ozark trout fisher

Frankly, I'm pretty shocked to see people defending this. I have African American friends and I know how hurtful that word is to them. I don't care if it's part of southern culture. We all know that there have been aspects of southern culture in the past, as it relates to race, that are nothing short of repulsive. This is one of them. I'm not saying that any person who has ever used the word is automatically a bad person. Maybe it was acceptable a few decades ago. But it's not now, and if I EVER hear anyone saying it they will get an earful from me.

Awesome video. Nothing like spending a couple days on the Current.

The reality is that there will almost certainly be at least one, and maybe a couple all-stars in this draft. We just frankly have no idea who it will be. There are plenty of really good players, but to me, no one who jumps out as a guy that absolutely will be a star on a good team. My Missouri fan instincts are making this hard to say, but if there is a true all-star here, I'm leaning toward Ben McLemore. He didn't quite get it figured out in college but the talent there is just insane. I'm not buying Nerlens Noel or Alex Len, the two guys most are pointing to. Noel is and will be a really good rebounder and shot blocker. That's good for a late first round pick, but in the upper half of the lottery? Alex Len meanwhile spent most of his time at Maryland disappearing into thin air. He looked REALLY good every once in awhile, but the intensity just doesn't seem to be there. He was picked in the top five but honestly, given what I saw, I think he's a second-round guy. A good player, but a project. Oriakhi got picked up late in the second round by the Suns, where he'll actually be competing against Len for minutes. Frankly, despite the disparity in where they were picked, I like Oriakhi's chances. If you've seen both of them play in college, Oriakhi was just so much more dominant, so much more willing to be the guy who'd clean up others misses and generally do the "dirty work" that an NBA center will have to do. It was disappointing to me that Pressey wasn't drafted, but it looks like he may be able to latch on to the Celtics, who have somewhat of a void at the back-up point guard spot. So he's still got a chance.

22 inches overall, from the Saranac River in the Adirondack Mountains. It is a tailwater below a small reservoir where I was fishing, and when they are running water the fishing is just unfair. My Missouri best is a 20 incher, but that's by far the biggest I've caught. Other than that, there have been a solid number of 17-18 inchers. But other than that 20 incher, that's been a pretty hard and fast ceiling for me.

Welcome. Won't need the 9 weight here, but I'd keep it because it's silly to throw away a fly rod, and you might want to go back to Oregon one day. But unless you plan to fly fish for blue catfish.....

Well, I'm pretty sure he was referring to the utterly unnecessary nature of banning Sharia law. You might as well ban standing on the ceiling upside down. Sure, it might be a problem if there was a chance it might occur, but in the absence of that, our legislators might as well spend their time working on things that might as some point effect someone's life between now and the end of time.

Maybe I overstated that a bit. Bottom line, the Meramec and Gasconade are both fine smallmouth streams, and you'll probably have a bit of company fishing either one.

I can pm you a bit of info on the Little Manistee if you like. I fished there last summer and really liked it. It stays really cold in the right sections so you might want to check it out. We fished it in almost 90 degree weather and near drought conditions, and it was still running cool and trout were active. Very much like a northern version of the upper Current....easily wadeable most places but also a nice float. Lots of small eager trout, a few big ones that we heard all about but weren't able to find. I'm afraid I don't know a thing about the others though.

Thanks a lot. Very helpful stuff. Honestly, I don't anticipate getting out of the boats often if at all (it's a longish float so we'll need to make time), so I doubt the trespass issues will be something that we'll really come in contact with. It's great to hear from so many people on here who know the area. I was surprised to even get a couple responses, seems that area of Michigan is a more popular haunt for folks around here than I realized. I love it up there.

I hear what you're saying. We'll certainly find out what the stream trespass laws are and follow them. Past that, I don't know if there's any good solution for us other than to just go ahead and worry about grumpy landowners if they show up. We'll be following the law, we're not going to be yelling or playing loud music, and it's a national scenic river. From what I can turn up it's one of the more famous floating/fishing streams in Michigan, so you'd think they'd be used to seeing people fishing and canoeing. Anyway, I appreciate the heads up.

We'll be careful about the private land situation. I assume it's the same up there where you're good as long as you stay within the banks. If so it shouldn't be a problem...if anyone hassles us about getting out of the river to portage around a fallen tree or something of that sort, that's kind of on them. We are thinking of floating the fly only area, and doing some wade fishing in the mornings/evenings there as well. If the fishing ends up a little tough that's fine....we should have plenty of time up there to fish a few other rivers that I know from experience can fish well in mid/late summer. It sounds like it's worth seeing even if the fishing isn't the best at that time of year.

Thanks thats helpful. We're thinking of fishing the same general area.

Thanks. It can hardly be worse/better than the Pine though in that regard.....that river was definitely more challenging than anything I've paddled in the Ozarks, kind of like the Eleven Point except for there were about 10-11 Mary Deckar Rapids to the point where there wasn't much time to relax and fish. I was in a kayak and made it fine, but several in our party were in a canoe and they had a rough time of it. We were hoping for at least a slightly calmer stream this time so we could spend more time fishing and less time trying to keep from flipping.

Will probably miss that unfortunately. I'm headed up at the end of July-early August. I'd like to get up there for that sometime but it's not going to really be possible this year.

Thanks a lot. I think I will go ahead and plan on going there. Will take lots of pictures!

I went up to Michigan last summer, and spent the majority of my fishing attention on the Pine River. Now it's an incredibly beautiful river that's also a fun, fairly difficult paddle, but the fishing was just really difficult. There were some trout in there for sure, but it's one of the more challenging streams that I've ever had the pleasure to fish. Anyway, while I enjoyed that I'm looking for something a bit different this time. So I'm working on the details to hopefully spend a few nights on the Pere Marquette and get the necessary permits to float it, before perhaps heading over to the Little Manistee and a few other waters I plan to fish nearer lake Michigan. Anyone ever been on the Pere Marquette? Given the season I just expect to be fishing for resident trout, as opposed to the salmon/steelhead that are in there at certain times of the year which is more than fine by me. Is it where I should spend the majority of my time up there or should I look elsewhere? I did accumulate a couple of decent spots up there last summer not named the Pine River that I might be able to fall back on, but from everything I've heard the Pere Marquette is a pretty special stream worth checking out. Just curious if anyone has been on it and has an opinion.

I said it in an earlier post, but will reiterate.....every topic of any importance in this world (and especially anything that has to do with conservation) cannot be seperated from politics. But this is an environmental issue. No more inherently political than whether someone is going to put a dam in on your favorite stream, or whether the length limit on bass should be raised from 12 to 15 inches. They are all inherently scientific matters, but the methods of actually being able to do anything about them do involve politics. Doesn't mean they don't pertain to us, and it doesn't mean that all discussion about them should be silenced. This topic has been 100% civil, has it not? I'm not a moderator but it's hard to see what harm it's caused.

I don't know. I don't have any different regard for people that live in the city and those that live in the country. I've done both, and I find that people are pretty much just people. It's quite a small percentage of anyone who truly cares about the environment/natural resources in any way that doesn't benefit them directly, and it's no different between city folk and country people. Urban wastewater has the same effect as too much fertilizer used in a farm field that ends up in a river. People are people and most of them don't care. Unfortunately there's no tidy dividing line between those in rural and urban communities.

Look, it relates to politics of course. But you could literally say that about any of our conservation topics. After all, the state government funds the MDC (or the AGFC for those in Arkansas.) Everything they do comes at the taxpayers' expense. So by this measure, any topic relating to how either of these agencies manage our resources is political. Almost every discussion on here that isn't purely about fishing tactics/places could be construed that way, everything from fishing regulation issues to habitat improvement on your favorite river/lake. Nearly every important topic in this world relates to politics in one way or another. To eliminate any discussion as peripherally related to politics as climate change would in my opinion, be to eliminate nearly all non-fishing talk on here. Conservation issues would be off limits. We wouldn't be able to discuss a dam that was being planned on our favorite smallmouth stream, because the process involved in putting it in, or stopping it, would be political, perhaps even divided along party lines. In fact, we could talk about our favorite fishing spots, and our favorite tactics and that would be about it. And everyone would lose interest pretty quickly.

Global warming is only political if you make it so. Whether or not our planet is warming, and assuming it is, what may or may not be causing that, are two patently scientific issues. A lot of people have made it political but there's really no reason why it should be. How do I know this? You can have an entire, intelligent debate about global warming without mentioning the words republican or democrat, right or left, even once. Only the legislation that may be passed regarding climate change is blatantly a political issue.

I have to agree with that.

I like Slabtown to Ross for a (relatively long) overnight float. The first half is not crowded at all.....might go an entire day only seeing 7 or 8 canoes on the weekend if you're lucky. below Six Crossings crowds grow exponentially. But it's all very good smallmouth water, and better scenery. Wouldn't plan anything there (or anywhere else) soon though, given the weather. One thing about this float (and most others on the Big Piney) -you have to do your fair share of paddling to keep a decent pace. You'd think it'd be a quick moving stream, since it flows through some pretty rough, hilly country. It isn't....it's about as slow as any stream I know of in the Ozarks. It certainly doesn't seem to hurt the fishing but it means you have to work a bit to cover 16-17 miles in a couple days. But it's not too bad. I've never used any of the canoe rentals on the Big Piney but given the number of rental canoes on it, you shouldn't have any trouble finding something that will work.

I agree with that. Which is why no one ever should rely one one news source. If you just rely on Fox News, or just on MSNBC, you are going to have a really, really distorted view of the world one way or the other. As for the other issue, yeah, most national news outlets are pretty superficial, but I'm not sure there's any avoiding that. There are simply too many stories of too many different kinds to be covered for each and every one to be the quality we hope for. These guys can't be experts on everything. Sad reality but when you consider the number of stories on even one newscast you can understand why they can't give everything its due. It's why there are more specialized media outlets about individual issues for more indepth coverage. It's unreasonable to ask for that on most things from a broad, national news outlet.

I don't know. I've been fishing a lot and with the same stuff for quite awhile, and it hasn't seemed to change my level of interest. I've just rarely been one to say, I'm catching a bunch of fish on this Rebel Craw, but let's see what else I could switch to and still catch fish. If it's working I'm not changing. And given how easy summertime smallmouth fishing is in Missouri 90% of the time, most of the things I use will usually be working.

I know I've changed my mind about several topics (not this one) at least partially due to discussions on Ozark Anglers. Basically no one will come out in the middle of an argument and say "You know what, I actually think you're right" (pride wouldn't let most of us do that even if we really thought that.) But sometimes it does at least get you thinking about the opposite point of view in a way you've never considered before. And it will more than likely cause you to research whatever the discussion is about, beyond the opinions posted on here. Just occasionally, at some point that will to a change in your point of view. I think that's the only reason why it's ever worth your time to post in these types of threads.