Anyone Use Redbeard's Ranch On The Niangua?

[fishinwrench]

Nope, I don't buy that reasoning. It's pretty easy to tell the difference between "drunk and loud" and the sort of things that I've seen the few times I've been on the Meramec on a summer Saturday. I'm talking about things that are really against the law, as well as things like guys whipping out their johnsons in front of my then 12 year old niece, propositioning my then 16 year old niece, threatening to turn our canoes over, squirting us with high powered water guns. There's a reason there have been billboards on the roads leading to the popular canoe rental areas of the Meramec that advertise legal services for people who get in trouble on the river.

Do I sense some Redbeard style exagerration there?

My whole point is that the tales of horrendous acts and felonious activities is what's gonna hurt us fishermen the most in our struggle to maintain the right to peacefully float and fish in the long run.

Most of these tales are exagerrated and more than you probably think are total fabrications based on things a person thinks COULD happen....so it's believable enough to just say it did in order to get someones attention.

I'm in no position to call BS on anyone unless they say they saw 4 cobras and 9 alligators during a Niangua float, but I've floated enough miles and mingled with enough hoosiers that if all these outlandish acts of predatory pedophilia and assault were truly that common then I think I would have witnessed some at least once. But I haven't.

Instead I just 'hear about it' all the time from folks that only floated the river ONCE.

What are the freakin' odds!

[Mitch f]

I was at Adventure outdoors at Scott's Ford one summer and there was a group of drunks lined up in lawn chairs yelling "Show us your Txxx!!" Every time a girl went by and were basically intimidating all the floaters. The owner Mark, grabbed a few guys including me and we walked out in the water and confronted them. They wouldn't back down until the numbers got overly stacked against them. This goes beyond a group of guys getting drunk and loud. They have the right to drink and get drunk and act stupid but the minute you start intimidating other floaters your God given rights should stop. I mean, would act that way at your office? would you act that way at a grocery store? Would you act that way at a baseball game? No they would immediately escort your butt out. What makes a river any different? Trees and water?

[fishinwrench]

I was at Adventure outdoors at Scott's Ford one summer and there was a group of drunks lined up in lawn chairs yelling "Show us your Txxx!!" Every time a girl went by and were basically intimidating all the floaters. The owner Mark, grabbed a few guys including me and we walked out in the water and confronted them. They wouldn't back down until the numbers got overly stacked against them. This goes beyond a group of guys getting drunk and loud. They have the right to drink and get drunk and act stupid but the minute you start intimidating other floaters your God given rights should stop. I mean, would act that way at your office? would you act that way at a grocery store? Would you act that way at a baseball game? No they would immediately escort your butt out. What makes a river any different? Trees and water?

What about a river (or lake) makes tits fall out of their tops? The kind of behavior you speak of IS encouraged quite a bit by the keepers of the boobs too ya know.

Yet nobody seems to be intimidated or disgusted by THAT. LOL

I guess I'm just used to it given my location.

[Mitch f]

Hey, I Iike boobs as much as the next guy, but you're right, what is it about about rivers or lakes that makes their tops come off? Thanks for making my point for me. Families have just as much right to be on the river as the drunks. Like I said, if you can't do it in a grocery store then why should it be appropriate on the river?

[dennis boatman]

..I've spent literally 1,000's of hours on area rivers over the past 40 years and have yet to see one boob flashing. While fishing, a vast majority of floaters have given me more than adequate room. I rarely go out on weekends, and when I do, it's a Sunday not a Saturday. I always make a nice comment as people go by and they almost always smile and move on past. Just my experiences...

[LarrySTL]

For years on LOZ, when it was late spring or early fall ( I wasn't on LOZ daytime in the summers) women in "goof boats", women on private boat docks, and women in general heard lots of cries of "show us your t**s" and a lot of them were perfectly happy to oblige. I am not talking about party cove, but about pretty much anywhere else from the Nianguas to the dam, and up the Glaize and the Gravois.

It wasnt dozens of times a day, but to get flashed ( or sometimes a very lengthy flash) once or twice in a day was not unusual. I never saw it take place in any type of threatening manner. I suspect most people who were fishing the lower half of LOZ in warmer weather 15 or more years ago would tell you something similar.

[fishinwrench]

Hey, I Iike boobs as much as the next guy, but you're right, what is it about about rivers or lakes that makes their tops come off? Thanks for making my point for me. Families have just as much right to be on the river as the drunks. Like I said, if you can't do it in a grocery store then why should it be appropriate on the river?

If a gal flashed her cantelopes in the grocery store it'd MAKE YOUR DAY!

Don't even lie

[Al Agnew]

Personally I could care less about the nudity and the propositioning. I've taught my daughter to generally ignore that and trust her to not be too shocked. If they are ignorant enough to do that with me around then i figure they are too far gone to know what they are doing.

Flipping over canoes and/or shooting with a water cannon has the potential to provoke a violent response in me. That's assaultive and unnecessary. That angers me. In the immortal words (edited) of the rapper T.I.: A n****** put his hands on me alright. Otherwise stand there talk s**t all night

Plain and simple, I not into conflict and people can name call, cat call, or say what they want but there is never a call for tipping/water gunning anyone whose minding their own business.

The episode with the propositioning happened like this...we were pulled up on a gravel bar (me, my wife, and the two nieces). A group of 20 something guys, obviously drunk, pulled up on the gravel bar close to us. The lewd and rude behavior commenced immediately. Now I'm the only man in the group, and I'm not a very big guy. They could have, if they had been inclined, have done more than just proposition my niece. The intimidation factor was what was really bad. We packed up and left.

But why should we have felt we had to leave? That kind of behavior is unacceptable anywhere.

The threatening to turn over the canoe has happened more than once...I don't remember if it happened during that float. The squirting with the water cannons happened on a float on the Huzzah, as well as on the float mentioned above. The Huzzah float was on a Friday, the others on Saturdays.

And no, Wrench, it isn't stretching the truth. It happened, and similar things have happened to other people I know.

[mic]

LMAO funny... I don't care who you are.

Saw a hoot owl givin'it to a chicken once, but I figured that was just "nature".

[Terrierman]

Hey, I Iike boobs as much as the next guy, but you're right, what is it about about rivers or lakes that makes their tops come off? Thanks for making my point for me. Families have just as much right to be on the river as the drunks. Like I said, if you can't do it in a grocery store then why should it be appropriate on the river?

That reminds me of this one time when me and lovey got kicked out of the grocery store.