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Posted

guntervilletrip-1050.jpg

Good afternoon to all. I hope some of you Ozark anglers are able to be on the water fishing today- beautiful day down here on the Coast. I'm at home nursing a hurt leg, so no fishing for me.

I wanted to post a picture of one of my favorite north Alabama creeks. If you've never been in north Alabama- especially northeast Alabam-, it is country very similar to the roughest, nicest parts of the Ozarks.

There are even smallmouth bass in some north Alabama creeks, and they respond to the same lures and techniques of Ozark brownies.

The more we look, the more we find things that are the same even in different places.

By the way, about ten miles below this little run of water, there is a thirty foot high no-kidding serious waterfall- gorgeous place, but not a place I'd care to take a kayak.

Good fishing to all- Ed Mashburn

Posted

Ed,

The similarities are even more eerie if you look at the cultural history.

My Celtic ancestors - Scotch and Irish - were the poor sort from the rough highlands. When they arrived in the Americas they were uncomfortable in the lush lowlands and moved inland until they found rough hills with rocks and sparse soil. Tennessee and North Alabama and Northwest Georgia. They stayed there until it became too civilized and about the time the Cherokee were removed they headed West until they hit the same rocky sparse soil land in the Missouri Ozarks. They lingered a short time then drifted South into Arkansas because of growing populations in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Springfield. This pattern was true for hundreds then and affects 10's of thousands of us now.

My father's people and my mothers people, who lived within 100 miles of each other on both the Irish and Scottish sides, made exactly the same moves within 25 years of each other. They began to blend in the Americas. My mother's side were the Bonners and Cantwells from Jenny Lind and Ft. Smith. Dad's family settled in Waldron, AR, just South of there and ran a peckerwood saw mill.

If you took pictures of every area in this migration pattern and mixed them up, you would be hard pressed to tell them apart unless there are rhododendrons present.

Posted

Looks like a beautiful area, and if I might say not exactly what most people have in mind when they think of Alabama.

I do see the similarity to the Ozarks. That picture actually reminds me a lot of Rocky Creek and other little streams like that down near the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

Posted

The geology is somewhat different but the stream characteristics are similar. The native range of the smallmouth included the streams in North Alabama that are tributaries to the Tennessee River, which swings down into the state, making North Alabama just about the southernmost part of the original range of smallies. In the streams that flow south from northern Alabama, the smallies are replaced by shoal bass and redeye bass. Shoal bass are native to th Appalachicola river system, redeyes are native to any other streams in northern Alabama above the "fall line" where the rivers drop off the highlands into the delta country.

Posted

Pretty country. I NEED to go catch some SHOAL BASS REAL BAD. Maybe next year.

Every Saint has a past, every Sinner has a future. On Instagram @hamneedstofish

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Posted

The "mountains" in North Alabama are the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains. I have talked with some Bama fishermen (on the Buffalo National River) about the excellent smallmouth fishing in the state.

As for your pic, that looks like some of the milder whitewater that one can find in Alabama!!!

3621.jpg?no_cache=12020000

This is Little River Falls on Highway 35!!

http://www.alabamawhitewater.com/

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Posted

The "mountains" in North Alabama are the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains. I have talked with some Bama fishermen (on the Buffalo National River) about the excellent smallmouth fishing in the state.

As for your pic, that looks like some of the milder whitewater that one can find in Alabama!!!

3621.jpg?no_cache=12020000

This is Little River Falls on Highway 35!!

http://www.alabamawhitewater.com/

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Posted

Good evening- I've SEEN Little River Canyon, and as far as kayaking it- there is NO way I would ever do that. Some big drops and lots of rocks and lots of falls and other stuff that I think would hurt to run into. Beautiful water, but not for me to float on- Good fishing to all- Ed Mashburn

Posted

What a stud. That guy is kayaking UP that waterfall.

The "mountains" in North Alabama are the southernmost tip of the Appalachian Mountains. I have talked with some Bama fishermen (on the Buffalo National River) about the excellent smallmouth fishing in the state.

As for your pic, that looks like some of the milder whitewater that one can find in Alabama!!!

3621.jpg?no_cache=12020000

This is Little River Falls on Highway 35!!

http://www.alabamawhitewater.com/

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