Floating Friday..or Not.. ?

[LarrySTL]

Hi guys

I unexpectedly have Friday off. I'd like to go float fishing but would have to rent a canoe and I dont know if that would put me in ridiculous crowd...or not.

Also I have a must thing Friday evening so if I went, I'd have to be back in StL no later than about 5:30 to get cleaned up and get to that, so figure a max of about 75-100 miles range from St L.

Possible Plan B..get way upstream somewhere and wade Friday or Saturday. Or do I just wait til after Labor Day and schedule a day in the middle of the week ? Thoughts, comments, non sarcastic suggestions, ?

Thanks

Larry

[Mitch f]

Larry, call the outfitters and ask them when is the best time to beat the crowds. You can go either before or after. The only problem is sometimes the best fishing is in the middle of the day.

[RSBreth]

Not having your own boat sucks, but you should follow Mitchs good advice about calling one of the outfitters and see what advice they have. Even if you have to get with a larger group you could just wait five or ten minutes after the last person launches and then follow the group a little ways behind - I catch fish right behind other fishermen on the James all the time.

[Justin Spencer]

Now that school has started weekday floating is way down.

[cwc87]

Come to huzzah valley we have half day trips that can allow u to b back in St. Louis Fish are biting. We open at 8 am. 800 367 4516

[moguy1973]

Come to huzzah valley we have half day trips that can allow u to b back in St. Louis Fish are biting. We open at 8 am. 800 367 4516

I was going to suggest this.

Get out before the floaters and stay ahead of them and you probably won't see a single person all day.

[LarrySTL]

Done....Huzzah Valley..thanks all !

[LarrySTL]

OK, its a short report. Because of the time issue I floated Harpers Slab to HV Resort. The water was super clear at least by my standards. One place seemed deeper and I lowered a worm down and measured.....8 feet and I could see the individual rocks on the bottom very clearly. I caught a few small SM mostly on small plastic in root wads in the spots with the most current. Those spots also showed me that my canoeing skills or lack of them, limited me to casting, or keeping the canoe out of trouble, but not doing both at once. I was out of the canoe wading the places I caught fish. This is gonna take some practice.

I saw about 5 or 6 other canoes til I got back to HVR. Most of them were just floating not fishing. None of them were jerks in any way.

I didnt have any accidental swimming. I had two different LM about 3 lbs follow a white buzz bait, accellerate, and turn away, saw about a 17" SM casually swimming slowly around in the middle of the stream in about 3 feet of water ignoring everything I threw, and a couple fish hit a fluke well but not well enough to get hooked.

Thanks for the suggestions !

[moguy1973]

Glad you had fun. The Huzzah rocks...

[Mitch f]

Larry, you see my frustration with a canoe. If, like me, you don't have the canoe skills of an Al Agnew, you spend at least 50% of your time trying to stay above the water and 50% fishing. It's hard to fish a stream that way. Plus, clear water is tough, don't care who you are!