Brian Sloss

no

The river levels are in great shape from Cane Bluff on down. Thomasville to Cane Bluff is getting too low, but can be done if pulling through a few shoals is ok with you. There is only a 30% chance of rain on Mon and Tues. I'd say you are in fine shape in that regard.

As I understand it, you can guide at all the trout parks except Maremec as it is owned by the James foundation. You may have to get a special license though, I don't know.

I caught a 4-5 inch brown in the NFOW that was wild. Caught a lot more 4-6 inch rainbows though. Another way to help with wild ID if the fins are not worn too bad, is fin size in proportion to body size. Fins on a 13 inch wild fish are often bigger than those on a 13 inch stocker. The stockers grow faster in the hatchery than trout in the wild do, so the body size in proportion to fin size is different.

Sorry you had a bad time with the boats. It honestly isn't usually as bad as last weekend. For whatever reason, Whitten was as packed as I have ever seen it and every flat bottom boat from three counties was there. It isn't normally that bad.

It has been fishing pretty slow lately, but sounds like the quality you hooked was pretty good. It will improve later in the summer and into the fall.

Greer is the nicer campground: outhouses, picnic tables, fire rings, water sources, trash service, and camp hosts for $10/night/site. Turner is more primitive with one outhouse, but is free.

It really isn't any more dangerous than the other float rivers in Missouri. A healthy respect for the river's power and you should be fine. The same way you should approach all the rivers.

There is no lead ban here, at least not yet. Mary Decker is more hype, than hard to canoe. Don't let that keep you from the blue ribbon area if you want to fish it. If you do go in the blue ribbon area, bring along some marabou jigs, !/16th in various colors as well.

I have an employee here at my outfitter who has worked here well before I took over and he and his wife are like my right arm. He was recently diagnosed with colon cancer and has just started treatment. With this in mind, I am going to auction off a guided fly fishing or spin fishing trip in my wooden Mackenzie drift boat on the Eleven Point river with the entire amount of the winning bid going to cover some of his expenses. There will be a minimum $200 reserve on the guide trip, which is less than I normally charge. I'll accept bids through the end of June. To bid, just add a reply to this thread with your offer. A special thanks to Phil for allowing me to post this. Thanks in advance to anyone making a bid.

The walleye fishing is better below the Arkansas line for the most part. Other than that I am not much of a walleye fisherman, so I won't be too much help.

Anybody see the latest issue of Field and Stream. Some nice quotes from Mr. Wise and a picture of the back of his head. Check p. 64 everyone.

If you are looking for trout, you need to spend some time upriver at Tan Vat and Baptist camp area. A lot of good wading water and if water is high enough, you could float it as well. A trip to the Current for trout, would be lacking if some time wasn't spent fishing the blue ribbon area though.

Two sheds is referring to an access you won't find on most maps for some reason. It is outside of the national forest and is run by the MDC. It is well maintained, nice access point almost right on the state line.

A week day in the summer is usually not very crowded. I take guide trips in July on weekdays and often only see a handful of other people. It is not like the other rivers in that regard.

It is slower and deeper below Riverton, but it does have a lot of smallies. If you avoid Sat or Sunday, you will avoid most all of the jet boats that can come out on the weekends.

With the water levels being higher, I would start upriver at Cane Bluff. You could even go up to Thomasville right now as long as you don't mind a couple of tree portages. The further you go downstream, the higher the water volume you have to deal with, which will make fishing a little harder. Plus the upriver smallies are starting to hit and I've gotten no smallmouth reports lower on the river.

The reasoning around the no soft plastics in the trout area is they are afraid the fish will take it deeper and thus a higher mortality rate. Doesn't matter if you are fishing smallies, the rule still applies. There are plenty of smallmouth and goggle eye in that section. A good sub. for the soft plastic grubs are marabou jigs. Bring plenty with you in different colors. You can use anything below Turners.

I know it is waaay early, but I have set the dates for this years fall fly flingers weekend to raise funds for TU. It will be on Oct17-18 and more details can be found at www.11pointcanoe.com. Hope some of you guys can come this year. Brian Sloss

At least for now, it looks like the graveyard road has been reopened, let's hope people don't trash it and give them a reason to close it again.

Thomasville to Cane or Cane to Greer, either one can fish very well on a given day. I would not take a john boat from Thomasville to Cane bluff. There are at least 2 tree portages Below Thomasville and one low water bridge portage. Not bad in a canoe, but bad in a john boat. The Thomasville stretch gets less pressure, which is nice, but they both have plenty of smallmouth and neither section is hammered with fisherman. Hard to say one is "better" than the other. I prefer Cane to Greer because it is all inside the national forest, while Thomasville to Cane runs through mostly private land, where ranches are visible in places. Fishing can be very good up there though and there are pretty cool springs to check out.

We have not gotten too much rain as of yet, so the river is fine. You can still take out at Turner. Went out Sunday afternoon and had to work hard for every fish, but the ones I got were of very good quality. You might consider a smallmouth trip from Cane Bluff to Greer as they are starting to bite.

I am 100% sure the answer would be a big fat NO. But it would be nice.

The short answer is yes, you should. If you only live 2 miles from the Jack's Fork, then you are not that far from the Eleven Point. I fish the Eleven Pint 90% of the time, but as much as I love it, a change of scenery is nice. This spring, I would concentrate my efforts between Thomasville and Greer. Pretty much the same type of stuff works here as the Jack's Fork. Anything that imitates a crawdad does well. Jigs, creek tubes, crank baits like rebel crawdads and the like will work. Being by the Jack's is great, but for the occasional change of pace, give the Eleven Point a shot, it is a wonderful river.

The recent rains that blew out many of the rivers last weekend and early last week, largely missed us and the river is in great shape. It is a little higher than it was, which is good. The upper river smallies are starting to feed and I'm guessing they are putting on weight for the spawn. Turner Mill South camping is closing for a couple of weeks for repairs and a new boat ramp. The upstream section will be closed and the downstream section will be open for day use purposes until construction is complete. When finished, there will be 6 campsites on the upstream side and the furthest upstream site will be for parking and boat ramp use only. The downstream boat ramp, which is useless, will be for canoes. New float camp signs are to be put out this spring as well. Bad news in the area is that the graveyard hallow road and Bliss roads will be closed. Graveyard is locked up now and a gate is going on the Bliss road soon. The forest service told me it was because too much trash and illegal ATV use getting out of control. That is too bad, as I used to use the graveyard access to fish a lot. Unfortunately some thoughtless people have ruined the luxury of easy access to those spots for the rest of us.