Justin Spencer

Fishing has been crazy good ever since the little flood last weekend. I even grabbed a streamer rod out of a driftboat that was parked at my ramp as they were moving their vehicles yesterday and proceeded to catch a nice brown right in front of the ramp. First time I had trout fished in a month or two.

Doesn't look like it will change anytime soon with MoDot cutting back. All we can hope is that terrorists will target these bridges to cutoff those of us between the NFoW and Bryant Creek from the rest of the world, then they will have achived world domination. Or maybe we could get some help from some drone bombers.

Might help, I'll try and find out if there is any truth to rumors.

possibly the naacp or ncaa

I understand why Dawt is doing what it is, it boils down to a parking situation, and a liability problem. The bad part of Dawt is that there is no safe passage down to the bridge where you can take out, and by them not allowing access it is a safety concern. Before they started restricting access, and when we still took out down there, Saturday evenings were a mess. People fighting, busses waiting to get in to get boats and floaters, individuals waiting to back in to get their canoes, it was not a fun place to be. Once the gates went up and they started locking us out during normal floating times I found a place for sale and bought it to take out my floaters. It has been wonderful. It is a small ramp that can basically only accomodate my business so I do not allow the general public to take out there. No one complains because it hasn't been a takeout in the past, and James Bridge is only a mile upstream of it, but I still have people asking if they can use it. Dawt has made a lot of local people very upset and understandably so, but I can see where they are coming from as a business, they are finding out that a local landmark can be both a good thing, and a bad thing when everyone feels like it is part of the public domain that should be open to everyone. I have heard rumors that MDC was interested in purchasing the land at James Bridge and creating a good public access there (not confirmed however), that would solve a lot of access issues on the lower end of the river.

Me and my wife were talking about this yesterday. A simple breach to allow safe passage should be required I think. There has been a tree blocking the side of the dam that was easiest to pass for over a year and they have done nothing about it. Hopefully yesterday's rise washed it over the dam. McKee bridge is another private structure that the public cannot use that impedes passage down the river. It gets trees stuck on it (which they are somewhat good at clearing off) and is so low as to keep certain watercraft from going under it in normal water conditions. I would like to see these two issues taken on in the courts. I'm afraid it will take a tragedy to get the issue pressed however. I know I for one wouldn't want the liablity of either of these structures on my insurance plan. As for new construction of a dam or bridge, there are many new permits and regulations to be considered in this day and age that they didn't contend with back in the day. A low bridge was replaced a few years ago between Twin Bridges and Hammond, and they took safe passage into consideration by making a dip in the middle of the bridge for boats to go over. Ended up not being super safe as we had some floaters pull up on the bridge where there are large pipes at the surface, and a few of them got sucked through the culvert. Thankfully they weren't harmed, but were very shaken as they realized it could have ended badly.

Can't believe you'd kill one of your own animals just for fly tying materials and some stew . We need to go fish that in the muddy water tomorrow, looks like I will have the day off.

Lots of hawks get hunted in the ozarks, no confusion on the hunter's part. Chicken eating bastages!

Keep those goggle eyes, thems good eats!

We were contacted about a reality show here on the river and told them things are too calm here for good tv, we gave them NRO,s #, I'm sure Bob Burns would love it.

Very thoughtful of you.

I'm too lazy for that, you can rub it in when I have the Leprosy.

Talk to Chance, he hits those streams that would be closest to you, no need to come all the way over here, Elk and tribs come to mind.

If you read the whole article, it's nothing to lose sleep over, I'll continue to pick them up to get rid of them when I shoot them. Very hard to transmit.

I didn't help the cause burning a bunch of diesel running floaters up and down the river today. Wish they made a good electric bus!

Perhaps the Creator had this in mind all along. Take a look at Isaiah 24. I will admit that after growing up in the church I haven't been in years, but I can't imagine the Almighty would be too excited about how we have treated all that He gave us. Maybe the amish have it right.

Look at my statement. I said there should be nothing political about it, it is obvious that there is. It is sad to me that our nation and even the world can't come together to try and stop the damage that we are causing the planet. Unlike the older people on here who may only have another 10 or 20 years to live, I hope to have another 40 years or so on the planet, and it is a fact that even if we take action to slow CO2 emissions, the world will be a very different place in just a few decades. When my grandchildren are old and grey I am scared of what the world might look like. The politics behind it is what is slowing our reaction to the problem, by golly if one party is going to think one way, the other seems to oppose it just for the sake of arguement, even if we know we need to act NOW. It is naive to think we can keep kicking the can down the road on this one, putting off dealing with debt and spending is bad enough, playing with our future is dangerous.

Something has hurt there slime coat or threatened their immune system. Just like people, fish can get sick and pass it around. They are probably spreading it as they gather to spawn, makes sense that a schooling fish could have bigger outbreaks than fish that are more solitary. Just a guess, if it was an environmental factor there would be all species of dead fish.

Seems strange to me also. I understand a few here and there, but it seems like reports are getting worse. Maybe a virus that effects crappie mre than others.

I may hire you to take me there someday Jeff.

Is it only crappie? Has anyone asked MDC?

What I can't understand is how we dwell on a story for days and days until something else comes along. I'm as guity as anyone about looking for info as a big story is happening, but don't need everything rehashed for a week. Yesterday's tornado was a perfect example of misinformation, from no kids killed, to 9, to 50 missing, to everyone found and from 91dead to now two dozen. When did it become wrong to say you don't know but are working to find out.

CO 2 levels were about 330ppm in 1975, now they are 400, so yes common sense says that part of the pollution (greenhouse gas) is getting worse, and because it has been proven that higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere lead to an increase in temperatures common sense supports the science of global warming.

Should be nothing political about global warming. It is a fact that the majority in all parties agree is happening.

In graduate school I did a lot of research on crappie to see if they were a viable species for the aquaculture food market. They are so prone to handling stress that we had to knock them out and then add slime coat enhancers to their water after handling or they would develop bacterial and fungal infections within a week and die. I would say if it's only a few per cove, and not hundreds that it most likely from simple catch and release practices since they are being fished heavily right now. If possible use hemostats on those shorts while they are still in the water. If you do have to remove them from the water make sure your hands are wet so you don't damage their slime coat. Even good handling will still result in higher mortality in crappie than in other species. If it was a water quality problem I think you would see big numbers of dead in certain areas, not small numbers in many different areas.