200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures

[Gavin]

Gave em a poke on their facebook page...

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Missouri-Smallmouth-Alliance/236321617616

Will see what they say...Wish I could get it in electronic format so I could edit out some of the obvious mistakes & changes.

[Chief Grey Bear]

For $20 you will be money ahead to buy a DeLorme Gazetteer of Missouri.

[Al Agnew]

Yep, SMA is still offering it.

The DeLorme Atlas is a great resource, but if you're exploring new waters, Chuck's book will tell you whether a creek is worth the trouble or not. Except for the river systems he doesn't cover, if it ain't in his book it probably ain't worth exploring. Although I do know some creeks that have fishing a little farther upstream than what he says in the book. Also, if you want to know how far it is between accesses, his book is very useful.

I depend upon four different books for exploring new waters in Missouri.

A Paddler's Guide to Missouri, MDC. Covers floatable streams only. Can be out of date as to the viability of accesses, but mileages and points of interest are accurate. There are a few marginally floatable streams it doesn't cover, but if you do a lot of float fishing and like new waters, or even just to refresh your memory on how far it is from Schlict Springs Access to Hwy. 17 on the Gasconade, it's a necessity.

200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures. Not really as useful as the MDC book for floatable streams, but it's the only book that covers wadeable but not floatable streams.

The DeLorme Atlas. Shows all the ways you can get to all the creeks you might want to explore, and the best ways to get from point A to point B. Only drawback is that you can't really tell all the obscure public roads from just as obscure private roads. For that, the perfect book is...

The OLD Missouri Conservation Atlas from MDC, the one that was based on county highway maps. They redid it a few years ago with really pretty maps and a different format by region instead of county, but the new maps aren't as accurate or easy to read as the old county highway maps. Another thing the old version had going for it was that those county highway maps even show road mileage on all lettered and numbered highways, so you can tell how far down Highway Y you have to go to find that obscure turn-off to the creek. And it showed all public roads, so you didn't have to guess whether the road on the DeLorme Atlas was public or private.

There are two other books that have some usefulness. One is the Flyfisher's Guide to Missouri and Arkansas, by Limbaugh and Kinder. It doesn't cover every floatable stream, but it is fairly decent at showing accesses and mileages on the ones it does cover. The other book is A Canoeing and Kayaking Guide to the Ozarks, by Kennon. It doesn't cover every river, either, but is pretty good on the ones it covers.

[fishinwrench]

The Google maps app for android does it all for me nowadays, you can switch from map to satallite, shows both road and river milage....and if you load the area image before you drop off into the hollers and loose signal you can keep it in the background and pull it up when you need it...it remains functional even without service. Pretty darn cool!

[Flysmallie]

The Google maps app for android does it all for me nowadays, you can switch from map to satallite, shows both road and river milage....and if you load the area image before you drop off into the hollers and loose signal you can keep it in the background and pull it up when you need it...it remains functional even without service. Pretty darn cool!

Well look at your old butt being all techy.

[fishinwrench]

Well look at your old butt being all techy.

Only when it has to do with fishing .... I still can't operate my microwave, DVD player or landline phone the way I'm supposed to. I have selective ADD.

[fishinSWMO]

if you load the area image before you drop off into the hollers and loose signal you can keep it in the background and pull it up when you need it...it remains functional even without service. Pretty darn cool!

I just started doing the same thing with the iPhone thanks to Cricket.

[RSBreth]

If Google Maps and Street View went everywhere it would be the ultimate, but the Street View feature doesn't cover everywhere... Yet.

[Nolan_Whaley]

I'll second, "Flyfisher's Guide to Missouri and Arkansas" and the Delorme Atlas. For a non-MO native, this has gotten me to float & fish locations reliably along with iphone google maps. And ya.. if you get the map loaded at home, GPS still works even w/o a signal. Handy when you aren't sure how far from the take out you are on a new river.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Yep, SMA is still offering it.

The DeLorme Atlas is a great resource, but if you're exploring new waters, Chuck's book will tell you whether a creek is worth the trouble or not. Except for the river systems he doesn't cover, if it ain't in his book it probably ain't worth exploring.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. I have fished many, many miles of water that ain't in his book and I was never disappointed in scenery or fish.

There are two other books that have some usefulness. One is the Flyfisher's Guide to Missouri and Arkansas, by Limbaugh and Kinder. It doesn't cover every floatable stream, but it is fairly decent at showing accesses and mileages on the ones it does cover.

I was sort of disappointed in their book. There is lots of good info but also some that is bad. Well not really bad I guess just not accurate. But then when you see the number of books they have put out, there is no way they have fished all of these waters.