Upper River May 16-18

[BrianK]

Got on the river at Thomasville late evening Fri 16th.

Willow Spgs had gotten an inch or two of rain Thursday just at the wrong time to bring the upper river up about a foot and visiblility way down.

River very tricky up top with tight bends, high water and lots of trees.

Just thankful to not dump before we pitched camp for the nite. No fishing done in muddy cow water.

Eagle nest with 2 eagles (i'm pretty sure)on upper river. pretty cool.

Saturday water still hi and murky but improving. No true portages but lots of walking around trees and hacked our way thru one.

Fish not cooperating yet (at all). starting to wonder if we might float 2 days and get shut out.

Started picking up a few as day went on and river continued to improve.

Near 3 ft visibility by end of day.

Earlier in the day I asked Scott if he'd ever seen a hellbender. Neither of us had until now. Caught a little movement on the bank and went to check it out. Just above roaring spring. I'll let the MDC know. Guess we have our answer for their decline. Big suckers. This guy was about 10"long.

Sunday God smiled on us and the river was much clearer and fish were waking up.

They weren't going crazy but definitely better numbers and a few bigger fish. No monsters though.

Mainly used small soft plastics on the bottom. Flukes produced a few.

Took our time and fished to Cane Bluff until early afternoon. Hated to leave the river now that things were getting good and the weather was perfect.

Overall another great trip down a great river. Boys had a blast as usual. Hope they take me in 30 yrs!!

Thanks to Brian Sloss for taking good care of us as usual.

bk

[Brian Sloss]

The hellbender pic on the right seems to show a bit of a wound near the back leg. Also, was that a snake in the pic as well and if so I wonder if snakes will eat hellbenders? A rare find in the Ozarks anymore, pretty cool.

[GloryDaze]

Yeah that's a snake alright- If you look real close, that's not a wound that's the snake eating the hellbender!! What a great picture and great luck seeing that. The only thing I can't tell is what kind of snake that is???

[Brian Sloss]

I'll be, you are right. I called the biologist and left a message to look up the pics. That is an extremely rare thing to see. Spoting a hellbender is hard enough, but to come upon one being eaten by a snake, that is wild!

[BrianK]

I emailed Jeff Briggler at MDC and he burst my bubble and informed me that it is actually a MUDPUPPY.

Mudpuppies have the red gills, hellbenders don't have have much more wrinkled skin.

He wrote a great article that explains the differences. I'll try to attach a link.

Still a cool thing to see. Oh, and the snake is a Northern watersnake according to him and it was trying real hard to eat the poor salamander. was latched onto it's tail.

http://mdc.mo.gov/documents/nathis/herpeto...an/hellbend.pdf

[kslr10]

Sounds like you guys had a great time. Awesome pics too! I'll be headed there in about 3 weeks.