Weekend Report

[GloryDaze]

Well , me and my buddy put in at Barclay Friday at 5pm and took out at Leadmine today at 9am. We had never floated this river so we were both excited.

I'm gonna get this out early- by far the dirtiest river I have floated. I have never seen so many empty beer cans on the bottom along with pretty much everything else one could think to put in a canoe. Pretty much every gravel bar that had signs of humans was littered with foil, bean cans, cigarettes, etc.... What a darn shame.

Friday we floated down to just below te old bridge piers. Pretty uneventful float, caught plentyof smallies on soft plastic and a top water popper- biggest fish of the day was 13". Crowds were decent and we actually enjoyed floating by all the campgrounds as everyone was hanging out in the river by that time.

Saturday we woke up and there was a nice chill in the air. I really enjoyed this section of the float as it had a nice current and some good fishing. Fishing was better today, with me snagging the fish of the weekend. Around 11:45 I told Rob this certain hole looked really good...... Deep water after a little flow and in the shade. First cast..! Bamm....... I knew it was big the second I set the hook. After a few minutes of her pulling my boat around I finally landed her. Rob got a few pics, I was going to keep her in the water before laying her on the cooler for a measurement. Well, she shook my grip and away she went- oh well. I guesstimate she was a little more than 18" but you can make your own guess once I post pic. I'm on my iPad and don't have pic but will post tomorrow. Ended the day with a visit to Blue Spring and camped about a half mile from there. Ended the night pulling a nice 16" out of the hole by the campsite.

Woke up today to some rain, which felt great! Spent part of morning cleaning up someone else's trash they left prior to us being there. Didn't fish at all today, as we just enjoyed the final 2-3 miles of our float. Forgot to mention there are some really nice cabins along the way. This section seemed to have a few long slow stretches as we neared Leadmine. There is one section that obviously is a collection area for trees during floods. Someone has done a ton of work clearing all that wood so canoes can get by. And the property owner along there obviously doesn't want anyone on his property. I have never seen so much purple on a river (I'm sure he's sick of cleaning up after all the people who trash the gravel bars)

Anyway- pretty section of river with plenty of flow, only had to get out one time. Sad to see all the trash, but fishing was solid, gravel bars were easy to find for camping, and once we floated past Mountain Creek we only saw one canoe. Hope to get back there sometime..... Maybe in the fall.

[Guest]

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[Wayne SW/MO]

It's not just NRO, it's too many liveries, including the Missouri DNR, people and no enforcement. It is a shame. The purple is probably the land and cattle company.

They don't want people spoiling the river before their cows have a chance too.

[GloryDaze]

Forgot about the cows in the river.... they honestly weren't too bad. But do have a question about trash. When we took out at leadmine we had a big bag full of trash, some ours but mostly from us cleaning up when we would stop.

Can someone help me understand how it can be an access point with camp sites and nowhere to put trash? I wonder how many people get off the river and just leave their trash at the ramp since there is nowhere to dispose. I know where the campers put theirs..... apparently the fire rings there also double as dumpsters.

I just don't get it.

[Guest]

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[KCRIVERRAT]

The ONSR are the same. Plenty of left behind trash on gravel bars and the usual cans on the river bottom. I've picked up plenty of trash myself but my wife and I followed a stream team down the JF once a few years ago and did what we could for them. We actually quit fishing. It sucks that we have litter and porno splattered across Missouri interstates. Too bad it happens on the rivers too. Guess it takes man's effort or high water to wipe out the signs of the year before. But what we miss ends up someone's else's problem.

So... here's for the the rivers... downstream.... from the party crowds.

[zander]

When I was there a week ago I filled up a floating fish basket with beer cans off the bottom. While I am out there acting like nature's custodian the gravel bar gets filled up with 15 people of various body shapes, ideas about how commmon expletives should be in every single sentence, and views on giving their "testimony" about the lack of complaints their partner has about their bedroom abilities. Sure was glad I brought my 8 yr old son along.

I also found it odd how many people use vomiting as a way to recognize where on the river they were at that time. For example, "Tina, you remember where we are now??? Remember???? This is where you puked inside of the raft LAST WEEK" I heard several other examples.

The problem with the public water ways is that the public isn't always what we would want it to be. Such a beautiful river and such a shame to see it trashed like that.

[Goggle-Eyed]

Glory daze,

I guess it is all perspective. Having grown up on the Niangua I can tell you that from Prosperine down the river is ten times cleaner now than 10 years ago. I too noticed the trash in the abandoned fire rings. It truly is a shame that people think they are dumpsters. I remember the first year my nephew did an overnighter with me. He couldn't understand why I made him "clean up" the fire ring.

Granted, he was a young teenager, he is now a fine adult and a good steward of the river!

Thanks for taking the time to help clean up our river!

Joe

[Al Agnew]

The reason there aren't trash containers at the public accesses is that it costs money and manpower to come along every day or two and empty them, and on really popular accesses on the weekends, you could have two or three dumpsters worth, that wouldn't be collected until Monday at the earliest. One more instance of the fact that if you want somebody to take care of the rivers, you have to come up with ways of paying for it.

[Justin Spencer]

The reason there aren't trash containers at the public accesses is that it costs money and manpower to come along every day or two and empty them, and on really popular accesses on the weekends, you could have two or three dumpsters worth, that wouldn't be collected until Monday at the earliest. One more instance of the fact that if you want somebody to take care of the rivers, you have to come up with ways of paying for it.

With that in mind, if anyone has scouts or a scout troop a good project would be to set up some dumpsters at a chosen access, maybe be able to get the dumpsters donated, or landfills to take the trash free of charge. A bonus would be the aluminum you would collect. We sort all of our trash that comes from our canoes and have can baskets set up at each campsite. Pretty big bonus each time we take in a load, and it saves probably a dumpster worth of trash a week, which is nice since we already fill 3 a week (with a little compacting from the tractor to make it fit).