200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures

[Al Agnew]

Chief, you didn't quote the rest of my quote...I meant except for the whole river systems he doesn't cover. But if it's a part of the river systems he DOES cover, he pretty well covers every creek, with some exceptions on the far upper ends of creeks. He didn't fish every one of those creeks, but he did drive to every access when the water was low enough he could get a good idea of normal flow, and "guessed" on whether there was enough water to hold smallmouth. Sometimes he guessed wrong on the upper ends of little creeks, where he thought there shouldn't be enough water to hold many smallies. In my part of the country I noted this on several of the creeks I'm familiar with...he should have gone one more access upstream.

Google maps is sweet. It just depends upon whether you are so used to the high tech stuff that it comes completely natural to you. I like having the info in book form because I like having all the info immediately and in one place...all you have to do is look in the table of contents. But Google Earth and Google Maps is great, especially the satellite views if it's an up to date satellite coverage. You can zoom in enough to see individual logs in the water on some stream stretches.

I love topo maps, though. I started collecting them for all over the Ozarks when I was a kid, and have pretty much every Ozark stream covered. I can still glean more info from a topo map than I can from Google maps when it comes to reading the landscape and figuring out exactly where I am on the river (but I have never gotten used to using GPS). Now I have the software for the USGS topo maps for the entire Ozark region. When I think about it, if I'm floating an unfamiliar stretch, I download and print out a topo map that covers that stretch, and carry it in a waterproof clear map case. I didn't do that for the recent Float and Boat on the Gasconade, and had to carry all my Gasconade river system topo maps, AND I forgot the map case, so I had to carry the relevant maps on the river with me where they got splashed upon. They are a little the worse for wear now.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Chief, you didn't quote the rest of my quote...I meant except for the whole river systems he doesn't cover. But if it's a part of the river systems he DOES cover, he pretty well covers every creek, with some exceptions on the far upper ends of creeks.

Ahh yeah, gotcha. I just keyed in on the 'If it ain't in the book...." and thought that ain't anywhere near right. Let's not talk much about the upper ends of creeks....

He didn't fish every one of those creeks, but he did drive to every access when the water was low enough he could get a good idea of normal flow, and "guessed" on whether there was enough water to hold smallmouth. Sometimes he guessed wrong on the upper ends of little creeks, where he thought there shouldn't be enough water to hold many smallies. In my part of the country I noted this on several of the creeks I'm familiar with...he should have gone one more access upstream.

I think most of his info and maps came from conversations with local outfitters and such.