jdmidwest

Were you in the Red Truck? I was in the Red Blazer. I never even made it to Dam 3, sounds like that is where the big fish were this weekend.

Last fall I run across a neat little system called the Flytedeck. It has a single Okuma fly box, small pouch for leaders, rod holder, zingers, and 2 bottle holders. I downsized for quick get out of the car trips. It is great for hitting different accesses, or during hot weather. I have included a few pics of it. Flytedeck system But seriously, I have to pack a bunch of flies in case something comes up. My normal chest pack from Watermark is a full blown system. I can pack the kitchen sink and a toilet if I need it. The extra weight gives me better traction when I wade past my waist in the current.... Normal boxes I carry are an egg box, terrestrial box, dry fly box with caddis and mayflies, bead head box, scud box, big fly box with various big flies, woolly box, and a streamer box. And I will still run across something I need. I have pics of them too. The dry fly part I answered in another thread. Alot of the time it is not about matching a hatch, it is catching the fish looking up instead of down. Dry flies and emergers are important parts to fly fishing.

There is a trail and a parking lot off HWY 19 to the spring itself. The area below the spring to the river is private and no trespassing. It is marked well. The old trail used to come down the hill by the old mill at the top of the hill from the river. It was steep and a pretty tough walk and went thru the private land. The new trail is longer, but is not as steep and has bridges and benches to sit and rest and is on the forestry service land.

Well, you were trying to call me jdtroutbum the other day....

????

I think they all open up to bait fishing on Feb. 1. Until then, it is catch and release with approved lures only. Check the regulations on this link. MDC Winter Trout

I usually carry a box of Mayflies and Caddis, and a box with Terrestrials and Stimulators. While trout normally feed subsurface, there are times when they are taking flies in the film or on the surface. I have noticed alot of flyfisherman using scuds and nymphs while fish are feeding actively on the surface or in the film. Friday at Montauk, the air was filled with midges and a few caddis. But, they were not falling in the water, so the trout were not feeding on them. I used a midge nymph and caught fish. They did pick off a caddis or two when they dropped in close. The midges in the air were size 24 or smaller, and like Dano, I can't fish what I can't see. You will not see a fly in my boxes smaller than 18. Most warm days, there will be a group of insects that complete their lifecycle by either dying and falling back to water or getting picked off while depositing eggs. If you notice dimples or fish rising to the surface of the water and taking something off the top, look at the water and see what is floating by and imitate it. If it is flying by, catch it and look to see if you have something to match it. Another good time to go to drys is anytime you see fish near the top of the water column. They may just be looking for a meal to drop in. This is the time for a beetle, ant, Stimulator pattern, or a hopper depending on the season. The Stimulator patterns like the Crackleback, Royal Coachman, Dry Woolys, and others can make this kind of trout strike. I carry a variety of flies, both hackles and CDC. I use foam also for my beetles and as a float on some of my emergers. I took one Friday in the catch and release area on an emerger that used a foam back for a floating life vest to keep it just under the waters surface. I normally end up using some kind of a dry fly or emerger during the day except on days like today. It was windy, I was fishing rough water, and there were no fish near the surface. The main objective of flyfishing is to feed them what they are eating. You have to pay attention to the water, turn over a few rocks, and wave your hat around to see what is on the menu.

Left Jackson this morning at 5 am and the weather was misty and 61. 3 Hours later, arrived at Wood's Riverbend for breakfast and stepped out into a 42 degree morning with a brisk wind. Filled our guts with a fine breakfast and down to Lasseter Access we went. Geared up and headed out, strong wind blowing from the North about 15 mph or more. Started picking up fish right off the bat on the snail pattern. We fished till noon and we probably caught 30 fish all averaging about 12 inches, no biguns. And we had the place to ourselves. Back to the truck to warm up, went to the Federal Hatchery and looked at the aquarium fish for a while. We assumed body temp again and drove down to the Bayou Access the back way. Arrived at Bayou to find 2 guys cleaning fish and packing up. I fished for about 2 hours and only picked up 2 fish, my buddy was skunked. We fished all the way down to the first waterfall above Riverside. My buddy had switched over to spin gear and a little cleo, but was not having any luck. Back to Lasseters to finish out the day. I worked my way from the Island down to the ramp with no luck. A couple of others were fishing around the ramp and not doing much either. The front had moved thru and the fish had lockjaw. Left out at 3 and was in the driveway at 6:30. 6 hours of drive time, 378 miles on the truck, 6 hours of fishing. 34 degree downturn in temp.

No Dry Flies? Does any on here fish with dry flies any more?

That used to be my life before kids and family got in the way. Toss a tent and cooler in the rig and head out on the days off if they were going to be nice. High gas prices would have hindered that trip yesterday. We had planned a 2 day on the Spring River this weekend, but with the weather and my cold, I changed it to a day trip. We are still looking at 26 mile wind gusts and temps in the 30's.

Driving home last night around the hills of Bunker Mo., I started noticing a new cluster of lights on top of a hill toward the East. At first I thought it was one of the lead mine complexes around Bixby but it was too far south. Between Centerville and Lesterville I realized it is the Taum Sauk upper lake project on Proffitt Mountain being rebuilt. On one stretch of road, you can see it well. There were a lot of Halogen job lights on top of the mountain lighting it up like a stadium. I assume they are working 24/7 rebuilding the damage caused by the breach 2 years ago. It really lights up the sky, last night it was bouncing off the cloud cover rolling in and you could see it up the valleys when you crossed the Black River and the road to the facility near Glover. I was wondering why Ameren was spending so much money on that project then I realized the reason on Election Day. We passed the bill where utility companies will have to produce X amount of electricity from renewable resources by a certain year, I don't remember which one. The pumped storage facility will be a part of it. The only other means would be wind or hydro power. The flood damaged the Johnson Shutins Park. They have spent the last 2 years rebuilding it. The new park is scheduled to open at the end of April 09 with new shower houses, maint. buildings, store, and gate houses. Most of the fill dirt that washed in will be cleared up. Trees will be replanted. Just last week the Army Corps of Engineers announced a lawsuit against Ameren for filling up the upper portion of Clearwater Lake and diminishing the storage capacity of the lake. It is amazing the power of a few billion gallons of water in a few minutes can do.

I have for the last week been suffering from a sinus infection. Head stops up of a night and I fell like half baked crap during the day. I had a day off Friday so I decided to take a little road trip. Gas is down to $1.36 so it was a pretty cheap trip. I awoke with one ear killing me and feeling pretty bad, so I downed a few aspirin and a sinus pill and started out. I arrived at the park around noon, weather was fine and nice and had warmed up 20 degrees to a balmy 48. The crowds were pretty slim, maybe around 50 people. River was a little off color and cloudy but still had visibility to 2 feet. They had a .5 foot rise in the park Sunday from the 1.5 inches of rain, so the river was still clearing out. Springs were discharging off color too. Midges were swarming everywhere and a few caddis were skipping along the top. I hooked up on an 18" rainbow on about the fifth cast. I fished for 3 1/2 hours, caught several fish, and had a good time. Best producer was a size 18 black tunghead midge. Then off to the 3 1/2 hour drive home. Total for the day, 365 miles, 8 1/2 hours on the road including a few gun shop stops, 3 1/2 hours fishing. All by my little self. And I did not shake the nasties yet, maybe at Spring River tomorrow!

I spoke with Tom at the Montauk hatchery today, he states the same thing as Brian did. MDC does not have much to do with 11 pt except for the fisheries management in conjunction with the Feds. The land is Scenic Riverways and controlled by the Federal Forestry Service. The spring branch is a pretty fragile ecosystem that has been kept pretty pristine over the years. I would not like to see it trampled to death.

I know they were scheduled to take ownership in 2010 or later. I still don't think they will open it up completely as there is still a private cabin there. Brian may know.

Thanks. Looks like it is only good in the Catch and Release area around Rim Shoals. Plenty of good water. And they keep in contact with a radio.

What? No report. How was the water taxi?

Water Taxi??? What a brilliant idea. It sure beats driving out the tides. What are his normal hours of operation or days of operation? Does he have a website with info? I am planning on coming down later in Jan or Feb, that is a service I would really like to use.

AAAaaahhh Poop! Now they all smell like powerbait! Good thing it was a FLOATER! I wonder if they are all stained blue now?

I always pick up a few browns this time of year, but the majority seem to move up closer to the spring in the winter. I really wish they would dump a load of rainbows in the area between the park and cedar grove once a year to add to the fishing.

I know alot are buying AR-15's for the simple fact that the right may be taken away from them. And handguns are on the increase because the economy is bad and crime is going to increase.

Anybody been above in the trophy area lately?

Any body been lately??

The Missouri River adds alot to the silt and the pollution, as does St Louis and Cape, and many other towns along the river. They have done alot of work around here with the sturgeon. Walleye and white bass run up the tributaries and we catch them down here, I just don't eat them anymore.

Just run across this in the local paper. Yuck. It would take alot of cleaning. Just standing on the banks in the summer and smelling it would keep me out of it. Then there is the mud. And the fish advisory, if it is not safe to eat fish out of it, why would any want to swim in it. It would be nice if they did clean it up, anything would help. Published Dec 27, 2008 Recreation reclassification: EPA wants Mississippi River designated as safe for swimmers Whenever Huck Finn wanted to cool off on a hot summer day, his creator, Mark Twain, would write the boy into a swimming session in the Mississippi River. The EPA wants real people today to be able to swim in the river as well. In a recent letter to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for the Clean Water Program, told the department to take another look at its recreation-use designation for the Mississippi River from the Meramec River to the Ohio River. Grumbles reminded Missouri's pollution police agency that the federal Clean Water Act presumes that rivers, streams and lakes should be clean enough for swimming. If the water is not safe, the law allows the state agency to show why it is not possible to make the water clean. And on Jan. 7, DNR staff will recommend the state Clean Water Commission change the Mississippi's designation from secondary-contact recreation, a standard that covers boating, fishing and wading, to whole-body contact. The result could mean new requirements for expensive upgrades at sewage treatment plants along the river, including the Cape Girardeau plant. The Mississippi River is one of the most studied rivers in the world. At the Open River Field Station in Jackson, the Missouri Department of Conservation monitors several factors related to water quality, including indicators of fertilizer pollution, the acidity of the water and how much dirt and sand is in the water. But the key measure for human contact with the water is the level of E. coli, a bacteria present in human and animal waste that reaches the river in the discharge from sewage treatment plants and in the runoff from open land where livestock and wildlife graze. "When you are swimming, you are probably never going to swallow enough water" to have health problems caused by fertilizer or chemical pollutants, said John Ford, an environmental specialist with DNR's Water Pollution Program. "The only risk you have from swallowing a small amount of water is bacteria and protozoans." In recent years, the DNR has reviewed the classifications for 3,600 stream segments and 400 lakes and designated the water for whole-body contact. The DNR passed on classifying 142 other bodies of water, and the EPA made determinations of a whole-body contact designation for 141. The remaining unclassified water was the Mississippi River from Dam 27 north of St. Louis to the Ohio River. Of that 195.5-mile stretch, the EPA is seeking a whole-body contact designation on 1.3 miles from Dam 27 to North Riverfront Park in St. Louis, and 164.7 miles from the Meramec to the Ohio. The approximately 30 miles of river remaining, mainly along the St. Louis riverfront, will retain a designation that swimming is not recommended. "The Clean Water Act sets out that recreation shall be available in and on the waters of the United States," said John DeLashmit of the EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City. "The rebuttable presumption is that unless we are shown otherwise that United States waters are safe for swimming and other aquatic recreation. The DNR did not submit anything showing that is not attainable on the Mississippi River." Data collected at Thebes, Ill., by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency shows that the E. coli levels in the river fluctuate widely. At times, the bacteria is almost nonexistent. At others, especially in periods immediately after heavy rains, the level spikes to counts that are as much as seven times the proposed maximum level for whole-body contact. The mathematical model for analyzing the data, however, shows bacteria counts are generally below the strictest current standard for whole-body contact. But because that Class A designation is usually used for lakes and streams that have heavy swimming use at places such as swimming beaches, the DNR is asking that the Mississippi be placed in the Class B category. That category recognizes that people do swim in the river but that it is not a primary swimming destination, so the allowable bacteria counts are higher. The counts are based on readings taken between April 1 and Oct. 31, the defined recreation season, Ford said. Along with the designation for whole-body contact, the DNR must also determine whether the water is ready for the named use or if it is impaired and in need of a cleanup plan, said DeLashmit. If the river is impaired, he said, the DNR will write an improvement plan that could include recommendations on controlling livestock runoff, for example. Regardless of whether the river is listed as impaired, the designation for whole-body contact means sewage treatment plants along the river will have to make improvements. Because the river is not designated for full contact now, said John Hoke, an environmental specialist and use attainability coordinator for the DNR, no plant discharging into the river is required to disinfect its effluent. When a plant dumps into a river or lake that is designated for swimming, it must disinfect the effluent. The limits on the discharge are a mean reading of 400 colonies of fecal coliform per 100 milliliters, with a daily maximum reading of 1,000 colonies per 100 milliliters. "What it means practically in terms of wastewater treatment plants is that they would be required to disinfect," Hoke said. The disinfection requirement would be put in place when a plant's permit is renewed. Cape Girardeau discharges an average of 5.5 million gallons of treated sewage daily into the Mississippi from the wastewater treatment plant at 429 Cooper St., said Dennis Hale, plant manager. The city does not disinfect the wastewater. The two common disinfecting methods are chlorination and ultraviolet light, Hale said. Installing disinfecting equipment would be the first major upgrade to the plant since it was constructed in the 1970s, Hale said. "As far as what it would cost, I would hate to guess," Hale said. "Either one would be pretty expensive." The whole-body contact designation would be an invitation to the public to take a new look at the river. Many people have a mistaken impression that the river is far too polluted for swimming, several sources said. "There is a big plus to getting people back on the Mississippi River," Ford said. "The resource is there to be used, and there are some really interesting places on the river." rkeller@semissourian.com 388-3642 Does this affect you? Have a comment? Log on to semissourian.com © Copyright 2008, Southeast Missourian Story URL: http://semissourian.com/article/20081227/N...12279992/0/NEWS