Families With Children Stay Away

[Smalliebigs]

like Big Daddy Kane once said in a song.......http://youtu.be/KGRoEfRJSGs

[Mitch f]

I think a girl could get pregnant from just swimming in the water!

[Smalliebigs]

I don't condone it - just saying it appears legal to me. My first floating experiences were some 35 plus years ago on organized float trips with about 30 friends - just the same as many of you. Yes, there was underage drinking and rowdy behavior, even sex if you got lucky!! And some people got busted!!I don't remember anyone of us being litter bugs or just throwing our beer cans in the water or on the bank. I believe most Missourians are more environmentally aware than that. Their going to do it anyway - give the area cops a heads up and make the county some money off it as well. Kids are going to be kids!! Could be a good opportunity to educate some people on taking care of our natural resources.

IF I HAD NEVER MADE ONE OF THOSE PARTY FLOAT TRIPS SOME 35 YEARS AGO, I WOULD NOT STILL BE ENJOYING FLOAT TRIPS TODAY.

So what is the solution - outlaw float trips involving more than 8-10 to a group?? Baptist or Amish float trips only for large groups?

Some of you need to get off your high horse sometimes. If there are 100 of them and they are obeying the law, just like the man said in the original post, just STAY AWAY on that date.

only gapers float on Labor day weekend anyway.....who cares

[Al Agnew]

This is just a little more extreme example of pretty much every summer Saturday on that section of the Meramec, but in my opinion the worst harm in it is that it just encourages the kind of behavior that makes EVERY summer Saturday less than family-friendly. It's saying it's perfectly okay to treat the river resource as being worthless except as a place to party away and do a lot of stuff you wouldn't dream of doing in most public venues.

It isn't limited to the Ozark streams, either, although it seems to be worse here than many other places. Few other regions have rivers that are so "friendly"--it's pretty difficult to get in real trouble on Ozark streams during summer low water periods--and also so inviting to get wet in. They have a thing a bit like this on the Yellowstone River through Livingston and right in front of our house out there, but the river itself (big, cold, and fast) and the lack of lots of rental kayaks and rafts because the river is big, cold, and fast limits the number of people participating, and it isn't billed as a huge party where anything goes. The county sheriff's department patrols the whole thing with a big jetboat (the only time you'll see a motorized craft on this river, they are illegal) to not only rescue people who get in trouble but also to keep bad behavior down. Last summer two women in a little rubber duckie raft took our side channel and flipped in a log jam, puncturing the raft, losing all their stuff, and getting themselves separated, one of them floating a quarter mile downstream while I had to rescue the one clinging to the logs in the logjam.

The lower Madison is Bozeman's and Montana State's party river in the summer because it's warmer coming off the top of Ennis Lake. It's exceedingly friendly, too. But it's a 6 mile stretch with a highway paralleling the river. The river is always within sight of the highway, and that also puts a damper on bad behavior because the police could and sometimes do patrol the river from the highway. You'll see a great bikini hatch every Saturday and plenty of tubes with beer coolers, but very little really bad behavior.

To put a stop to stuff like this thing on the Meramec, all you'd really have to do would be to patrol the river during it and ticket anybody for anything illegal. The word would get out pretty quickly that you can't do stuff with impunity even during stuff like this, and the worst offenders would no longer attend. But apparently the DNR people don't think they can do it, and the river is probably too low for the Water Patrol to be out in their jetboats.

[Mark]

Agree. It seems to me that all the issues on our streams could be brought under control with increased law enforcement presence - unauthorized accesses, 4 wheelers, poaching, bad behavior, speeding jetboats, trespassing.

But I don't believe that a large group of young kids on a float trip necessarily equals criminals. We've all seen it. Just pull over and wait a half hour and they are out of your hair.

[flyfishmaster]

Jumping back 6 years ago, I was with a group of 40+ canoes. We put in at 9 AM set to do a 10 mile float on the Meramec River. At around 10 we got to the next put in, and our jaws dropped as we were watching raft after raft with 4 to 8 people per raft getting in the river. We had no idea we booked out float the same day as "The Bull Float".

IT made for a very long day as it took us until 8 PM to get to our take out point.

I'm not saying we were angels by any means, but I do have to say no body in our party received a ticket or fine that day. Through out the day, mostly at bends in the river, Conservation officers were going out in the water pulling rafts and canoe over to perform their checks. We met this one raft with 4 guys, after only floating 1/4 mile they had already received $800+ in fines, plus they lost their cooler because everyone was under 21. What a way to start out the day.

Anyway, now when the group plans the float they call ahead to find what day "The Bull Float" is on and avoids it.

Later,

FFM

[ollie]

Wow, I thought at first those were pics from the Elk. In the summertime the Elk looks like that EVERY weekend. Granted it isn't a state run park, but that really does resemble the Elk every weekend.

[cnr]

Yep, really scary the way the rivers are treated. In a perfect scenario there would be some restrictions put in place for the amount of boats any stretch could handle in one day, but unfortunately that will never happen. We can add this to our collective list of grievances about the decline of our rivers. Gigging, over harvesting, ATVs, over use, trash in the river, etc. Sigh, and it's only getting worse. I will continue to go during the week and hopefully not encounter this insanity. It's like LOZ, avoid the weekends between Memorial day and Labor day.

Enough of this. Anyone fishing?

[ness]

Kinda sucks, but what are you gonna do? Rednecks got a right to assemble. Posting a sign warning families isn't endorsing bad behavior, it's acknowledging that it's probably gonna happen. What would get me steamed is if the authorities didn't show up in force and keep it all in check. You know, like they did in Ferguson.

[Guest]

Wow, I thought at first those were pics from the Elk. In the summertime the Elk looks like that EVERY weekend. Granted it isn't a state run park, but that really does resemble the Elk every weekend.

My thoughts exactly.

You can still catch fish amongst the chaos, but it takes an unorthodox approach.

I dont like the crowd either, but there's nothing I can do about it.