Poke 'Em

I carry a dowel rod and a pair of pliers (and some leather gloves). Pry their mouth open, stick the dowel in to keep it open, and you can pull the rope out fairly easily. I always wear leather gloves though, as they've been known to take a quick snap at me.

I've got to agree. GE and pellet-raised fish belong in a category of their own. The fact that the Missouri state record rainbow came from Roaring River is an absolute joke.

I was down there for a little while in the middle of the day. Fishing was tough. Had one gar on for a while before I lost him. That was it. Nobody else was having much luck either. I did see one guy dragging two paddlefish around on a stringer. Pretty sure they were already dead. When I told him that you couldn't keep them out of there, he just shrugged and walked off. I saw him later and he didn't have any fish with him. Don't know whether he dumped them back in the river, dead, or stashed them in the brush, or what... Unfortunately, I didn't have my phone with me or I'd have called the game warden.

It's pretty ridiculous. It seems to me that a shuttle fee is inherent in the cost of renting a canoe (as it is on almost any other river), but then again, what do I know?

Well, for starters, they wouldn't be putting a dam on Crane Creek. The report said it would be an off-stream reservoir, meaning they would build the reservoir next to Crane Creek and pump water from the creek into the reservoir, then the spillway would empty back out into Crane (through a side channel first). Now, depending on where on Crane Creek this reservoir was located, it may or may not have a significant impact on the creek, at least the trout fishing part of the creek.

Also keep in mind that both Missouri and Arkansas have laws which make it illegal to interfere with someone who is legally fishing. So when you're legally fishing a navigable stream and some landowner with an attitude tries to make you leave, YOU call the cops. Not him.

After being run off for "trespassing" last week, when I was in the streambed of a navigable river and had accessed the river legally, I decided I needed to be even more informed of my legal rights to navigable streams (and what defines a navigable stream). This law review by Richard Frank is the best synopsis of US water law as it relates to navigability and public use that I could find. If you regularly fish public waters that flow through private lands, you definitely will want to read this law review (at least the first half - the latter half deals specifically with California law). As for me, I'll be putting a copy of it in a Ziploc baggie (along with a copy of a particular Arkansas court case) and carrying it in my fishing pack at all times. http://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/iss...6No3_Frank.pdf Just some highlights for those who don't or won't read the whole thing... In other words, there isn't a hard and fast definition of navigability. There isn't a certain flow rate, a particular depth or width, or a particular grade which must be met for a stream to be considered navigable. I have heard it said many times that a river must be "declared" or "deemed" navigable before it is considered navigable. This is not the case. Beginning with The Daniel Ball, the US Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that rivers which are navigable in fact are navigable in law. This means that any river which is physically navigable (more on what that means in a bit) is navigable by law. It is not necessary or prudent for the courts to go through and designate as navigable or non-navigable each stream on a stream-by-stream basis. I've often heard it said that a river is only navigable if it is navigable by large, powered crafts, such as steamboats or motorboats. Also, many people will say that a stream must be navigable along its length, that if there are any obstructions (shoals, riffles, treefalls, etc) that inhibit navigation then the stream as a whole is not navigable. This is not the case. As long as the stream, in general, under normal circumstances allows a vessel to float for useful commerce, then it is a navigable stream. In North Dakota v. Andrus the Little Missouri River was deemed navigable, even though it is impassible at certain times of the year, due to freezing, flooding and low summer flow. In fact, the opinion noted that though the river was only 2.5 feet at its deepest, because there were historic cases of isolated canoe use, the river was sufficient for travel and therefore for commercial purposes. Additionally, the decision explicitly relied upon evidence of private recreational use (canoeing) as evidence of the river's susceptibility to commercial use. Furthermore, in Alaska's Appeal of Doyon, Ltd. (86 Interior Dec. 692) the courts again concluded that susceptibility to use by small, recreational craft is sufficient evidence for navigability. That is, the stream need not to have been historically used for recreational craft, but simply that the stream is capable of supporting such activity, in order to be considered navigable.

In no way, shape or form does a stream have to been "declared" or "deemed" a navigable stream for it to be navigable. The US Supreme Court has stated, on numerous occasions, that any stream "which is navigable in fact is navigable in law." This means that if a stream CAN be navigated, then it is LEGALLY navigable. Check out this link to the most extensive law review of water rights / navigability that I have found. http://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/issues/Vo...16No3_Frank.pdf

Started off a the same stream from my report the other day. Shortly into the morning, though, I was interrupted by someone telling me (and not too kindly) that I was trespassing. By US & Arkansas Law this was a publicly-held river, and I had a legal right to be there, as I had accessed the stream by legal means. Nevertheless, I decided it wasn't worth a confrontation and simply left. That ended up working out alright as I moved to a different spot downstream (which was more frequently visited by other fishermen) and caught this guy right off the bat on a black & yellow Clouser. I worked the rest of that hole with the Clouser to no avail so I decided to tie on a little baby bass colored deer hair slider. Good choice. A few casts with slider when BOOM! Something heavy hit it and hit it hard. In no time at all he was on the reel and pulling line. In the swift current he gave the 3 wt all it could handle. Turned out to be this bruiser of a bronzeback. He was a little tore up (you can see the open flesh wound) either from a bird or a gar, but he still had a lot of fight to him. To give a little reference, I'm 6'4" about 240 lbs. He was the biggest smallmouth I've caught on a fly. A little after 1, the crawdad bite really turned on, and I caught three in a row out of one hole on a little crawdad pattern. Missed a couple others too. While the day started out pretty frustrating (it's no fun being yelled at for trespassing when you've got to great lengths to ensure that you are not trespassing), it turned out pretty well. Sometimes things just happen that way. : )

Thanks for the compliments. I built the whole rod myself about 2 years ago. Unfortunately I don't have a real good close-up of the decorative part (the butt wrap), but here's the best I've got.

I think you may be right. I thought he looked a little different from a normal Kentucky, so I felt for his tongue patch. It was definitely there, but it was much smaller and not as rough as you would normally find on a spotted bass.

I'm not telling where anyway. Tried a new stream today. First cast resulted in a hookup (though a lost fish). Good sign though. It just got better from there. I had started off throwing a small wiggle minnow, but quickly changed to a baby bass colored Clouser. That's what brought the first fish to hand, a nice 12" (or so) smallie. Then a beautiful longear right after that. Caught a few more small fish on the Clouser before I decided to tie on a small crawdad imitation I came up with. Bingo! First cast on that resulted in the biggest fish of the day. In all I caught two species of bass, 4 species of sunfish and a chub. Probably 30-40 fish in total. Also had a massive carp follow my fly, but never took it. Oh, and I'll leave you with this guy, who darted out from under a tree to absolutely NAIL a crawdad... When you can see a fish coming for you fly, full steam ahead, from 10 feet away from it... There's nothing better. (The only thing that comes close is the bend he puts in a 3 wt.)

What, you don't like the taste of trout pellets?

That part is actually fairly easy if you have the right equipment. Pry their jaws open with a pair of needlenose pliers, and stick a dowel rod in the back of their mouth to keep it open. Once you get that, it's pretty easy to pull the rope out of their mouth with the pliers. Oh, and I recommend a good pair of heavy gloves for handling the fish. Not only do they have all those teeth, but their scales can be pretty sharp too.

I'm using a 7 wt. It's plenty big enough for the fish. A bigger rod would make it easier to throw the fly though. Those rope flies get HEAVY when they're wet.