Brian Sloss

Those are some nice browns, but that hybrid is ridiculous! Hell of a few guide trips Brian.

We have crowds like any other float river on the 4th, though not as large as many others. The forest service is supposed to clear Thomasville tomorrow if they don't change the schedule, so you might try the upper river for smallies to avoid crowds.

Max It is down by the hwy 142 bridge about 29 river miles downstream of Greer.

The Long Hollow access is not an easy place to access, especially after the flood and it is a long drive back there. You can do it, but us commercial guys are not allowed to operate there by the forest service. The water is fine now upstream of Greer if you want to go. You can paddle up from the Greer boat ramp if you want, but you will have to pull two shoals to do it, so be prepared for that as there is a strong flow now. A smallmouth day from Cane Bluff to Greer would not be a bad idea and that is 7.5 miles, but really only a 1/4 mile of trout at the end.

I would suggest listening to what Justin says, I'm sure he has the skinny. Streamers do sound like a pretty good option though considering all the big browns landed there this spring.

Greer to Turner is blue ribbon and I would expect quality fish over quantity right now. Turner to Whitten is white ribbon (6.5 mile) and Whitten to Riverton (8 mile) is also white ribbon. Turner to Riverton has fished well recently. Whether fly or spinning fish deep and heavy to get down to the bottom. The exception is if you fish cicadas you might get a few up top, but be prepared to go way deep if you are not getting any action on the cicadas. We can shuttle your vehicle for $35 if you don't want to hassle with driving all the way around yourself and loosing an hour before and after floating or the expense of driving 2 cars all the down here in the first place. Just bring an extra key. 417-778-6497 if need us. Good luck.

Our lodging is booked on Sat but have openings on Sunday. If you go to www.11pointcanoe.com and click on camping and lodging you will see our stuff and on the bottom of the page are alternative lodging links and phone numbers.

I assumed Boze Mill because he said out of the ground and he could walk to it. To get to Greer from the river it is almost a mile of trespassing on a very steep gradient and very high water volume. Turner comes out of a little cave in the small bluff face, probably not it. Most people don't go down to the Narrows area and when they do, many miss the springs. Took a shot and the odds are it was Boze Mill.

Boze Mill Spring

I am good for a few tickets, let me know when you start taking entries. I Think you could raise more with a raffle since a lot of people can afford $5 and only a few could bid over $1000.

I've got a few and since I've done a lot of the rivers in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, they are not included. 1. Argentina or Chile for trout or salmon. 2. New Zealand trout 3. Mongolia for Taimin 4. Smokies trout and Brook Trout 5. Boundry Waters smallmouth and pike 6. Slovenia marble trout 7. Bone fish, Tarpon and Permit location open 8. Alaska 9. Russia 10. Back to England and scotland to the birth place of modern fly fishing.

Skipped out of the shop for 30 minutes to walk the dog in the park and heard the buzzing of Cicadas for the first time this year. Nothing major yet, but hoping the fish start to key in on them in the coming weeks. I'll have some Cicada flies with me from now on for the next couple of months just in case.

One last thought, you might contact the park service for ideas and to make sure there are no hoops to jump through to be legal. They may want proof of non profit status or insurance coverage.

I am personally not big on fishing competitions, but it seems to me there would be an easier way to do this if you want to. Have you considered doing it anytime beside the summer when there is bound to be a lot of non-tournament traffic interfering. You could break up into beats much easier inside the trout parks during catch and release season and there won't be much else going on then. You may even be able to work something out with the park service to reserve it, since it is for charity and you could bring in extra revenue to the park and area vendors. Maybe for a day that it normally isn't open. It will make for easy access and easily defined beats that can be rotated easily.

I am in Oregon County and I have only seen a very few of them so far, but hopefully more are to come. I have not heard the tell tale buzzing sounds that can get deafening when they are out in big numbers. Keeping a keen eye out for them though.

Looking at the river, I think we will be back to normal by this weekend. Ryan is doing a Thomasville to Cane Bluff on Tues and I am going Cane Bluff to Turner on Wed to make sure the upper river is good to go. The river will be a little high, but you should be able to run it fine. During the week we may limit floating only the more experienced people, but I am thinking we will let everyone float by the weekend. Assuming the river continues receding at its current pace.

The river is still up and rolling but we are beginning to see signs of sanity again. Hoping to be able to put floaters out by Thur or Fri, though we may limit it to more experienced paddlers. Depends on the how much the water drops between now and then. I might do a kayak run from Thomasville Tues or Wed to gauge the safety and see how many trees need to be reported to the forest service.

I guess I got cocky and moved my vehicles back to the canoe rental too soon. Just got back from another emergency late night evacuation of the the canoe rental. At least we should have lots of water this year and the Thomasville route will be open well into the summer. Falling trees will be an issue though this year. I am ready for the rains to go away so we can get on with starting the season.

Nice

Stay safe Phil, I'm thinking of you guys. My best to all who live by a watershed for that matter.

flood pics @ http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=102606856450001&v=wall

The law does not mandate you buy insurance from the gov't, it mandates, like car insurance, that you buy it privately. Though if they offered the option to buy it from them, it would cost less and drive the ultimate price in the private sector down.

It is much higher than my first description. It is about 6 feet from the bottom of the Greer bridge. Don't have a picture now, but maybe tomorrow.

Man, all these years I have been paying taxes I was a right winger and did not even know it...and all this time I thought I was left of center. Thanks for setting me straight.

The "fair tax" is anything but fair. Lets say you earn a whooping $25,000 a year and have a family. You won't have the luxury of socking away a huge chunk of money to avoid spending it and therefore paying taxes. Being generous, You have to buy $20,000 worth of stuff to support your family. Your consumption tax rate of a "modest" 10 % means you pay $2000 in taxes. Another guy earns $3000000 but can easily afford to support his family on $500,000 with lots of luxury items thrown in. So he pays $50k in taxes and earns interest on the 2.5 million and earns a modest 5% on that money netting him another 125,000. Sure the gov't got some money, but really he comes out ahead and is not sacrificing anything. The poor guy is the one really feeling it. Not to mention the rich guy will continue to say we should get rid of medicare. In other words, the name fair tax is misleading.