CBNMO

I realize you have already gone, but for future trips, you might check out Hide A Way campground. The store, pool, cabins and main camp ground is up on the ridge, but they have primitive camp sites down by the lake, near the boat ramp. Not sure of the price for those sites but they are not utilized very much from what I've seen. Road was rough going down there, but I haven't been there for a while. I would keep an eye out for slithering creatures down there, or anywhere camping around the lake. We enjoyed camping at Starkey Campground, but saw two large Copperheads come through our site one night. The next morning when we took down the tent, there was a small one coiled up under the tent. The wife hasn't wanted to go back . . . . ? Also killed one in front of our garage door the other night.

There is a gas/convienience store north of Cape Fair, and west of Galena, at hwy 248 and 173 called Crossroads, Stan sells hooks, sinkers and usually has snagging rods n reels there, plus the general fishing stuff and live bait found at a good country station near the lake. Don't know about the prices ?

First, snagging with multiple hooks on a line can be tricky or dangerous, especially for anyone not experienced. 10/0 or 12/0 is a big hook, should be real sharp, and these fish seem played out when you finally get them in, if your using a gaff, it would be safer, but when you grab a fish by the tail, they usually come to life and thrash around and make another run. You don't want a large treble hook in you or your kids when this happens. If you use multiple hooks, be careful. When I have new people out in the boat I prefer we use a single hook on each line. The boys get pretty excited grabbing a 80 pound fish to pull it into the boat. We usually use 6 to 10 ounce sinkers when trolling depending on depth and trolling speed. Casting from the bank 3 or 4 ounce sinkers are usually good. We use 10 to 12 foot surf (big spinning) rods from bank or boat. Line should be at least 40 pound. If using mono, don't buy the cheap 50 pound line, it's way to large and makes casting harder and wears out the line.

There is a large pile of big rocks in the city park and another over by the ball fields. Are these going in the creek or along the bank ?

We finally made it out yesterday, put in at the canoe rental below Blunk, was a few carcass's laying by the ramp, we snagged from Blunk ramp down to Walnut Springs ramp. No fish. Might have hit a couple on the end of the snag? Not sure. My new transducer is broken on the fish finder so it's out of commission. Trolled, casted to both banks and notta. Had fun anyways. Met some folks with a jet drive and they said they had been fishing the upper part of the river and didn't do any good so they had come down there. Stopped at Blunk the night before and a couple guys had a mess of Whites. Said they were only catching males around there. No rain yet ?

I wasn't sure how far upstream they had made it by now?

River gage is down to about 4.4 feet and falling slowly. Anyone have any tips on where the Spoonbill are holding out? Some friends are coming home this weekend and they say after they wash off the foreign sand, we ARE going snaggin ! But where to start ?

bajacoop, if you look on Google Maps or some other, zoom in on Galena. There is a boat launch and public access on one side of the river and I believe public access across from it also. The Shoals motel is downstream about 1 1/2 miles? Follow the river downstream and you'll find where Blunk road comes down to the river, also public access. Down from that you'll see McCord Bend. Used to be pay access there, not sure if they still allow folks or not? Next road that comes down to the river (going down stream) is the canoe rental place (pay for access). Follow the river going upstream and you'll find the other public access areas. There is also a road that now dead ends into the lake where Flat Creek comes into the James River (further downstream).

Stopped on the bridge yesterday afternoon at Galena and only saw one person snagging. Didn't see any fish tied up. Went up to Kerr access and put in. Went down stream to the hole by the cabins and fished until dark. We only hit one fish but didn't catch it. Stopped by Blunk on the way home and everyone was gone by then.

Yes Blunk is a pretty good place to put in also. It is limited on space so can get crowded especially on the weekend. With th water at this level th road is (was) still open to park and turn around on. If you launch there, remember your leaving your rig parked at the end of the road in the woods. I don't know of any trouble down there but there is always th chance you could get broken into? I was told folks were catching them from the bank at Blunk yesterday. Now's when I wish the bottom of my boat was flatter and I had a pump to put on my motor. Maybe I'll go down Sunday, who needs to sleep anyways?

The river gages I watch are from the USGS, here's a link to James River at Galena. It shows the river is up from 4' to about 9' right now and still climbing. Should crest soon and start back down. http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?cb_00065=on&cb_00045=on&cb_00060=on&format=gif_default&period=4&site_no=07052500 Then there is a link on this page to the National Weather Service with the river forcast. I'll be off Monday so I'm looking forward to your report from this weekend. The 3 fish we caught Tuesday was by McCord Bend. I heard that the boat launch and camping at McCord Bend was closed ? The canoe rental place is pretty nice if you don't mind the rough road getting down there. Depending on the water level and where the Spoonbill might be, we'll either put in at the canoe rental or Galena next time probably. It's slow running back to Flat Creek in the dark. Oh yeah, what will the rain do to them? I'm guessing as the river rises they start moving up, then as the river starts to fall, they will start finding pools to hang out in again and wait for the next rain ?

Is it correct that the 'no snagging refuge' is only on the Spring River, but snagging is still allowed on the Neosho from Twin Bridges up to the state line?

If you trust th National Weather Service, the forcast for the James River at Galena: River will drop between now and 7 am to 6.8' (from 7') then start to rise until 6 pm Friday night at 8.3'. Then start going back down. By Tuesday morning it should be close to 6'.

To me the meat is exactly the same as a Sturgeon. Other than the scales on the Sturgeon and the bill on the Spoonbill, its all looks and tastes th same. I cooked some for a friend in Washington (state) and he said it's was just like Sword Fish? (I wouldn't know about that) I was taught to pull the spinal cord before steaking up the fish. Supposed to put off a bad taste if you cut through it. Don't know if it's true, perhaps an ole wives tale, or just a joke on me? We always pull it, everyone is amazed to watch it come out the first few times anyways. In Missouri we can use multiple hooks, they can be barbed, can use a gaff, limit of 2 fish/day. In Oklahoma they can only use one hook and must be barbless or the barbs bent down at least, no gaff allowed, limit of 1 fish/day. (I think these are correct ?) Last couple years we used two hooks, but this year I've gone to just using one hook. A lot safer when you go to pull a fish into the boat, depending on how experienced your crew is. We use 12/0 hooks, 4 to 8 oz sinkers and 12 foot spinning rods from the boat or bank. From the bank if the water is swift and you can't walk down the bank, I'd use anything over 40 pound test, from a boat anything over 20 pound test will be fine for a 80 pound fish. Depends how much you want to play or horse it. My favorite setup is 50 to 80 pound braid tied to a good barrel swivel. Then lighter mono line tied to the hook and sinker. Get hung up and you break off hook sinker and 10 foot of cheap line.

focused fishing, 2. Over charge with a manual charger at least once a month How much do you over charge them? Is this th same as putting them on equalize to clean the plates ? I think industial chargers have an equalize setting that charges the battery at a higher voltage for about 24 hours, perhaps once a month? This is ok to do for trolling and starting batteries too ? Sealed or not sealed ? I bought a charger that claims to do this, but it's all automatic and only overcharges if it senses the need. Not what I wanted. Do you just take a full charged battery and put it on 2 amp charge for so long, or how do you do this?

We was poking along. If your gutsy, you could run on plane ? I'd rather go slow and pick my way through. Did get to see a Bald Eagle sitting in a nest along the way. Pretty cool. Where is the outlet they are snagging at ?

timr0123, We put in at Flat Creek Resort yesterday and motored up almost to Galena. We could see the train bridge but started back down. River gage at Galena says it was a little lower than 8' when we was there. By my "in dash depth gage", it said most of the river was 6-7 feet deep (in the channel) at the shallowest, except one section that was only about 4' in the deepest part. I started digging gravel when it showed 3'. I'm sure my prop isn't 3' deep so it's off a little. I think the shallow was up from Blunks a couple miles ? You can tell it's gonna get shallow, going upstream, the river turns to the right and the river widens up. Flooded brush sticking up in the river. Tried the outside section by the bank and it got to 3' and we started grinding gravel. Took the center section and it was deep enough to get through ok. Showed 4' on the depth gage. We was in a 19' deep V aluminum, 3/4 tank of gas and 4 people with 130 hp 4 stroke. River gage is down to 7' right now but it's starting to rain in Springfield so it should be going back up soon. If I remember right ? When the river was low, below Blunk the river bed is large flat rocks, not gravel? Maybe the center is gravel? Someone might know better ? We landed about a 75# sow close to McCord Bend. Lost another nice one and caught a small male and turned it back. Only saw one other fish on a boat and it was real dark so it was probably caught several hours earlier, don't know where? That was the only other boat we saw snagging above Walnut Springs boat ramp.

I believe that WalGreens and WalMart only scan and save the slides with JPG format. I was told they can not, or will not save them to a TIF file format? It's my understanding that TIF is higher quality (and yes its also a larger file size), that won't degrade each time the file is saved (compressed). I want to save each file in TIF format for a master copy. JPG is great for web viewing, emailing etc. The slides I want to copy are family pictures and from the Korean War, from the 50's and 60's and I want to save them at the highest quality I can, at least for the master copy. Anyone know if this is correct?

Chief, let me know when your coming. I live here but have never fished the creek so sadly can't be of any help there. I do like to eat and BS. I like to fish also, just not into trout or fly fishing yet.

Hey Chief ! I saw there is a realtor sign on the old Catfish/Steak House. A possible site for your B&B ? Not secluded but you can walk to the city park and fish. Also looks like another cafe in town may have closed ? I forgot in above post to mention the Feed Store, Dollar Store and the Grocery Store, they have a nice meat dept. Oh, and not a single traffic light in town.

Al, my interest in slide scanning took me to this site, it's the best one i've found. I have been pondering buying a Nikon 5000 series film scanner with a 50 slide, auto feeder. My idea was to buy used, scan the slides i have then resell, for a loss with my track record. http://www.scantips.com/ When I went to verify the address, I found he has a new article titled "Scan thousands of slides with a digital camera". Hope this is helpful. http://www.scantips.com/es-1.html I admit his articles are very detailed and way over my know how, but he does a good job of trying to explain it so that even I can follow along, part ways anyway. I see an add for a Wolverine film scanner for converting slides and negatives to digital, but know nothing about it. I reccomend this site to anyone looking for slide scanning info.

Thanks to all for the tips and reports. Watching them dive down and pick up a fish is really cool. I'll try to map out a trip soon. I read a newspaper article on the net, from Neosho Daily News, the Conservation Dept. had an Eagle watching day in Stella last year in January. Said they have counted 184 Eagles in the field there at one time, maybe not that day though. Seems like a lot in one field? May check by there also, but a trip in the boat is always more fun. At least more adventure, if not more fun.

What else do you want to do? If you plan to go to Springfield, then Republic is in between. If you want to go to a show or check out Branson then there's several places on the west side of town toward Branson West. Aurora is closest then Monett about the same as Republic. But not much selection and not a whole lot else to do around there? Daylight will be short by then so you might want something else to do? In December there is the Christmas light drive thru at Shepard of the Hills and Silver Dollar City is open for Christmas festival during December too. Pretty impressive if your into LOTS of Christmas lights. (both toward Branson). Of course Springfield has Bass Pro and Grizzly. If you have at least a couple people getting rooms, you might look at renting a house or condo? If that suits your needs? I've seen some in Galena (pretty close), and several at Branson West and Indian Point (by Silver Dollar City). Was a couple houses in Springfield. I never rented through them and know nothing except what i've read on their website, but have looked at "Vacation Rentals By Owner", website. Anywheres from $70 up to $Lots per night. With a cleaning fee. Just another option. Enjoy your stay !

Planning a couple trips to take folks out in the boat to see the eagles this fall/winter. Any tips on best dates and areas of the lake to see several ? Thanks

Ozark Trout Fisher, no problems. I didn't let it worry me. I figure we're on the same side. Perhaps I don't express myself well. Someone said: A wise man speaks because he has something to say. A fool speaks because he has to say something. Perhaps I fit in the latter sometimes. But I think about this saying sometimes and rein myself in.