Ozarks

The week preceding the 4th of July I had off work. As mentioned in an earlier post, I had a wild hair to try to find some salmonflies out west or fish the grey drake hatch on "the Hank" in Idaho. Some plans fell through and with the truck already loaded and dogs with a sitter I opted to fish some familiar waters in the Ozarks. In all I fished four rivers in five days and had a really great time--it was like a complete decompression.

The first ingredient of a successful road trip of any sort is good music. Six months ago if you had asked me who my favorite band was I might have winced and squeaked out something like "Incubus?" I wasn't really sure. Then a good friend of mine managed to sink his hooks in, barbs buried, and now I'm reeling on Reckless Kelly. Really good stuff. The more I listen and talk about them to friends I find that they have a strong cult following with a host of other bands, and what I've sampled has been strong work. Streaming Pandora on a road trip is a great way to identify similar music to what you already know you like--or veg out and make the time pass a little faster.

The first two days I floated and fished what I consider my home river with two friends. We saw plenty of inept canoers, or is it canoeists? Whichever, they were entertaining. These pictures are of three separate canoes (note the fightened chihuahua's in the second picture).

Fishing was okay the first day, and dynamite the second. Most fish coming on a big Pat's or a pheasant tail.

From there I putzed around down in Arkansas for a couple days. They were running tons of water which limited fishing severely. I fished a spring creek new to me for an afternoon and found some really hot fish. I decided to cap the week with more time on my home river.

Found this in the water.

The fisherman's definition of irony: when the largest fish you catch all week is hooked in the ass.

Even threw some streamers...

I really need to fish more.