Eleven Point River October, 2007

We started fishing stones with and egg pattern as the dropper. Turns out that later in the day we would find out that the stone was not only for extra weight.

It took us a bit to get really keyed in on the bite, figure out where the fish hang, and to generally get the feel for the river.

We started down a nice little run and I heard the boat start to drag a little and I reminded Tucker that "That is what they are for" just like my wife reminded me of that the first time my boat drug on a little gravel. Tucker handled the boat really well in his first riffle on a Missouri trout stream, WAY better than I did my first time.

As we made our first stop we came across familiar territory, a nice riffle. I fished the head waters after a promise to Tucker that I would grab the boat, a promise I could not keep after seeing that water. My first fish of the day was a gorgeous little young of the year, ALWAYS awesome to see. Mr. Greer fished a little more downstream and landed his first of the day as well, proably a 13" fish.

Back in the drift boat with a little more space in between us and the Doubting Walt my first drift I rolled a seriously nice 'bow and finally decided I had ran into a bad run of tippet, changed out and all was good the rest of the day. We drifted through the next hole and caught a few fish.

Our next stop put us at a little island, the main run clearly on river right. We walked the boat down that side and watched as one of the Fly Flingers was absolutely killing the fish in this one run. He did not have the run to himself very long after he started slaying them and was soon covered by Fly Flingers. We saw the Doubting Walt at the top of the island as we passed and had not seen Mr. Sloss anywhere. Come to find out he had found a few fish in a nice little hole on the skinny side of the island.

This is where Tucker caught his only fish of the day (a good guide only fishes when his fisherman insist...and force a rod into his hand)

Now this is where Mr. Greer decided he had had enough with messing around. Somewhere in between Little Hurricane and Mary Decker Mr. Greer was crowned King $hi!. It started subtilely at first, a fish every 10 casts or so and then it just got to be an unbelievable sight. In ONE spot, one spot...Mr. Greer lost count of the fish he had caught. I decided it was time to catch a little bit of this from behind the lense(even climbing a sycamore at one point to get the angle....in waders....with a camera)

This is just a glimpse of the awesomeness of the newly crowned King $hi! and the boat handling skills of Mr. Tucker to keep the King drifting.

I could not handle any more of watching this from behind the camera so I jumped back into the boat with the permission of the King. The King granted me a couple of fish but continued to prove that he was still the King. And to prove it even more King $hi! landed a beauty.

A hook-jawed male that pushed the tape right at 18". Now at this point things get a little fuzzy, you see not long after King $hi! landed of the fish of the day I decided it was time to test the depth of the water by wading one step too far and took my first swim in waders. This was not a fall, it was literally one step too far in the mighty Eleven Point. As I took the step I remember wondering when my foot was going to hit bottom...then wondering again when it would happen--it never hit bottom. The bad thing is as I exited the boat I handed Tucker my camera and he proceeded to catch the latter part of my swim on film, with my own camera.

As time passed the water that was left in my waders started to get pretty warm as it sucked the body heat directly out of me.

But we moved on to the take-out. Honestly the Eleven Point is a beautiful river and I would love to see it with full fall colors, but we caught a glimpse of them along with the main reason King $hi! came to be--a perfect drift.

Brian