Justin Spencer

Someone told me they had seen some elk calves in a pen at Peck Ranch earlier this fall. I discounted this, but wondered why someone would make that up. Anyone else heard of elk already being here.

Can't argue with any of these suggestions, looks like you may have to make it an annual thing and try them all. Hopefully we'll get some rain between now and then or many of these trips will be better done with a backpack and hiking boots. I think your best chance of not seeing another person for an entire trip would be on Bryant Creek. A beautiful river with big gravel bars and big bluffs, good smallmouth and goggle-eye fishing and no outfitters on the river. I took some guys up for a three night float a few years ago and they had a wonderful time, I even met them with some grocery reinforcements so they could eat lobster and steak every night (group of chefs). Seems like they floated from highway 14 down to Sycamore Access. Like most warm water streams the upper streaches can only be done in times of ample rain.

I think last years high water helped the spawn a bunch between Greer and Turners. Caught or hooked probably close to 20 fat parr marked trout (I assume were stream bred) without taking a step in one of the shoals near hurricane creek. Obviously in areas without stocking there will be much more variation from year to year on fish numbers, some years great, some years poor. The NFoW like many other rivers went through a prolonged period of low water back in the late 90's early 2000's and from what I understand the fishing was tough. After a few good years of water I have noticed an improvement in the fishing, and I think the sampling numbers being up correlate to the better water levels.

I noticed a bright orange belly on several of the parr marked bows I caught there the other day. Ryan said that it was a somewhat common occurrance on the "wild" bows of the eleven point. I would really like to see a fish farmer take some of these fish and breed these as it seems pretty unique. Don't know if they'd breed true, but a really cool trait to look for next time you go to the point. With the lack of many long deep pools on the North Fork I think we just have more good spawning areas for trout than the 11 point. With more smallmouth, sunfish and pickerel on the Point they also have more predators to eat both eggs, and fry before they reach catchable size. My theories as to why they have less dependable recruitment than the NFoW.

Good gosh Sloss, those houses look great! I know they aren't directly on the river, but those are cheaper than a crappy hotel room in the city. Everybody get to his lodging before he realizes what he has and starts charging outlandish rates like Sunburst Ranch.

I'd love too. If you're not getting them below the dam I think you might be disappointed here. While the fish still bite this time of year, I don't think we can expect the action we get once the water starts warming up. Winter fishing = more beer/less fish.

Like a lot of baits I think this is made to catch the fisherman as much as the fish. Afraid they won't get many takers at that price!

To clarify the situation in my area, while people do shoot deer out of season for food, the vast majority (who rely on this meat) are surprisingly respectful of the seasons, and usually use the proper seasons to stock up. Probably a bigger problem than poaching is the filling of other people's tags. Between rifle and bow season with landowner tags I can kill (without looking) 5-6 deer I believe. I think my wife could do the same if she were to get her tags, and not sure how kids factor in. Plenty of people fill the tags of someone else, and with tele-check I would say it is easier than ever. Once again I think the MDC chooses not to look too hard at a deer violation unless it was reported, or was a blatent waste of something like a big buck that was found without a head. In areas with small deer populations I would guess they enforce the laws a little harder than areas with overabundant populations. To my knowledge all the robo deer are bucks (is that an accurate statement?)

I'd say he just shot it to shoot it, then had to come up with a story. Just goes to show how MDC really doesn't want mountain lions in the state.

I'm just telling what goes on in my area, and has been for generations and still have plenty of deer, I don't think the problem is increasing. Steve, if you had the choice between not having enough for you and your family to eat and violating a game law, you would choose to go hungry? The level of poverty in the rural ozarks is something many people cannot understand. You might not know it talking to these people, but some of these folks don't have a single dollar to their name until they get paid for an odd job here or there, or take a load of junk to the salvage yard. They don't have credit cards to get them through, they grow and can their own vegatables raise their own livestock, and are generally honest people. I for one respect this type of living much more than the guy living in a house that's much too big, driving a car that's much too expensive and taking lavish vacations he can't afford. Society thinks much more highly of this person because they can't see the debt he has until he files for chapter 11, or gets bailed out by family or friends. Few of these rural ozarkians are upside down on their mortgages, and while some do accept goverment assistance (can't blame them if it's available) their drain on society is minimal. If them shooting a deer or two out of season keeps food on the table, and game stays plentiful, more power to them.

yep, if they are doing it to feed themselves or family. Beats them robbing grocery stores! I think seasons and limits are set in different areas with estimates of poaching in mind. We have tons of deer in our area, but no antlerless season. Could this be due to the fact the state knows we have lots of poor folks who take deer if they need them out of season?

And we wonder why we can't get a couple hundred lawmakers in Washington to agree on anything!

Easy to blame third world countries as we take a hot shower, sit down in front of our furnace or air conditioner and answer the door as the pizza delivery man shows up. There is a big difference in exploiting a resource to get richer, and fishing or hunting to survive. While they both might hurt a resource it is hard to blame someone for trying to feed their family and survive. Plenty of people around here shoot deer year round to put meat on the table and nobody cares because we understand it is that or nothing for some of these people. We are ALL fortunate to have been born in a country with goods and services that are better and cheaper than most other places. Before we go and complain about some of these other countries exploiting resources and complaining about their practices we need to put ourselves in their shoes. Looks like maybe we have led by example in the area of overfishing, this is what the United States (if we really are a leader in the world) must do in all global aspects if we hope that other countries will change their practices. Change won't come quickly, but it must start somewhere. We must be able to go to the Hall of Justice and say here is what we are doing or have done, now let's see you do the same. Everyone will face some sacrifice with these changes (seafood prices have risen for example), but unless we are willing to sacrifice nothing will ever change.

I'm sure that change would be unconstitutional, like most change seems to be at that level according to some. I'd better edit that as to not stir the pot.

I agree that that picture is awesome, more than just the fire, the glowing tent really makes that picture cool. Some nice fish as well.

I don't think the Seahawks can destroy anyone, but they have a chance to beat the bears. As for being a cowboys fan, at least you have a cool stadium. As a Chiefs fan I can take pride in the fact that we now hold the record for most consecutive playoff losses in NFL history, and share it with no one. Seems like the Chiefs and Royals break records every year and they are not the kind to brag about. I think I'll become a patriots fan, that Tom Brady is dreamy!

Whitlock is always good at stirring the pot, I miss him being with the Star. Amazing we had a playoff year hard to complain but we need to improve greatly if we expect to even be 8-8 with next years difficult schedule. Stoneroller do you root for any teams or just against them?

Hope everyone is getting their faces painted and ready to scream and yell at the TV. Looking at next years schedule it looks like we better get it done this year. Good luck boys!

Halleluyah! I spend $2 every time I go fishing on a different river because I have too many pockets on waders, vest, fly bag, etc, and can never put my hands on my license. Just gave Sloss $2 last week when I went over to the Point. Now I can just print out a pile of them and not worry about it. Finally some streamlining of govt. spending that makes sense. I think I'll buy some yellow paper with a sticky back to print it on to remind me of the good ol' days.

I think we could start up a little fund and might find a hatchery truck breaking down needing to unload their fish, say around Turner.

They stock browns on the NFoW and 20"ers are caught on a regular basis. We have no rainbow stocking and still have large self-sustaining population. What I don't understand is that if there is a good reproducing rainbow population why stock rainbows at all. The thing I like about the NFoW is we have our own strain of rainbows that continue to evolve for our specific river. If you do stock rainbows why not stock browns as well and see who does better, I think the two species occupy their own niche, and while you do catch them side by side you do find the concentrations of them in different water, or on different streaches of river.

I think Wise has found a date for you Chris, I'll let him tell you about it.

After fishing the point the other day I noticed that much of the river looked like prime brown trout habitat where some monsters could lurk. Wondering if anyone had any good arguements against this, evidently the forest service doesn't want anymore introduced species in the river that are not currently there, yet continue to stock rainbows. The hellbender seems to always be an arguement, yet the ones they find are malformed which is not the brown trouts fault. I for one wish they would do it, I think they would get bigger there than in the NFoW, more and better deep holes.

Definately did, I was just pointing out that as we have more hawks around more and more people are shooting or wanting to shoot (my wife for example) them because they are increasingly preying on chickens, game animals, yorkies, etc. To be honest this doesn't really bother me (even though I enjoy seeing birds of prey) but I am not, and do not want to be a part of this activity.

No attitude, just the only other explanation since everyone had a good reason for it not being another type of animal killing the llama. He can if he uses a backhoe, and remember these are Ozark llamas, 500 pounders don't happen around here.