Brian Sloss

Superfly, That is a beauty!! The only problem is that thing hanging from his mouth... looks more like a roostertail than a wooly bugger!! Ha! Nice fish and thanks for sharing. Ryan

No mentions of it that I have heard of yet. Is it in the 1st couple miles? If so I look out for it next time I or Ryan goes wading around up there. Nice fish.

Snap, The pickerel we have here on the 11pt. are chain pickerel. They look like small cousin of the northern pike - hence the locals all call them 'pike'. They like dead water with plenty of grass and weed coverage. I like to cast topwater plugs or mid-diving plugs right to the edge of the grass line in still water. Let it sit for a couple of seconds then bring it in on a pretty quick retrieve. The pickerel will dart out of the weeds and tackle the lure. They will come out fast and I have even had some that choose not to strike but still darted right up to the edge of the boat. In-line spinners (roostertails, panther martins) are also good fished about the same way. These guys are toothy are they will break the line a number of times but do put up a good fight when you can hook them right. Best of luck. Ryan

Snap, First of all, thanks for helping the Texas boys out. They mentioned it when they came back in and I heard about the bony pickerel meal as well. They are fun fish to catch and some guys around here fish exclusively for them and swear they can prepare them well. I just like catching them - man they are aggresive and explode out of the weedbeds. Ryan Rapalafella, IF you are looking to provide a trout dinner then I would float from Turner or Whitten down as the regs allow you to keep 4 trout of any size in that water. A rebel crawdad cast about 30* upstream from where a shoal transitions into a pool and cranked hard to get it down on the rocks is a good start. Best of luck. Ryan

John is out of town right now and is going to send me a chart that I can post and some other info that I will pass on when he sends it to me. May be another week or so.

There is about 36.5 miles of the Eleven Point inside the national scenic and wild riverway designation. The middle 20 miles is the traditional trout water. The vast majority of the land is national forest and the little private in the trout water is legally bound with conservation easements and can't leave the family that owns it and can't be developed. The private land below 160 to 142 has easements for the most part as well. The river will not be developed nor do I want it to be. I just want to make a good fishery better, no evil power at work here, just want to see some big browns since the rainbows are not sustaining themselves.

Obviously your sarcasm means I offended you, so sorry. Just stating the facts as I have learned them from the MDC and like I said, I will relay the info when the biologist gets it to me. The browns can't eat the fingerlings that are not there though. The last number of years, the vast majority of any fingerlings in the river were stocked. Something I didn't know for a long time until a year ago or so.

There are no native trout species in the Ozarks, so you are not protecting the native range of endangered westslope cutt throats or anything. They are not reproducing in any sustainable fashion in the river, that is the reason for the petition. This was started as a petition and I know the term poll is misleading , that is an accident. I did not see an option when starting this that said petition. Also, petitions don't normally have a place for people to sign who disagree. This one has taken on a life of its own and everyone has been putting in their 2 cents and that is welcome. The MDC is aware and can read this and get all your comments. When the biologist gets back from vacation, he will provide me with more info to post.

Although this is posted under Brian's login it is written by Ryan Griffin. I had the oppurtunity to guide a nice couple from the KC area the last couple days and we turned in two productive days of fishing. On Tuesady, Kevin and I drove up to Thomasville in the early AM to wade around and pursue some smallies and google-eyes. We arrived at the ramp and took the trail south to fish the first hole from the downstream side. (By the way, there is still enough water up there to float as long as you don't bring the kitchen sink - we saw a couple of gentlemen on a day float cruising through with no problems.) We hoped to get some top-water action in the foggy morning but the fish weren't living up to their end of the deal. I switched Kevin over to a beetle-spin and a skirted green grub on a 1/8 oz jig and the action picked up. We waded down about a mile (just below the wing dykes) and picked up some google-eyes and a 3-4 smallies. The google-eyes were of good size (at least two above the 8in minimum) and were attacking the purple beetle-spin with gusto. As we worked our way back up Kevin primarily used the green grub and was able to pull three straight smallmouth on consecutive casts from a rootwad/stump. The current is strong enough that he was just casting it in and tight-lining it - letting the current bounce it along the bottom while jigging it from time to time. All told we got into 7-9 google-eyes and 8-10 smallmouths in about 4 hours. We saw evidence of a couple of spawning beds and spent about 10 minutes watching a very protective 15-16in fish chase away anything that came near. It wasn't insane numbers but some good action for the time and amount of water we covered. On Wednesday we took the drift boat from Whitten to Riverton and were joined by Kevin's wife Nikki. She started us out just down from the ramp by hooking a northern hog sucker that suprisingly tried to take a Rebel crawdad. This lure turned out to be the hot item of the day (saving my reputation with Kevin as I had told him the day before that it was a great lure for this river and it had only produced one google-eye and one over-aggressive chub) and we fished it with good success along the transition waters below shoals. A few shoals down from Whitten Kevin hooked and landed a small rainbow on a little grub/jig in some "bassy" water and then followed it up with two good sized (14.5 & 16in) trout on a Rebel crawdad out of the next shoal. This was the start not just Kevin hooking trout but also the trout hooking Kevin. We were intending to target some smallies and google-eye as well as the trout but after fighting some healthy rainbows in good current our intentions were altered. Off with the jigs and bass lures, it was time for the Rebel to do its job. We concentrated on fishing the shoals for trout the rest of the day and there were very few shoals that didn't yield up at least one fish. The size of the fish landed were impressive (aside from the very first fish - 11in - everything else was at least 14in with the average being 15-16 in). The thrill of the day came in some slower water just below Hall's Bay Shoal. Sore from cranking the Rebel and fighting fish all day Kevin was content to troll the lure about 20 feet off the back of the boat as we rowed our way to the ramp. All of a sudden he gets a jerk and the drag began to scream. About 5 seconds later we witnessed a 2ft plus beautifully colored rainbow leap over 1ft into the air. Kevin fought the fish well but with an ultra-light rod and 4lb test the fish was clearly in control. He let us check him out one more time on a magnificent jump then ran straight at the boat. Kevin kept the line tight and nudged him over to the right side of the boat. I was ready with the net but the pig held just to low in the water for a good net attempt. Apparently tired of the game, the big guy dove under the boat and took off on another run. The line dragging across the bottom of the boat got scuffed and as I tried to move it around and clear it from the boat it broke. It was of course disappointing to lose such a fish and Kevin and I second guessed ourselves but we took heart in Nikki's wisdom as to how he got away: he's a fighter, "that's why he's still in the river." All in all it was a good day. Kevin landed around 10-11 good-sized trout and had another 4-5 (including the great beast) that were hooked and and not landed. As I said above, I think another hook was also set yesterday as a bass fisherman got hooked on another species. Ryan Griffin

Making Greer into a park and cleared is completely off the table by all parties involved. The only possible debate is whether to allow catch and release fishing with no improvements or trails or boats.

Disapproval is added by adding your comments here. The MDC is aware of this thread. The Greer spring branch is like 3/4 of a mile. It may never be open to fishing of any sort. The forest service is yet to make that determination. The are those in the forest service who would like to see no fishing at all in the spring branch. They want it to be a natural area where all you could do is hike down and look at the spring. I want it to be kept natural, no new trails or anything, just add catch and release fishing.

Thanks. Please note that they put in the wrong phone number. The poor lady in town with the number they put in the article has been getting some unwanted phone calls, but she has been patient. The correct number is 417-778-6497.

I took a couple of St. Louis gentlemen, Gene and Jim, out for a guide trip between Turner and Whitten. Wonderful couple of guys to kill a day with. Though the day started out a little slow, it ended fine. We had a couple of hook ups early in the day, but they were not landed. Jim had a nice fight at tumbling shoals, but again it was lost. After lunch it looked as if it might rain and it did for about 5 minutes on other parts of the river, but not ours. Anyway, the fish seemd to perk up after that threat and we even had a couple double hook ups, though we never landed both (just one fish landed with each double). Gene caught a chunky 15-16 incher and that was the fish of the day. Though we didn't light the world on fire, fish were stung and a good time was had by all. By the way, we threw the whole fly box at them with no distinct pattern rising to the top until the end of the day when eggs dropped off a stonefly fished deep started to produce.

The biologist said he would send me more info regarding the blue ribbon area when he gets back from a trip. It will be a week or two and then I will relay the info here.

(5/6/07 11:28 am) Reply 5 May 2006 My usual haunt, the Eleven Point was blown out Sat., so I was able to make it over to the NFOW and fish for about an hour before going to a Cinco-de-Mayo party at friends cabin on the river. Well, the river was in good shape (what a difference 60 miles makes). Fished from the falls down to just above the treehouse cabin at the ROLF. I was using a bitch creek stone with a prince dropper. I caught two accrobatic rainbows of about 12 inches and a 16-17 inch fat brown that was a pleasure to battle. All fish took the prince. I only got to fish for about an hour between 3:30 & 4:30 and was happy with the results. It was a nice change of scenery

unfortunately for us, the US tore up so many rail lines over the years due to lack of use, we lack infrastucture for truly good mass transit now. I spent 6mths in England and buses, metros, and trains were running all the time. I don't think I ever had to wait more than 20 minutes for affordable transit to anywhere. I might have waited a little longer for some of the more remote places I traveled, but highly affordable and effective. I wish we had a system like that here.

Just a thought. Brazil just became gas independant recently. They imported no foreign oil. The answer for them was ethenol, just not from corn, but rather suger cane. I know we probably couldn't produce enough sugar cane ourselves, but we could probably find better trading partners than the middle east. Just a thought.

The river is currently hosed. Whitten is not under water, but you don't want to be floating down there and the fishing will be done for a few days. May be floatable and fishable by next weekend.

That shuttle is $30.

Midge, Cane to Greer is good right now and the smallies are picking up. You can find plenty of camping spots along the river, though not official float camps. It is only 7.5 miles from Cane to Greer. Brian

Actually they are running the refineries at well under 100% capacity ( more like 50-60%, at least that is the way I heard it and I may be wrong) and are paying less for a barrel than they were last year. In other words, manipulating supply to be smaller to drive up the price, especially during a time when demand rises and dramatically increasing profits. They already set the model up last year and are following the same formula.

If you are wanting to start at Thomasville, now is the time. The sooner the better while the water is good enough. Had a couple of guys float through there 2 days ago and the smallmouth were biting. The spawn should be starting up there soon if not already going on. It is a pretty float that you can't take often. I am available for a rental canoe or a shuttle of your car. Just let me know when, if you need my help.

I thought Dogwood Canyon was a Bass Pro property, did Orvis buy it out?

I saw those guys 5 times in the 90's and do they ever put on a good show and never a repeat of a previous show. I can't get time to see summer shows anymore, but just hearing about them here reminds of some good times.

For smallies I'd use a bigger crawdad that preferably rides hook up so you can work it right along the bottom. Any minnow imitations should do well too. A popper or two might produce something as well.