skeeter

Trying to make sense of COE "take" lines is impossible. As someone else posted, THEY( COE ) have no idea how those lines are/were determined. A clear example is directly across the water from us where massive homes have been built along an almost bluff-like shoreline right down to about the 930' line. There was a fancy lake-side gazebo (since moved) built there that you could lierally fish from for a number of years. Conversely, we looked at a piece of property 15 years ago for a possible home site on the other side of the creek mouth/arm from the aforementioned homes on top of a 30' high, absolutely vertical bluff. While prowling thru the overgrown land we came upon one of thos brass or bronze COE markers placed 150' BACK from the top edge of the bluff. I wrote down the numbers, called the Corps and they verified it was placed correctly and that no, due to some change in zoning for the area due to proximity to a COE campground, no vegetative modification permit would be possible. Figure that one out, and when you do, call the Corps and explain it to them too because they have no freakin' clue. Several buddies told us about homes they saw that were actually flooded back In Little Indian in 2011. How did that happen ? Another LOA survey mistake ? That's what struck many of us in the area as being so asinine and a total waste of time about the advertized COE Table Rock Lake Management meetings. When the arm of the Government in control of an area cannot explain to the Citizenry the reasons for their regulations and restrictions in a logical, sensible manner, they absolutely make it impossible for any planning or input from the public. Several who attended the Reeds Spring meeting came back disgusted and confirming the "asinine and waste of time" opinion and said the Corps had hired (at additional expense) some outside Company to "facilitate" the laughable "meeting". They really didn't anticipate such large crowds to attend these meetings and had to move the scheduled Dewey Short Visitor's Center meeting over to the Chateau on the Lake. Many of us are of the opinion that the COE is another out of control Government moneyhole just like the totally out of control EPA.

Supposedly, this is an email address where you can send your input if you are unable to attend a meeting: M4TRMP@usace.army.mil And yeah, those numbers of visitors seemed ridiculous. Like someone was trying to justify their job or their budget

According to the COE website, they are seeking public input. Whether or not they listen and respond is always questionable. They claim to be interested in managing the shorelines better, due to higher than planned numbers of users based on 30 year old planning. Plus management of the adjoining Government owned land. When they decide to explain their rationale for the "set-back" lines and the extreme variances in where they are placed,the public might be able to respond, plan and offer input more logically. I know of homesites on extremely steep banks where the owners have built seemingly almost to the water's edge at 928' and other land, directly across the mouth of the same creek arm, where the COE markers are located 200 ft. back or inland of the top of 30 ft. high, vertical bluffs. Someone want to explain that discrepancy ? The other thing that struck me on reading the postcard was the mid-lake meeting location. Why not meet at a hall in Kimberling City "The Bass Capital of the Ozarks" (according to them ) ? That location would be much closer to the water and residents, businesses, etc. that rely on and live on the Lake are far closer there to the meeting site than up in Reeds Spring...and there are halls/meeting places available there. As many of us know who have been affected by taking water over the bow, gunwales or transoms of our boats while trying to fish, from these outsize wakes certain boats produce, one area that needs serious attention, before it get's totally out of control like at Lake of the Ozarks, is the size of the boats permitted in the future on the Lake and allowing continued artificial generation of damaging wakes by pumping ballast into watercraft.

Just wait until someone figures out how to put hooks and an a line tie on one of these and paints it to match shad or bluegill. http://gizmodo.com/5...ver-go-belly-up At $19 per fish, they are far less expensive than the current crop of overpriced Japanese baits.

With the well-known and openly professed current Administration's hate for coal fired power plants and the coming enormous increases in electric bills due to the Government mandated, gradual switch to natural gas, any source of power generation is going to become more economically feasible. Just wait a few years and see how your wallet get's hit and you'll see what I'm talking about. The one energy source the U.S. has in overwhelming abundance is coal so, naturally, we are going to be forced to abandon it as a fuel source. http://www.aecc.com/...on_monoxide.pdf

Yikes ! Didn't realize it until looking at a map that Millwood and Hempstead County is North of Texarkana. That gator wasn't just surviving that far North, it was thriving ! Thanks for posting.

Amen ! Hope these morons stay on LOZ but, unfortunately, we're seeing and HEARING more and more of them on Table Rock.

So far, Isaac's remnants have been a bust on Table Rock. Winds started yesterday at about Noon with a few gusts up to about 22mph and rain, which began around 1:30 A.M., has been gentle with no runoff and very intermittent. Only .65 of an inch so far and wind is only 3-4 mph from the East. From radar pictures it appears the center of circulation will pass directly over the Stone County/Barry County line and it's sucking in dry air behind the center that is stopping the much needed rain from developing here.

Phil, If the rain you are referring to last week was the one that NOAA issued the severe T-Storm warning for, we heard that was only over around the Indian Point and Dam area that it poured. Here in the mid-Lake area we got our usual four inches that day.......four inches between drops that is !!! Still, we have had more rain in August than in any other month this year except March when we got that 3 & 1/2"downpour. Talked to two local guys in the excavator business about eight weeks ago that said it was dry back then all the way down to 5 feet below ground. Like Wayne posted, it's going to take a lot to reverse this extreme drought. Maybe the return to the developing El Nino conditions in the Eastern Pacific will bring us some moisture because the moisture from the Gulf has been shut off for many Months.

Sure didn't mean to imply the wake boats weren't emptying ballast tanks/bags before trailering, but my understanding of the zebra mussel is that it can survive with very little water for a long period of time, about 48 hours drying time is recommended for a supposedly dry surface like a boat trailer to avoid transfer. Don't know if those tanks/bags are gravity drained or pump drained but they surely can't be easily completely emptied and dried out. As far as the idea of wake boater's common courtesy towards fishermen, right, their operators aren't all careless jerks but those big wakes caused by adding ballast do travel a long, long way.

After reading Bill B's informative post about wake-boats taking on ballast and my confession of total ignorance of this fact I decided to do a little long overdue self-education about this matter. Went to two Company's websites that manufacture Wake-boats and drilled down on the specifications they were advertising. One Company was bragging about on-board tanks and "bags" selectively placed in the bow and under the driver's area, amidships, that could add 1400 lbs. of ballast ! The other Company was tooting their horn about how their 24 footer could carry 17 passengers and still add 1800 lbs. of ballast. ! This does explain how these boats are specifically designed and intended to throw such enormous wakes far in excess of what a vessel that size would normally be expected to generate. The additional weight and selective placement of that weight turns a "planing" type hull design into a hybrid "displacement" style hull sitting much deeper in the water. 1 gallon of water weighs about 8.33 lbs. so if they add the full 1800 lbs of ballast they are introducing 216 gallons of water into internal tanks/bags on their boats. This water can be from Zebra mussel infested waters and there is no way for them to cleanse those internal tanks/bags if they trailer from one body of water to another so their boats are prime suspects in transferring invasive species. Is this a stretch ?....well, maybe, but if those tanks/bags retain water, even in small amounts, guess what can survive ?

VERY nice to see respectful differences of opinion politely expressed here. We have a very nice new neighbor who recently bought a used 25 foot deep-V bow-rider as their first boat. Not sure that was a wise choice for a new boater but, unfortunately, we had to tow them and their family into the Marina on the Fourth due to their boat breaking down. My point is even though this Gentleman is completely new to boating and was in a sizeable boat, HE was bitterly complaining about the actions of other rude, uncaring boaters and their wakes and far too-close operation and was anxious to get his family, including several Grandchildren, safely off the Lake ! Bill: Guess I'm out of touch with wake-boat technology but thanks for the "heads-up" that these things actually take on ballast to sit deeper in the water and that's how they throw those ridiculous sized wakes that come over my bow and especially up and over the old Skeeter's transom. Hope your inside info. is correct about some kind of pending action regarding these boats and their operation. Found out that the local camp is operating 5 or 6 of them mainly back in Little Indian and many residents are up in arms over the damages to their docks and lifts. One guy had pictures of them posted on a flyer late last Summer in the Baxter marina office and was calling for action.

Based on the locations I'm seeing posted for those quickly replying "no", I respectfully doubt that they have witnessed, firsthand, weekend after weekend, the outright chaos, littering and thoroughly disgusting behavior taking place on the heavily floated streams adjacent to the St. Louis Metro area. It happens every Summer weekend and Holiday on the Mid and upper-Meramec, Huzzah, Courtois and extending in a lesser amount to the Black, Gasconade and Current watersheds. Most Saturdays and Sundays you can walk from bank to bank on rubber rafts and canoes and tubes loaded with littering, urinating, defecating drunks and dopers and never get your feet wet right after the multiple float liveries drop off their school bus loads of already inebriated floaters. I would never begin to take a young child on those streams at those times. Picture Party Cove at LOZ floating bank to bank down your precious streams and you have just a little idea of what goes on and then the next several busloads arrive upsteam, unload and launch and the next wave hits the water. I'm definitely anti-tax but this abuse of the streams mentioned has got to be controlled in some way and that takes funding. Let those who are creating the problems pay for better, much-needed enforcement of laws on the books as the quoted "tourism taxes" just are not generating enough revenue for the needed oversight. kevthebassman has a pretty good idea here and it will only affect those creating or profiting from the abuse. Again, you have to have seen it to believe how bad it gets.

http://www.ksdk.com/...n-Illinois-lake Read the local comments at the bottom of the article. Not sure if these things can survive the Winter and really hope the answer is NO ! If you have seen Jeremy Wade's little show on these fish you know what they do to human males and male animals in S. E. Asia where they were intentionally transplanted. Illinois Fish & Game should learn from the Carp invasion and the Snakeheads in the Potomac and poison the entire lake and start over before these things escape.

Same lack of rain, maybe even worse, in S. Stone Co. Like Wayne, I've about lost count of how many rainstorms have detoured around us or fallen completely apart before reaching us. It's like there is some invisible wall in the sky. I'm recording only 11.52 inches of precip. for the year so far and looking at on-line records of other surrounding CWOP weather stations shows the same pattern. 100 degree temps this week is only gonna' make things worse ! We may be headed from record high Lake levels last year to very low levels this year if this drought keeps up and NOAA's long range outlook is for more of the same. Hope people use common sense with fireworks and the comment about clearing brush away from your homes is an extremely good idea with the Fourth coming up. Another suggestion would be to have your hoses ready to go. Cedars and even the hardwoods are only needing one spark. We trimmed some hardwoods back last week and despite green leaves, they burned like crazy with no problem getting them started.

"Chlorade" ? Do you mean Chlordane ?

Good point on using the "synthetic deck boards". I replaced our deck 18 months ago and went with that synthetic material in hopes of avoiding the usual back breaking, time consuming, every two year maintenance of natural wood and so far, so good. After cutting and installing Timbertech product I started noticing during the Winter and early Spring, the exact same type of material used for the bunk boards on many unoccupied boat lifts for large boats back in Little Indian (Baxter) area. Apparently, it is slick enough that no marine carpeting is needed which is what holds the water and airborne moisture against the wood and starts the rot thing in the first place. Can't recall the maker of the lifts using those synthetic boards but they do have a local shop. I'm sure going to order more of that material and use it in the future on both lift boards and trailer boards. It's more pricey than natural wood but should last about forever. Wish I had some boards from the deck project left over but we figured our purchase close enough that we had no lengthy pieces unused.

It's a Corps ramp and should accommodate two boats at a time depending on skill, or lack thereof, of driver(s). Parking and pull-up area to back in is much enlarged and improved. There is a courtesy dock. The Baxter campground is now open complete with fee-collecting gatekeepers but the less-steep, flatter ramp in the Campground is gone. The Corps removed it and moved their swim beach over where the flatter ramp used to be during their two-year-long Campground re-construction.

Anybody want to offer any theories on why the Rock is still so off-color ? It's been about four weeks since the 3" + rain and not much since then, then the turn-over followed by all the water flushed out of Beaver meaning they were running water thru the dam at TR. Algae bloom maybe ??

" can we please turn off the sunshine pump and bubble machine?" ROTFLMAO ! Thanks for that.

The sponsored tournamant Pro's are touting the Lithium Ion marine batteries saying they don't get weak with use during the day and last 2000 charge/discharge cycles and weigh 50 lbs. less than lead-acid. Then you read where they cost $1200.00 apiece !!! Riiight !! Only if someone else is footing the bill. Sounds like a new marine theft target.

+1 to the previous three posts. This "bed jerking" has got to end.

Correct. As I mentioned in my original post, most of what you posted in your first posting was true the way it went down. I wasn't really "arguing", there was no point in that, it's over and done with. All I was doing was stating the facts, as I knew them, from the other side of the coin as there are always two, and sometimes, three or four sides to every issue and the board-member making the original inquiry deserved to hear both sides. These days, so many (not you) choose to forget, ignore and completely disrespect those with opposing opinions and views.

Can't say if MU fans will be there but you can try the " OO " Grill at the intersection of Highway 13 and " OO " on the far North side of Kimberling City.

Actually and factually, the authority for dam building along tributaries of the Mississippi River came from " The Flood Control Act of 1928 (FCA 1928) (70th United States Congress, Sess. 1. Ch. 596, enacted May 15, 1928" That pre-dated FDR's election to the White House by several years. Herbert Hoover was the President who signed the bill into law and now we will hear about what a horrible President he was....! I would have bet $100 on the opinion "sour grapes" being expressed. The Anti's never were happy unless they managed to denigrate their oppostion with personal attacks and I see that habit prevails. Remind you of anything taking place in politics today by a certain group begiining with the letter "L" ? Ha ! Stating proven facts always ticked off the nay-sayers. They responded with half-truths, which are far more dangerous than lies. Like stating that the charlatan Rimbach was ultimately proven correct. Really ? By whom pray tell ? Prove it......and you better be able to quote Professional sources...not half-baked "opinions" by unqualified individuals pretending to be an "authority" like Rimbach did. Moving those high water markers in Onondaga cave prior to Congressman Symington's visit should have resulted in Rimbach's prosecution and prison time but Symington was so embarrassed after his office was informed by the Corps how he had been "had" that they hushed it up. Re-election time was coming soon and he didn't ever want to admit an error. As far as cost overrruns...they were fully and willfully caused by the Lake opposition dreaming up new objections while the Corps laboriously and slowly responded to their previous objections. They had planned all along to drag the project out until costs escalated via the horrible Inflation of those days and public opinion could be swayed by their readily available "speakers" they could trot out at a moment's notice because not too many of them, somehow, seemed to be regularly employed. Massive Government intrusion ? Sure it was. But wouldn't that be the same thing you propose by "buying up" established properties in the flood plains Mr. Franklin ? Would you give those current property owners a choice whether to sell or not ? And then who would own that "bought up" land and what would you propose to replace the lost taxes on that land that goes to support local services and schools ? See....there is no simple answer, as we all discovered years ago, and that same R.E. tax issue surfaced when the COE began it's eminent domain acquisition of the Meramec Lake properties. As I said in my original post....where to begin. There are two sides to every issue and I was stating facts, not opinions, as I and other simple anglers experienced and learned them as we encountered a well-organized and well-funded opposition. If the "pro" side was heavily funded as stated in Agnew's post, I sure would have enjoyed seeing some of that monetary support.