Brian Sloss

Which pattern won 2010 and who tied it.

Our law i\on styrofoam comes from the USDA forest service who does not have a say on other rivers in Mo that I know of.

The styrofoam coolers have been illegal down here for quite a while, though loosely enforced. The reason is that they break into many parts when you turn a canoe over and the contents go everywhere. A good rule for helping keep the river cleaner.

Nice, Nice, Nice...when are you coming over to fish? Winter will be over soon.

OTF Where are you off to?

I may be a little premature as I have not read the novel yet, but I soon will and everyone I have talked has loved the novel titled Winter's Bone. The movie was very good and has gotten SAG, Golden Globe and Oscar nominations this year. The author is from West Plains, Mo. Another of his novels was made into a movie titled Ride With the Devil. The authors name is Daniel Woodrell. I plan to start reading a lot of his work soon.

The 11 point, especially in April is not crowded and when you add in that you are going in the middle of the week, the traffic is even lighter. If we finally get some rain this spring, you could start all the way up at Thomasville to add another 9.5 miles of very good smallmouth water. From Thomasville down to Myrtle (Arkansas line) you have close to 50 miles of water, 20 of which you can add trout to the mix. If you can't go to Thomasville because of lower water, you could start at Cane Bluff and end at Dalton Arkansas. In other words there is more than enough water, especially since you will be fishing, so you might want to pick a shorter route.

I'll be making an announcement when the website has been completely finished, it is a work in progress right now. Cricket, The prices are still very reasonable, but we did have to raise them a bit as we now have a mortgage on them and we also expanded the satellite TV offerings. We will also be adding our own touches over the next few months.

Brian, As I understand it, they are raising those hatchery/NFOW crosses at Montauk now and they will make up a portion of the blue ribbon stocking this year when they stock the blue ribbon area. I think they want to do it again next year as well. Looking forward to seeing what happens with them. When are you coming over to fish for an afternoon? There is no doubt that they had a good spawn last year as we are catching a lot of YOY compared to previous years and a lot of those are coming from around Hurricane creek's mouth, which is where we witnessed lots of spawning last year when the water was high. That said, we have always had some reproduction (as we have been catching some YOY since we bought the canoe rental in 2004), just generally considerably lower levels. I am excited to see these fish in a year or so.

It is not the motel, these are houses. Though our updates are not finished, you can check them out at www.11pointcanoe.com. Not everything is done yet, but you can see some pictures and get basic info.

No Phil, we just bought Cottage Overnight Lodging, which are the cottages in town. You stayed at another place when you were here.

Glad you guys had a good time. It was nice to meet you.

No one is seriously considering illegally stocking the river OTF. They are just joking around.

They have been doing more with the walleye for a number of years now. They have planted walleye between hwy 160 and the Arkansas line a few times. These walleye, in large part, tend to run south to the Arkansas part of the river. They did a tagging study that had disappointing cooperation from the public with only a few tags called in, even with the rewards. One of the tags that was called in was in Van Buren on the Current, which might explain the lack of participation. Pickerel, smallmouth and goggle eye have consistently sampled very well for the MDC for years and appear to be doing quite well. The smallmouth and goggle eye limits appear to give us some quality fish.

Last Oct/Nov's flood did produce a pretty good spawn of wild trout. We have been catching more par marked 6 inch trout lately than we have in quite some time, particularly near where we witnessed a lot of spawning a year ago in Nov. after the floods. That said, these are not consistent results from year to year. Particularly, low water years tend to have sub par hatches of baby bows. The proposals for brown trout stockings as I understood them, would not increase the number of trout stocked in total. They would just replace a portion of the rainbows stocked with browns. I think about 20% brown-80% bow. It is fun to talk about, but the forest service is not going to bite on the brown trout idea unless the hellbenders make a huge comeback, even though the problems with them appear to be water quality and not trout predation. Note hellbenders have the same problems in non-trout rivers and lived for around an hundred years with trout in Mo waters with no adverse effects. That said, I would love to have browns, but I am also very happy with what we have here and will always support improving what we have within the parameters that the forest service decides is best.

We had a long drawn out debate on this old chestnut a couple of years ago that degenerated into name calling. It has been proposed a few times by the MDC, but the forest service always blocked it siting the hellbender situation. I would personally love to see browns in the Eleven Point as I agree with Justin that we would grow some huge brownies, but it is not likely to ever happen. There is lots of great brown trout habitat in this river.

Not much in the way of smallies. I can get a second drift boat if given enough advance notice.

I got together with some friends on Sunday and we got three drift boats out on the river. The fishing was pretty good considering the number of anglers. there were a lot of of spawning redds in the first two miles and a number of "spent" redds on the lower section. We caught fish on a lot of different things, but I can say for sure we caught fish on eggs, stoneflies (Pats), Jigs, prince nymphs and woolies. Justin of Sunburst fame got to get his boat out on this river with our friend Chrys and my business partner Ryan. Chris Gates, Ryan and Jeff were in another boat, though they paddled up to the spring and we did not see them the rest of the day. They reported good fishing though. My boat was me, Jeff and Steve (friends from college) and John who does some guiding for us. Jeff tagged a twenty incher that threw the hook after a coouple minutes in fast water. John hooked a nice one early in the day that broke off. Everyone caught plenty of fish. A lot of the holes would produce one to 3 fish and then cool off until it was rested for a while. This may have been because of how low and clear the water is. The water is as low as I have seen it. One cool side note, Justin found a shoal where he caught about 10 parr marked babies in a row. Just down at the next shoal John caught one as well. good news for next year.

As long as you are prepared for the cold, you should have a good time. Fished yesterday and the trout are hitting well. Caught one smallmouth as well. marabou jigs in white and olive/burnt orange did well. Have fun.

This seems heavy handed and unfair to me. How can you find a lawyer of your choice if they take your money. Seems to me they would have bigger fish to fry than a Grateful Dead cover band.

McKee bridge is on a private road, so it is not public access. Kelly ford is just upstream about 1/2 mile and is public. You could pay at ROLF just downstream for access. Myron doesn't own the bridge or property there. At least I don't think so. Blair bridge and Patrick bridge are public access points.

Had a great time on the water Sat guiding Brian and his dad Roland. The fishing was pretty good all day with about 43 fish caught between them. No monsters, but plenty of nice fish. They are coloring up nicely, but no sign of any spawning activity yet. Remember when they start pretty soon, stay clear of the spawning redds. Hopefully we will get some rain soon, we need it badly. It will help spur on the spawn and more importantly stop the outbreaks of forest fires we have been getting lately. Someone has evidently been starting fires around here lately and it sucks. They had to close Whitten road Sat due to the fires. They almost got a couple of houses that border the forest as well. The fires mostly have been burning leaves and undergrowth, but some trees have been claimed as well. Please come rain.

I like a lot of the music listed above and Neil Young is a good choice, but when I am going fishing and have a long ride, I look to the Waterboy's Fisherman's Blues album or one of their live albums. One of the best under the radar bands since the early eighties and still going strong. Mike Scott is a great song writer that not enough people have heard of.

I think it is more of a pain to run a rig like that with a spinning rod because the indicator is normally about 5 ft or more deep. that makes for a pain in the rear cast. Plus, I think floating fly line makes for better control of your drift. That said, it can certainly be done with a spinning outfit and people do it all the time.

I have seen friends of mine tie streamers in a way to make it into essentially a jig, just to make themselves feel like they were not using a jig. That just seems silly when you can tie marabou onto a a jig hook. All it is, is a different hook and weight style, and very effective. To jig or not to jig on a fly rod...might be a good subject for the general angling discussion section.