Fished One Of The Bounty Waters Today, Poor Fishing.

[jdmidwest]

Did a little float on the Castor today, it was in the upper part of the river. My buddy and his family were in a Mad River canoe and I had the yak. First run produced a large sycamore obstacle portage. The rest of the float was low and dragging, even in the yak. Spring rains have been nice, but the water table is still low.

Fishing was slow to fair. Some dinks, longears, voracious green sunfish. Nothing large. Smallies were skittish, striking short. We did see 2 of the bounty fish as we floated over them. Sores on the back and a yellow algae coated piece of plastic dragging along side of them. Small fish about 10".

We got to the nice hole that has all of the new signs to "Release a Fighter" on the trees to find a nice new huge house being built and alot of gravel work done. Enough gravel and some concrete to revert the course of the river back to an old channel on the west side of the river along an old bluff. It cuts about 20 minutes off the float and dewatered a swimming hole used by campers at a near by resort.

Conversations with the locals verified the stream diggings as legit. It was approved and planned by the Corps of Engineers and Jefferson City. Lots of new gravel washing downstream, about a 1/4 mile of stream bed that is just bare gravel and dozer tracks now, one bank completely destroyed. Thanks city boys....

Did I mention how much I love how the management is taking care of a stream I have fished for about 40 years...

[Gavin]

That just sucks...the Castor isn't known for great habitat, sorry to hear that more of what was there....is lost...

[Al Agnew]

The problem is that nobody wants to take responsibility for stream alterations and gravel mining, and the politicians just love it that way, because it means little regulation so their rich friends can do whatever they want.

I'm almost reaching the point of where Smalliebigs is in the other post...about ready to throw up my hands and give up. All the caring about the environment, and especially the appreciation of free-flowing Ozark streams seems like a distant memory. Not nearly enough people give a darn. They're all playing video games and racing jetboats and throwing drunken parties and figuring out ways of making more money off what's left of the Ozarks.

[lee G.]

Its been going that way from 1945 on Al, more people more problems, not that it wasn't happen before that year.

To many people, and with the education system we have we got a real problem.

A Phd cant pass the 8th grade final from a rural school in 1897, lol.

[jdmidwest]

I have watched streams in my area decline for a long time. The little creek that runs thru the farm back in the 1800's was rumored to have holes with no bottoms. Now it has riffles that disappear under the gravel for a ways. If you find a waist deep hole you are lucky.

General deforestation and other practices have released many many tons of gravel into the streams. Those have filled the streams for many of years. Holes are smaller and shallower. Water warms up and fishing declines.

There is not really much you can do other than let nature run its course and rebuild the tree lines. But then you see a developer come in an do that to a stream corridor, it just makes you sick. Maybe the channel will take the new old course, but I bet it will revert back. A thin coffer dam of gravel will not stop the destruction of the Castor in flood stage. And I bet the house will take a few licks too. He cut down alot of trees around the house and paved the area with concrete. The trees would have helped block the debris. Interesting to see what becomes of it. And of course, there are those yellow signs posted all over the property "release the fighter". Does not look like he is too concerned about the stream the fighter lives in.

[Greasy B]

Pretty obvious what will become of it. If the house is below the 500 yr level it's toast. If the house is above 500 yr and the improvements are below the house will be around a little while but the river is toast.