Intermediate access points on "long" segments of Big River?

[Conor]

I am looking at 3x long segments to complete the Big River.  They are Bone Hole to St. Fran State Park.  I don't expect this one to be all that great based on what I have been told and the aerial photos but want to do it.  I wouldn't mind repeating something nicer like from Leadwood down and taking out before St. Fran, then going down to the St. Fran lower access.

Then I have St. Fran to Washington State Park which is the longest I am looking at at over 19 miles.  I have done distances like this but wouldn't mind splitting it up a bit.

Then there is Browns Ford to Morse Mill.

Are there any decent intermediate access points on these segments?  I see some bridges mentioned as "poor" access points.  I do not mind paying to use private property and would probably prefer it based on some of the nuts we have encountered at river accesses along the Big River.  We have used Mounts twice and like that one.

 

Conor

[Brian Jones]

Only "public" access between Bone Hole and St. Francois State Park is Old 67/Raider/Berry Road.  Just to be safe, go ahead and cut the catalytic converter off of your vehicle and leave it where the degenerates can find it easily.  That way you won't be surprised when you get there and find out it's gone..............

Tread lightly between the state parks.  Lots of private property.  Sure you can camp on gravel bars below the high water mark.  But one has to ask themselves if it is worth negotiating with an upset landowner in the middle of the night and how good am I paddling an unfamiliar river in the dark?

Don't know much about Browns Ford to Morse Mill is a lot of long flat water.  

Hope this helps

 

[Conor]

Thanks.  I think the plan will be to make these day trips only.  I guess a car would be safe parked in either of the state parks for an overnighter.  That is the 19+ mile section so would be a good one to do and probably one of the more scenic of the 3 I mention.  The converter theft and such seems to be a problem all over anymore.

I have done 21.5 miles between Noser Mill and Rieker Ford on the Bourbeuse in a day and still have daylight to spare at the end so could do these all in a day.  That is a slow river as we all know.

If I were to camp overnight, I would make sure to be out of sight of any development and they would never know we were there after we were gone.  Actually they might as we try to pickup as much trash as possible so it might look cleaner to them the next day.

I don't think I would want to leave a car overnight at Browns Ford or Morse Mill.  I haven't seen any nuts at Browns but Morse, Cedar Hill, etc. have some dandies.  Some guy warned us about some crackheads at Cedar Hill once trying to rob him or something.  He said he showed his 9mm and they were like "Go ahead and shoot us."  Anyway, they started to come for us.  I didn't want to have to repeat this with a .40 so we got everything just thrown in the truck willy nilly and the kayaks barely strapped in.  We went like a mile down the road and got everything properly secured before getting on the highway.

Conor

[Al Agnew]

You can do park to park in a day, but don't plan on fishing much.  I float from St. Francois Park to a private access near Blackwell, about 14 miles, in a day, and fish hard, but it's 7 AM (as early as I can usually get into the park) to 8 PM.  And I paddle through some of the longest pools, and often have to paddle the last mile or so.  There is one dead pool that's a mile long, and a couple more that are close to a half mile long.  There isn't a whole lot of development in that stretch, so there are several good gravel bars for camping where you won't be in sight of a dwelling if you decide to do it as an overnighter.