Overnight Kayak and fish

[float it]

Any recommendations as far as what section to float, not familiar with the area and wanting to get on some small mouths, easy put ins and take outs? 

[Al Agnew]

There are five public accesses on the part of Crooked Creek that is generally considered floatable.

0.0 Lower Pyatt Access

6.7 Snow Access

11.9 Mark Oliver Access

18.5  Kelley's Slab Access

22.0 Yellville Access

The creek is pretty good throughout, so I don't think it matters much as far as fishing is concerned which part of it you float.  Just decide how far you want to go on an overnighter.  The whole stretch from Lower Pyatt to Yellville would make a long overnighter at present water flow, which is at 83 cfs at Kelley's Slab.  83 cfs is barely enough water for a loaded kayak to float the majority of the riffles cleanly.

[TroutRinger]

@Al Agnew,

Crooked disappears at some point between Yelleville and the White. Do you know where that starts?

 

I can tell from Street View that it is gone by the time it gets to the next bridge (6002). 

[Guest]

Deleted.

[Al Agnew]

8 hours ago, siusaluki said:

Not far below the ball fields at Yellville city park most of the time.

Yep...if you go to the history feature on Google Earth (up in the toolbar at the top) and move the slider bar to 9/17/2006, you'll see the creek at a low flow.  The water simply disappears entirely about a mile and a half below the bridge in Yellville.  It shows the creek beginning to have some isolated pools and perhaps a tiny bit of flow just above the Highway 101 bridge.  Although I've crossed it at 101 when it was bone dry there.

[mojorig]

Be careful camping on gravel bars on Crooked Creek. By law, the gravel bars are private property. 

[Al Agnew]

11 hours ago, mojorig said:

Be careful camping on gravel bars on Crooked Creek. By law, the gravel bars are private property. 

I believe, however, that Arkansas's laws are the same as Missouri's...although the landowner owns the gravel bars, on floatable streams the public can use them.  As a practical matter, I always choose a gravel bar that has no signs of civilization around it, and no houses, roads, or outbuildings within sight of it, because although I might have the legal right to camp on any bar, I don't want to tick off a landowner and take the chance of getting into an unpleasant confrontation, plus it would tick me off too if I owned a gravel bar and used it all the time myself and when I wanted to use it to picnic or swim or fish the river some nimrod was camped out on my bar.

 

[mojorig]

Here is an excerpt from State vs Sharp (97-229-1) which involved access on Crooked Creek:

IT IS THEREFORE, CONSIDERED, ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that the plaintiffs contention that Crooked Creek is navigable in the sense that the State has acquired title to the bed of such waterway up to the high water mark is without merit, should be, and hereby is dismissed. 

44. The prescriptive easement recognized herein extends only to the use of the water of Crooked Creek as it flows through the lands of the defendants, and is not an authorization or permit for the public to trespass upon, or litter the defendants' property. 

State v. Sharp, E 97-229-1 (Crooked Creek) (1).pdf

[Al Agnew]

4 hours ago, mojorig said:

Here is an excerpt from State vs Sharp (97-229-1) which involved access on Crooked Creek:

IT IS THEREFORE, CONSIDERED, ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Court that the plaintiffs contention that Crooked Creek is navigable in the sense that the State has acquired title to the bed of such waterway up to the high water mark is without merit, should be, and hereby is dismissed. 

44. The prescriptive easement recognized herein extends only to the use of the water of Crooked Creek as it flows through the lands of the defendants, and is not an authorization or permit for the public to trespass upon, or litter the defendants' property. 

State v. Sharp, E 97-229-1 (Crooked Creek) (1).pdf 772.46 kB · 1 download

I think it's pretty muddy, still.  The supposedly definitive case in Arkansas was on the Mulberry a couple decades ago, which did give the public the right to use gravel bars.  However, since there is no statute that actually delineates the public rights (same as Missouri), it all depends upon which court case the judge thinks would take precedence, and if you happened to run afoul of a landowner and got arrested, you'd have to take it to court with a chance of losing.  There is no doubt, in either state, that the landowner owns the land including the bed of the stream, but given that gravel bar camping is as popular in Arkansas as it is in Missouri, if landowners could run floaters off streams there the instant they touched the bottom or bank (which is actually the law in some states), it would cut out overnight floating, or even swimming, on a bunch of pretty popular streams.  So I'm comfortable with my advice above.

[mojorig]

Yes that court case was documented in the court case, I attached:

"It has been widely assumed that the Mcilroy Court affected title to the property of W.L. Mcilroy and his brother's estate by redefining "navigability" over 150 years after
Statehood and after property rights had vested. In fact, following the decision, the General Assembly of the State of Arkansas voted to relinquish and quitclaim title to the
creek bed back to the property owners, Act 872 of 1981, saying: " ... the Arkansas Supreme Court in holding the Mulberry River to be navigable seriously impaired the oil and gas leases, farming leases, and the sale of property along the Mulberry River; that the boundary lines of property owners have been materially affected in that they now cannot be determined without additional court action ... " A careful reading of the opinion reveals, however, that the Court avoided the issue of bed ownership and gave no indication that it intended to affect title to the bed of Mulberry Creek. At least the authorities cited in the case suggests that conclusion."