Mrs. Redbeard

My husband and I own Redbeard's Ranch, a quiet campground on the Niangua River. We are here this weekend trying to clean up debris from the flooding and find all of our picnic tables, buried in various locations in the river bottoms. We had at least 30 feet of water in the campground last month and the piles of debris are over my head in some places. Fortunately, the water never reached any of our buildings, but it came within 15-20 feet of our tipis. The river is down now and the fishermen are back. We had a group of 10 men from the Independence area camping and fishing here this weekend. They have been coming to the Niangua every spring for 18 years ... and wouldn't let the cool, damp weather keep them away. The river is now safe for floating and we are putting canoes on the river this weekend. Hopefully, we won't get anymore rain for a while. The ground is so saturated that any moisture at all just flows into the creeks and down to the river. We will have about 150 scouts and their leaders here next weekend for a regional fishing camporee. Their "service project" will be to gather driftwood and build a big bonfire in the middle of our largest meadow. Aside from the fishing, that should be a highlight of their weekend. I don't fish much ... but Redbeard considers himself to be an expert fly-fisherman. So if anyone has any questions about fishing on the Niangua, I will pass them on to him and post the answers. However, I must tell you that you should take anything Redbeard says with a grain of salt. He insists that it is a fisherman's perogative to lie about the size of the fish, both the ones that got away and the ones that he released. Mrs. Redbeard www.redbeardsranch.com