Alley To 2 Rivers Weekend Trip Report

[GloryDaze]

Just returned from a 3 night 4 day trip from Alley to 2 Rivers- put in at Alley on Friday afternoon with a buddy and his son under clear skies and a nice warm day.

The plan was to take float until about 2 miles above Eminence so we could take our time and not have to worry about all the private land. It had been 7 or 8 years since I had floated this stretch so it was like a new river to me. The river was crystal clear and seemed a little low but still had a nice current. We had planned on good fishing, but soon realized that they just weren't in the mood to eat today. The ONLY fish caught the first day was a nice 17" I landed about 3 miles into the trip. The only other floaters we saw was a nice couple from KC that were headed to Eminence and they had as much luck as us- I think he said they caught just one as well. We camped right next to a beautiful bluff and enjoyed the nice cool night with a big fire, some refreshments and a ghost story or two just to keep his son on his toes.

The next morning we headed out about 10:30 and shortly arrived at the Eminence bridge where my buddy and I both caught a few dinkers. Shortly after going under the bridge I managed to land one more and that was it for day two. What is up with all the stalls on river left when you are about 1/4 mile past the bridge? Are those for horses, cows, etc..... we must have seen a 100 of them along the river bank.??? Anyway, we did run into the wild horses at Shawnee Creek- we counted 15 of them and that was actually the highlight of the day for all of us. Pretty cool to see them that close..... The second night we camped just past Shawnee Creek at a nice bend in the river with a great sounding rapid to listen to all evening.

We didn't fish day three and decided to just paddle the last 2 miles and enjoy the scenery. We were off the water by 10:30 and I was on my way back to KC by 11 or so. This was definitely as beautiful stretch of river with a constant flow that required little dead water paddling. Of course it was a little shallow, but the entire trip we only had to portage one time. I would love to get back and do this one again when the water and weather are warmer as it looked fishy as hell.

I have to give some credit to my buddies son who just turned 6 years old last weekend. He floated the whole section by himself in his own kayak and looked like he had been doing it for 20 years. Quite impressive to see the little guy navigating some of those shallow hairpin turns all by himself!

One final question- when we were leaving 2 Rivers we ran across 3 dogs... they all three had antennas coming off their collars.... now I can guess this is some sort of GPS tracking device for their owners, but what would they be out hunting this time of the year?

[Guest]

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[Greasy B]

we did run into the wild horses at Shawnee Creek

Feral horses.

[Greasy B]

Sounds like a great trip.

Those were horse stalls. Take a look at that area from google earth to see how many horses that pack in there during the trail ride. Not good for the river....Those dogs were probably deer dogs. Unfortunately, lots of people in that area use dogs to deer hunt. Poachers.

On a trip in September we counted 150 horses in the river.

[OzarksRiverman]

I floated Alley to Eminence on Saturday afternoon. Fish weren't biting, but it was one hell of a day on the river for early November!

[Al Agnew]

Last time I floated that stretch (Eminence to Two Rivers back in early September), my wife and I saw those horses near Shawnee Creek as well. I just can't get excited about feral horses in the Riverways. They simply don't belong there. But at least they don't have the impact that all the thousands of trail riders do.

Haven't figured out why Alley Spring doesn't attract the big numbers of smallmouth in cold weather that some of the other big springs do. But it doesn't seem to. I floated that stretch a couple winters ago, and saw few fish in the first mile below the spring. Caught a couple of nice ones further down, though.

[Muddbugg]

Al - I have a few theories as to why there are fewer smallmouth in Alley than the other Ozark springs.

1. I think many of the larger smallmouth are in the spring branch and even the mill pond pool where fishing is not allowed

2. There tends to be heavy exploitation of smallmouth in the winter and early spring where Alley Spring enters the Jacks Fork. It is easy to access the confluence and fish the first several hundred yards of river below the spring because of the road on the North Side. The length limit is 12 inches in that part of the river and some people keep all of those small, legal sized fish they catch.

3. If people are keeping those 12 and 13 inch fish, they never have a chance to get larger.

4. Not all smallmouth go to springs in the winter, so if fisherman are harvesting that segment of the population that do use springs when the fish are 12 inches long, then there will not be large fish.

5. The depth of the river right below alley does not allow for a large number of fish compared to say the confluence at Big Spring on the Current River.

6. The temperature advantages of Alley Spring fade quickly as you move downstream and while the water may be a couple of degrees warmer a mile below the spring, it is probably not a strong enough benefit to draw large smallmouth from other parts of the river.

Just my thoughts.

[Terrierman]

Those hounds were likely on coyotes, not deer.

[jdmidwest]

Those hounds were likely on coyotes, not deer.

Yep. Poachers don't usually have collars on their dogs.

[Guest]

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