eric1978

Nice fish. What was your buddy using the first day?

Did the survey for you. Hope you have a good lead suit. I think you picked a great field to get into...as long as your 'nads don't start growing toes or something. I have a feeling nuclear energy is going to boom in the near future. Good luck.

You act like the bears pose some kind of problem. Black bears are the least carnivorous of the bear species, so I don't think you need to worry about them eating all your fish.

Some people paddle or motor upstream, then float back down...that's what I meant. No, smallies don't have a nasty taste (they do have worms on occasion though)...it's just that they're more fun to catch than to eat, and they grow extremely slowly. C&R those smallies, Brother!

Lifestyle change? This can't be good.

You won't need the motor if you're just floating downstream, but if you choose to take it I'd do a lower stretch. Lots of public accesses and private campgrounds, but the gravel bars are yours for the taking. And remember, smallmouths taste like sewage.

You mean this expression? That's what jealousy looks like.

If you don't own your own canoes your options will be much more limited. After Memorial Day, all the rivers with liveries are going to be choked with stupid people. If you want to avoid them you should float during the week if at all possible. Most liveries offer 2 or 3 day floats. If you had your own canoes your options become limitless, and you can shuttle yourselves anywhere you want to less popular rivers and be alone (for the most part) even during the weekends. I'll assume you're near the St. Louis area since you mentioned the Meramec and Black Rivers. If you're looking for solitude, after Memorial Day, on weekends, you can pretty much scratch off the list: Meramec, Huzzah, Courtois, Current, Jack's Fork. There are plenty of others that won't be nearly as crowded, but many of them don't have rentals available.

Hey bobber, thanks for the tips on the G-Flex. I picked some up a while back and fixed up the ol' canoe. Haven't had it on the river yet, but I can tell that's some good stuff...tough as nails. Probably stronger now than it was out of the factory. Didn't mean to hijack your thread...carry on.

ksbass, PC sent me one of your leaders last winter and I love it. I haven't taken it off my line since I put in on. It's still in great shape and it's been months. Nice work, and it's cool what you guys do with the proceeds. Keep it up!

That's a cool pic, man. Nice mess.

...but it doesn't. The rains are great, I just hope it doesn't screw up any spawns.

Thought for sure this was just another result of ramblings from a moron, but I looked it up just in case and sure enough, it's real. Did you pick that up when you lived in the northwest?

There's some decent, wadable water with fish-holding spots right upstream from the Bay Creek access on JF. If I remember correctly, The Buck Hollow, Blue Spring and Rymers accesses have some deeper pools nearby and might be tough to wade...unless the water is down, say below 75 cfs or so. Remember JF is a Smallmouth Management Area. Good luck!

Nice lookin' float. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, it's the Akers gage. I posted the link to it because he mentioned going down to Pulltite. That's the gage I would watch if I was doing that float.

If it doesn't rain anymore, my guess will be high but floatable by Wednesday. A couple of the Current regulars will probably chime in here with acceptable cfs flows for that section. Looks like average flows for this time of year is around 400-500 cfs (based on only 8 years of data...so take that with a grain of salt), and it's at about 700 and dropping now.

http://waterdata.usg...Ameter_cd=00065,00060

I'd say if they were going to be found it would have happened by now. Either way, I wouldn't cancel a trip over it.

Oh boy, here we go again. Just messin' with ya. Wish I had a new rod that needed some new line.

I've only used a guide twice, both times on Lake Fork. We had our own boat but used the guides the first day of the week each time just to get some inside info on patterns so we didn't waste half our week down there on trial and error. Both times the guides fished with us. The first time it was kind of a tough bite...a cold front had blown in and we were having trouble nailing down a pattern. The guide was fishing with us in the beginning, and once he found a pattern and got us on some fish he pretty much put up his rod and let us do our thing. He'd make a cast every now and then out of boredom I suppose, and I didn't blame him. The second time it was just game on from the get-go. Every spot he took us to was fish after fish on just about every cast. He hadn't started the morning fishing, but after he sucked down coffee and cigs for a couple hours, and saw that we didn't need any kind of assistance, he did pick up the rod and joined the fun. I had no problem with it, there was plenty to go around. In the case that you cited SIO3, if the bite was a little tough and the guide was hitting all the juicy spots first, I think that would definitely bother me. But in my cases where he was either trying to get us on fish, or it was just a bonanza, I don't see anything wrong with it, so I guess for me it just depends on the situation.

Looks like we got a lot in common...except I prefer eating crappie, clouds on my solo float, more than just a few tugs to disturb my peace, and I just picked up flyfishing last year...it's well worth the investment. Nice making your acquaintance. Now invite me to your cabin. J/K...not really...yeah, I'm kidding...kind of.

Oh SNAP! Ronnie, you just got owned. Bad karma for calling me a retard probably.

He puts you guys on all those fish, and all he gets is that little cup o' water. I'd say that doggie deserves a punch bowl for those slabs.

May I have a drink of your tasty beverage to wash this down?