Brian Sloss

The one snag you will come across is an hour or 2 miles down from Turner and I have the GPS stuff on my web site for Turner @ www.11pointcanoe.com, but not the snag. It is on river left and the best way to get past it is by pulling over and walking the canoe 10 yards and getting back in. Don't count on dry fly action, the rest of your plan looks good, except you may want to go 20 miles down to Riverton, unless you can keep kids interested in fishing enough to make a 12 mile float long enough.

Right now the lower stretches, Turner to Whitten and Whitten to Riverton are fishing the best. The blue ribbon area, Greer to Turner will probably fish well by then. Greer campground, which is forest service and first come first served @ $10/site is nice and has access to the blue ribbon water. On a side note, a Sat in July is going to have heavy traffic if you are trying to fish. It is not as bad as the canoe traffic on the Current, but you will not be alone in a hole very long. Fish early, take a mid day break and then fish late is the best way to avoid others.

It was great meeting you and the wife. Look forward to seeing you in the future.

Oh, I get it...yea everything.

By the way, I don't get it, what is wrong with that guys cast? seriously.?. Congrats on the cover Brian.

That is an awesome addition to the old empire.

Very nice John!

The regs don't change at Mary Decker, though it is in the blue ribbon trout area. The area is from Greer spring to Turner Mill.

It is a rough place to get to and us outfitters are not allowed to outfit there.

It is doable, but if you are loaded down with gear, think twice. We got and inch and an half yesterday and another half inch today. No real effect on the levels though.

That is part of the white ribbon trout area, which is regularly stocked and has a 4 trout limit. There are some smallmouth and goggle eye in that stretch as well.

marabou jigs in various colors, in line spinners (heavier ones) and some smaller deeper diving crank baits.

smallmouth fishing on the upper river has been ok. Trout in blue ribbon has been quality over quantity and they have been stocking the white ribbon area so that has been good.

Cane Bluff to Greer is ok, but it is low. If you are not too loaded down with gear, it is not too bad. Had some kayaks do it today and said they only had to get out a few times, but the water between shoals was really slow. With lots of gear it may get troublesome in spots. Thomasville to Cane Bluff would not be a good idea, especially in the first 3 miles or so. A lot of pulling your canoe through shoals. The water from Greer downstream is good for floating though and will be even if the drought continues well into the summer.

That would be guiding (outfitting) and would therefore require a license on the scenic rivers or be employed with a licensed outfitter. Some of the rivers are more wide open as far as licensing goes.

One other thing to remember, guiding requires a lot of work. The office is great (rivers) and it is better than most jobs (ie sitting in a cubicle), but to do it right, you have to bust your hump. You have have prep time before you meet your crew and then you need time after you finish fishing your customers, which often is starting over and prepping for the next day. Between pre and post trip work and actual guiding, you are looking at about 10-12 hour days and once you build up a client base, your schedule can get grueling. Until then though, there may be long gaps between trips while you are building a client list. When you are on the river, everything you do is for their benefit, period. Not trying to talk you out of it at all, but people sometimes get into this business with rose colored glasses. If you are ok with that and you have the knowledge and desire, it is a wonderful way to make a lliving. Best of luck. Also, you mentioned wanting to guide on less traveled waters. That is a good idea, but it may take longer to build up a demand for guide trips on those kinds of waters. Therefore it would be a good idea to offer trips on rivers where there is more demand as well. If you can show them a good time on a more well known river where there is more demand, you will have all day to gently hint about trying these other lesser known gems. If you do well with them on the more "famous" waters, they will be more likely to trust your judgement about trying the other rivers.

Making the sale of native MO crayfish sounds alright, but there is a problem. Just because a certain crayfish is native to one Mo stream does not make it native to another. The Eleven Point and Spring rivers along the MO/AR boarder have the coldwater crayfish, which is not found in all Mo coldwater streams. Therefore using other non-native crayfish that are still native to Mo would be a bad thing. I am sure there are other examples around the state. Got to go with the ban, but you can catch crawfish pretty easy here.

West Plains is an under rated place to reitre. Eleven Point is about 30 minutes away, North Fork 30 minutes, Spring river 30 minutes, White and Norfork inside an hour and North fork lake 30-40 minutes. Town of 12k, so plenty of services availbable.

The Eleven Point crosses hwy 60 at Willow Springs...of course it is more of a wet weather creek there.

As perusual, springtime trout fishing on the 11 Point can be unpredictable. Today I took a guy named Brian on a guide trip and it rained all morning on us. At the risk of being asked to take rainy day trips, he landed 3 18-20 inch trout while we were being dumped on. Add that to the 10-12 others he landed and few others that got away, it was a good day to fish the 11 Point for the spring. Of course as the season wears on, the numbers of fish you can catch will get better, but the quality was outstanding today.

The Auxvasse creek is good for what it is. It has some nice bass and sunfish in it, but it is by no means an ozark stream in character and it is not a destination stream.

You will need to go down I44 then. There are not any ozark streams in the Columbia area which is about half way. Rocheport is a neat Missouri rivertown just west of Columbia with neat B and Bs, a winery and a couple of good eateries. I have a friend who does river tours and guided catfishing out of his homemade boat. He can build you one too. www.missouriboatworks.com is his web site. Not an Ozark experience, but a good experience in its own right. You can probably camp there as well, but not sure. Contact Drew at that web site and he may be able to help you find a campground. I know there is one at Coopers Landing about a 20 minute drive from Rocheport, just don't know if there is one at Rocheport. Hope this helps.

You obviously have not heard about the 5 inches of rain we have already gotten today....just kidding.

It was turned back to fight again.

Justin and Brandon caught the whites above the fork with Bryant Creek at and between the last two shoals before it seriously deepens. Justin had one good sized white on that got away. I did get my first walleye on a fly rod too. I was blanked on whites. Saw plenty of them in the shoals, just could not get them interested and I threw the fly box at them. Brandon went back closer to dusk and probably tore them up, he really seemed to know his stuff when it comes to their behavior and when and how to do the best catching them and mid day does not seem to be the best, but that was when I could go. The thought process was striper or hybrid, then catfish, then carp, then maybe a big brown, then definitely CARP!