Eleven Point experiences...

[Al Agnew]

First time I ever floated the Eleven Point was on a college sponsored canoe trip with a bunch of other college students. It was in early April, and we floated two days from Greer to Riverton. As I remember, the trip got off to a bad start. I slammed my finger in the car door as we were unloading gear, and had a really sore and swollen finger the whole trip. I also remember that all I had to camp with was a piece of canvas tarp...I'd done plenty of gravel bar camping, but never had a tent, just slept out under the stars. Well, it got COLD overnight, and I wrapped myself in the tarp. Woke up the next morning with frost covering the tarp and my hair. I don't remember anything about the fishing, so it must have been poor.

I floated the upper river, Thomasville to Greer, on a four day trip with Gaylon Watson and Gene Jackson, who at the time were guides on Current River. The Eleven Point trip, which Gaylon did every year, was his pleasure trip as opposed to the work trips on the Current. Gaylon was really into goggle-eye fishing for fun, and would spend hours in a single pool working the goggle-eye over. I was more into covering territory and seeking smallmouths, so slowing myself enough to stay with him wasn't easy. The fishing that trip was poor, although the river was in good condition.

I did a nice float on the river below Riverton with Bob Todd in November one year, trying to catch walleye. No walleye were caught, but we did catch a few nice smallmouths. But on another trip with Bob, this time on the upper river from Thomasville to Cane Bluff in early spring, Bob caught nothing and I caught one 6 inch smallie.

So...although I know the Eleven Point is good fishing, I've never had a good fishing trip on it. But it's a beautiful wild river.

[Brian Sloss]

Thanks for the story, I enjoyed it. Hope you can come down here again sometime so you can have a better catch rate on those smallies. They are here and in good numbers.

[snap]

First time I ever floated the Eleven Point was on a college sponsored canoe trip with a bunch of other college students. It was in early April, and we floated two days from Greer to Riverton. As I remember, the trip got off to a bad start. I slammed my finger in the car door as we were unloading gear, and had a really sore and swollen finger the whole trip. I also remember that all I had to camp with was a piece of canvas tarp...I'd done plenty of gravel bar camping, but never had a tent, just slept out under the stars. Well, it got COLD overnight, and I wrapped myself in the tarp. Woke up the next morning with frost covering the tarp and my hair. I don't remember anything about the fishing, so it must have been poor.

I floated the upper river, Thomasville to Greer, on a four day trip with Gaylon Watson and Gene Jackson, who at the time were guides on Current River. The Eleven Point trip, which Gaylon did every year, was his pleasure trip as opposed to the work trips on the Current. Gaylon was really into goggle-eye fishing for fun, and would spend hours in a single pool working the goggle-eye over. I was more into covering territory and seeking smallmouths, so slowing myself enough to stay with him wasn't easy. The fishing that trip was poor, although the river was in good condition.

I did a nice float on the river below Riverton with Bob Todd in November one year, trying to catch walleye. No walleye were caught, but we did catch a few nice smallmouths. But on another trip with Bob, this time on the upper river from Thomasville to Cane Bluff in early spring, Bob caught nothing and I caught one 6 inch smallie.

So...although I know the Eleven Point is good fishing, I've never had a good fishing trip on it. But it's a beautiful wild river.

[snap]

Enjoyed the reading Al and I may have been on that same college float trip years ago. The fishing is good on the 11 point !!! Where the Current is your favorite, I believe, to catch trout...the 11 point is my favorite. There are so many holes that do not get fished for one who wades the river. I enjoy standing in the river watching boats drive or drift past in a hurry to get to the next hole while I make a few casts in what must seem to them to be fishless water. Where Brian likes to fish Greer and below, I like to fish Turner and below with most time spent above Riverton. I am from the same area as you, Al, and about the same age...SEMO...and if I am not mistaken, the 11 point held no trout back in those days.

[Griffster]

My first trip to the point was in August of 1990, my wife was 8 months pregnant with my first son..and she still let me do an over-nighter. (What a trooper she is) Floated from Cane Bluff to Whitten. Caught smallies up the spring and trout below. Jerry from Richards canoe told me it my wife called he would hang a red t-shirt on the 19 bridge.. and that I better get out and get home. lol.

He's 6'8" now Al.. and Keeps me so busy I don't have time to fish or post on these here boards.

[Al Agnew]

So I suppose there's no way you can hold your own with him one on one anymore

Yeah, for some reason I just haven't gotten back on the trout section of the Eleven Point...it's on my short list to do.

[Griffster]

It's one of my favorites... been down there several times now, but not recently, Fishing is never great.. usually catch some though. Lots of funand one pretty river too.

no one on one is out of the question...

[Scooper]

The first time I floated the Eleven Point was with my Dad about three weeks after I graduated from high school in 1973. About 10 days earlier I had caught the largest trout in my life--a 5lb 14 oz. rainbow at Bennett Springs. Caught her on one a crudlely tied #12 "weighted wooly" (it would be called a wooly-booger now) with lead wire around the hook, covered with brown yarn and a short brown marabou tail. I was throwing this home made fly with an ultra light and two-pound test line. She was caught in the pool above the dam, while I was standing on the dam. It was a three-ring circus trying to land her, I almost went over the dam! Fortunately, my little brother was there with a net and we managed to get her in. Anyway, I digress...Back to the Eleven Point....So my Dad and I hit the river early on a Friday morning at the Highway 19 access. No one was at the access and we had the river to ourselves, except for a group camped next to Mary Decker Shoal. It was a beautiful early summer day, not too hot and mist was rising off the water. What a beautiful Ozark stream. We caught a few fish here and there, enough to keep our interest. A little ways past Mary Decker Shoals, we hit a nice stretch of deep, moving water with plenty of cover. I made a few casts, throwing a small brown jig. Nothing. I made one last cast as we drifted through, and as our canoe started to drift down stream from my line, I began reeling fast in order to get my line back in the canoe so that we could paddle down to the next hole. The jig was about 10 feet from the canoe, skittering across the surface when this HUGE rainbow came "out of nowhere" and slammed it. I screamed to my Dad, letting him know that I had hooked into a lunker. He maneuvered the canoe into the middle of the stream, so that I would have best chance to land the monster. After about a two-minute fight, she broke off. Lesson learned though; I had failed to switched my line from the Bennett Springs trip, and still had 2 # test in my reel. Never made that mistake again, but of course, I've never again hooked a rainbow that big again either. We've been back to the Eleven Point off-and-on over the years. I did catch a three pound rainbow there once, sometime in the late 1970s. I think our last trip was in about 1992. The fishing was slow then, and we haven't been back, but would like to again some day. It is, in my opinion, the "wildest" and most beautiful stream in the state.