Field & Stream

Apparently Saturday is opening day for deer season in the Show Me State. Everyone should wear a little bright orange, even if it means shoplifting some UT paraphenalia at the Mapco when you're getting your BYOB. The orange letters on the camo Busch cans don't count.

Shots, far back from the river . . . Deer season, and
a Saturday, which would likely make for hell on the hills
. . . I guessed that not even the normal quota of whisky-head sports would probably shoot a boat for a buck, but decided to wear a bandana if I went rambling ashore.

Goodbye to a River, p. 96.














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You should also know that most of the Ozark streams are pretty heavily patrolled by wildlife officers on normal weekends, so they may be out in force for opening day. For those of you who are fishing, you better get a license. You can buy one and print it out on-line. Go to http://mdc.mo.gov/fishing and choose Code 018 "Daily Fishing" when asked. It's only $7 per day and worth it because the Eleven Point is an elite smallmouth stream and rates as a "Blue Ribbon" trout stream below Greer Springs because of the cold water.

Eleven Point fishing links:

http://ozarkanglers.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=29&Itemid=72

http://family-outdoors.com/Eleven-Point-River-Smallmouth.html

http://moscenicrivers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fishing3&action=display&thread=77

http://www.missouriscenicrivers.com/Elevenpointriver.html


Near the Oakes crossing where the old road between Weatherford and Palo Pinto used to hit the river, the water's surface was much as I remembered the surface of the classic Test, in the south-English chalk country, from once when I stood there on a bridge watching the big, incredibly uniform trout at their feeding stations over the gravel. Smooth, with little swirls forming everywhere and drifting downstream to disappear, a dry-fly man's reverie . . . The Brazos runs wide there, with a large-gravel bottom about a foot and a half down like the Test's, and that was why they were alike. I wished it might also have held such trout, and in memory of not having been able to fish those rigidly owned foreign waters, I began to cast a little golden spoon with the spinning rod as I drifted.

Goodbye to a River, pp. 102-03.
















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