". And mostly Browns. I would always fish my way back downstream with a streamer that has produced well for me here before: sculpins, leeches, and buggers. I caught 2-3 fish TOTAL on the streamers. You need a really long cast and long leader to even think about being successful there right now on the streamers. The fish can see WAY upstream in addition to "hearing" you coming. And they get lock-jaw. Personally, I don't like to fish streamers on tippets smaller than 5X because of the break-offs. I did lose a few not counted in my total due to this...and I mean a FEW. None struck on the swing. Mind you, I have had excellent success on streamers in this stretch of the Current many times. Hatches were coming off relatively constantly, but heaviest in the mornings. Tricos and other larger mayflies were the soup du jour. There were decent midge hatches late in the evenings. Tricos dominated. But some mid-sized brown/gray mayflies were very obvious in late morning. Usually, when I spend 2 days or more fishing the Current, I spend some time downstream of Baptist. On this trip, I did not and I had my kayak. Why not? Fishing was too good upstream to abandon. Oh, I actually caught some sculpins on the small nymphs. LOL Based on what I saw, I'm going to increase the size of my sculpins down there from a size 8-10 to a size 4-6. And tie them in tan/brown combinations.

Correction: he WORKED in Michael's shop briefly. But I think enough has been said on this subject.

I agree with Troutloop. I wore vests for years...always had shoulder/neck pain after a full day of fishing. It often drove me off the water. Then I started testing WJ chest packs and other tech vests. The chest packs were an improvement in the pain department...especially WJ's. But I still had neck pain...no shoulder pain. (I have a damaged Superscapulary nerve from injuries and suffered a TBI in the military that make upper back pain a persistent issue for me) About two years ago, I decided to start testing fanny-style packs and the minimalist chest packs from multiple manufacturers. I found that the fanny pack is the way to go for me in the pain department...zero. They are also much cooler for summertime wear. BUT, I also figured out that I need a waterproof one. I don't fish deep, but in the Ozarks, you sometimes need to wade deep to get to a good fishing spot. In the non-waterproof department, I like the Clear Creek fanny pack for a small one. But the WJ's carry much more stuff even more comfortably. They're simply top notch. And LO AND BEHOLD! Later this summer WJ is coming out with a whole line of WATERPROOF packs! I will be the first guy in line. They also have a new line coming out this summer called the MAG line. I have a prototype chest pack now. Aside from very minor neck fatigue (not pain) due to the way it is worn, it's also awesome. No zippers, snaps, buckles on the pack and only one quick release buckle in the back. All closures are accomplished with magnetic tubing instead of zippers. They are way cool and everything closes itself when you're done. No fiddling with zippers, etc. Brilliant! I hope the waterproof line uses the MAG closures. We'll see.

Thanks. We'll be in touch. Kevin Smith is the trip leader.

Brian, Myron gave me your dark chocolate bar.

You can read my full report on the new restaurant at Blue Ribbon Fly Shop in Mountain Home HERE.