Float 7/15 - 7/20

[steve l]

My 2 brothers & 5 of our kids put in at Greer on Sunday the 15th at about noon. Went down to 142, taking out early Friday the 20th.

Highlights:

This marks my 40th year of canoeing the Ozark rivers, with my first float at 7 years old. The biggest change, which will surprise no one was has floated & fished the Ozarks during this time, is the increase in the volume of people seen. My brothers & I lament, but with 90 million or whatever more people in the country how could it be otherwise? The other change, which I believe is a positive, is the introduction of the various fish mgt areas. The 15 & 18 inch limits has improved the quality of the fish caught. No longer are smallies yanked out of the river as soons as they hit 12 inches.

Fishing in the blue ribbon stretch was as good as we have seen. I don't know if there was a stocking or what, but we caught many fish of the general stocking size. I mostly used black rooster tails, a black jig, and a rebel craw. I'm not sure it would have mattered what was used that day, as all produced. Once my daughter (13) heard of the big trout living at Mary Decker I couldn't get her away from there. She fished as hard as she ever has. Unfortunately no big trout, although she did catch 10 to 12 or so fish that day. Received enough rain to break out the rain gear, hearing thunder from a storm that passed to the north.

A second storm came by as we went to bed. Rained good & steady for some time, but not really heavy. Found out the youngest of the crew (11) does not like sleeping in a (leaky) tent w/her cousin during a storm - off she went to dad's tent. My daughter went to the older (15, 17, 17) kid's tent until it leaked. Off she went to my tent. The older kids had to figure out how to avoid the leaks on their own. Remembering the tube tents my parents afflicted my brothers & I with I didn't feel too bad for their getting a bit wet. Some good lightning strikes just over the ridge. Feeling the ground shake I was glad they were over the ridge.

Got up & did some fishing before breaking camp. Noticed a lot of debris beginning to show up in the water. Last time I saw that was on the Buffalo before a rise back in 2001. Sure enough, the river began rising & turned muddy.

That shut the fishing down all day Monday. Hit camp Monday & the river was already dropping. Came down about a foot by Tuesday morning, although still muddy. Fishing was pretty much a wash Tuesday, although the river was beginning to clear later in the day. Some fish were caught after we hit camp.

At least one good part of the muddy water is we had the river to ourselves. We saw very few of the jet pests. Let's see, clear water & lots of jet boats or muddy water & very few jet boats. Just the fact that I wonder which I would rather have says volumes. OK, done w/my usual griping on that subject.

The river really cleared overnight, maybe by 80%+ or so. I was surprised by how rapidly it did clear. I guess Greer has alot to do with that. The clearing was good, as Wednesday is our "down day", were we stay at camp that day & just play in the water & fish & what not.

One of my brothers caught the fish of the trip, and his personal best smallie at 3.2 lbs on Wednesday evening. Nice fish!

Thursday is our long day, as we have a 9-10 mile day to get down to just above 142. We fish that stretch pretty hard. Fishing in that smallie water was fair to good - not as good as we have seen in some years, but better than others. The old standbys of Husky Jerk & Rebel Craw produced, with some action on plastics.

I was disappointed in how little impact the earlier flood had on the gravel bars. They continue to either close up or fully off with weeds. I don't know what kid of flood or floods would be needed to clear the river, but it sure would be nice to see. Maybe the 11P is just slowly reverting to how it looked prior to the logging, but that would be too bad.

All in all a good trip. Only 51 weeks to go for next year's!

[Phil Lilley]

Thanks for sharing your experiences.