Revisions for Big River in the new edition of the Paddler's Guide...

[Al Agnew]

On 7/9/2024 at 9:51 PM, Mitch f said:

Didn’t you take me on a float at the 0.0 mark a few years back?

Yup, actually we put in upstream and took out at mile 0.0!

[Al Agnew]

On 7/9/2024 at 11:23 PM, tjm said:

@Al Agnew how in the world do you measure miles and tenths of miles on winding twisting  streams? And did MDC revise all the streams for this new edition?

Google Earth Pro.  Using a Wacom tablet and a stylus to exactly trace the course of the river and the "path" measuring tool.  And then checking it with topographic maps and a measuring wheel to make sure the results matched within a few tenths of a mile over long distances.

I haven't actually gotten the new edition yet, so I don't know how many streams were revised.

[Al Agnew]

On 7/10/2024 at 5:17 AM, jdmidwest said:

My mile 0.0 is usually Bootleg off 21.  We did Terre Du Lac to Leadwood Sat.  Fishing was slow, about 4 hour float.  Lots of mine vents or tunes in that part.

Best part is Irondale to Mounts.  Never been past Leadwood until down at St Francois State Park.

Bootleg is the uppermost public access, but there is seldom enough water from there until you reach Cedar Creek about 4 miles downstream.  That's why they didn't want to go up that far for mile 0.0.  And since the access at the mouth of Cedar Creek is not all that great, they didn't want to start there, either.

[Al Agnew]

On 7/12/2024 at 11:56 AM, tjm said:

So you all had smart phones and google maps in 1965?

My original question was for those who mark the maps. The followup question presumes that I need to use that same method of measuring to get the same results, while sitting in a canoe underway.

Obviously MDC is not an authority on stream use other than to keep their fish in. And the "Most Recent Issue" of "Paddler's Guide" I bought just a few years ago had questionable distances marked for access points that have been unavailable for 20-30 years, on  streams that I'm familiar with.  Kinda wondering if the new issue would have the same zero value as the other. But it seems the OP post was a drive by. 

It was a drive by because I do all my posting on sites like this from my laptop (hate making long posts on a cell phone), and my laptop died and it took til now to get the new one up and running.

You are right that many sections of the book are sadly out of date.  They've made minor revisions over the years, but I think this new edition is the first one that has actually added stream sections that weren't in the previous editions.

I started out using topographic maps on float trips back around 1970.  I spent a decade or so collecting every single topographic map covering all the Ozark float streams.  I'd pick out the map or maps that covered the section I was going to float (assuming it was a section I wasn't already very familiar with), and carried them (still do) in a waterproof envelope.  If you know how to read the maps and pay attention as you progress down the river, you can easily match the landscape where you are to the landscape shown on the map and know exactly where you are.  Mainly you pay attention to every spot where the river comes up against a steep hill or bluff.  It swings back and forth across its valley from a bluff on one side to a bluff on the other, and you just keep track of those bluffs.  If you get good at reading the topo maps, you can even tell a bluff by its height and shape on the map and in "real life".  You also keep track of when you pass a flowing creek coming in and see it on the map.

But I'm a map freak and always have been.  I've actually drawn a lot of topo maps of float stretches myself; years ago I did it by hand from the actual topo maps.  Now I assemble the map from the USGS National Map on the computer, adding notations and mileages, print it out, and laminate it to make it waterproof.

[Al Agnew]

On 7/12/2024 at 1:44 PM, ColdWaterFshr said:

I think with a 7.5 minute quadrangle map, which have been around forever, it would easy to get mileage calculated fairly precisely.  Just a thought.  Maybe thats where they got the distances from.

I've had at least 3 or 4 different copies of the paddlers guide over the years.  Never really studied on what changed with each revision.  Of course our river channels are changing all the time, but I've yet to encounter a distance in that guidebook that seemed wrong.  

I've found two glaring mistakes in the book over the years when it comes to mileages.  In the stretch of Big River from Blackwell to Washington State Park, the book has always before said that Blackwell to Highway 21 was 4.1 miles.  It is actually 5.2 miles (probably was 5.1 miles in Oz Hawksley's original measurements but he made a one mile mistake in the math).  The other was somewhere on the Meramec, a mistake of exactly 2 miles (again, probably a math mistake and not a measuring one).  The Meramec is actually two miles longer than it shows in the book.  I don't know whether those two mistakes have ever been addressed.

[Mitch f]

32 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

Yup, actually we put in upstream and took out at mile 0.0!

Wow I didn’t realize we were above that!

[Al Agnew]

In the Meramec River system book I wrote and have never bothered to try to get published, I was originally going to do maps and mile by mile descriptions of the floatable rivers in the system.  I completed a few of them.  Here is one of the map pages I finished.  I drew the map by compiling topo lines from the USGS National Map sections, then drawing in the shape of the river and the shape of forested areas (green) as well as roads from Google Earth Pro.

[jdmidwest]

Why don't you scan it to pdf and put it out for public domain?  Seems like alot of trouble so far not to pass that knowledge along to others.  Publish it here on-site if nothing else.  I am sure those that use the river system will enjoy it.

[ColdWaterFshr]

I was at the Alpine Shop last weekend and saw the new paddlers guide book in the book section.  Very slick and has full color photos which is a nice touch.  I think it cost all of $9.  I'm not sure you could even go to Kinko's and make color copies that cheap.

[jdmidwest]

13 minutes ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

I was at the Alpine Shop last weekend and saw the new paddlers guide book in the book section.  Very slick and has full color photos which is a nice touch.  I think it cost all of $9.  I'm not sure you could even go to Kinko's and make color copies that cheap.

Save 15% at MDC store if you have Heritage Card.  They usually have them.