August is one of the late summer issues of Traveler. So is September, really, but the emphasis shifts with September. August is still a time to get your body wet, whether swimming or wading or canoeing, kayaking, tubing, rafting . . .
The August issue has a story about a whole lot of that, a Sunday on Current River. It is repeated below
August is also a time for catfishing and we had a story about some catfishing adventures by Steve Duniphan.
The concluding episode of Sam Hildebrand's Confession is in the August issue. Hildebrand was a Civil War bushwacker who was from southeast Missouri and who carried out his trade in this area. Peace did not come for Sam after the war, writers Jim and Donna Featherston say.
There's a story about a wonderful day of smallmouth bass fishing on Castor River. The river was low and barely floatable, but the time was just right to catch a lot of bass. Another story told of the advantages of a kayak for a lone fisherman
A U.S. Forest Service campground, Markham Spring Recreation Area, is revisted. After years of neglect and deterioration, the camp on Black rRver is worth visiting again..
What would you think of dough balls made with cat food for rainbow trout? Write Don Rathert tells how he learned the secret and tried it out.
A "business float" on upper Current River was taken. The accompanying photo was taken as floaters are about to disappear into the fog that rolled out of Welch Spring.
There's news about a somewhat confusing new twist in deer regulations for landowners in the southeast part of the state. And a story about hot weather preparations for the fall hunts that pay off.
Staying with the "wet" theme, there's a story about a cub scout high on a rainy day. The boys took in Mina Sauk Falls and found a small timber rattler taking shelter under a rock ledge.
There's a story about trolling for crappie, and another about a "baby boat" that made a highly successful fishing trip possible on a difficult-to-reach lake.
The continuing saga of Taum Sauk Lake was covered - it is being lowered so sediment can be removed. And a trip back in time, an account of a boy's "float" through Johnson's Shut-Ins to impress girls.
Traveler is 95 per cent about the Missouri Ozarks, but occasionally coverage strays to other areas. In the August issue, a trip to Canada with grandsons, their dads, and Roy Halbert is recounted by editor Bob Todd.. Except for Bob and Roy, northern pike werea new experience for the fishrmen. The photo here shows Roy helping grandson Sam Dickerson land his first northern as dad, Bud Dickerson watches.
This issue also carries the usual features: Sunrise/moonrise tables, coming events, news about the upcoming park tax election, a selection from Traveler two dozen years ago.
News included prospects for the coming duck season, hunts for handicapped hunters, special deer hunt application deadlines, a rundown on the seasons ahead, and a short story about a passel of skunks in the editor's back yard.
Brian Towe, conservation agent, answers last month's quiz and poses a new question for people to think about in August. And, as usual, there are several Ozarks travel maps in the August issue.
A Sunday on Current River
By Bob Todd
I can’t go on a lake or river without a fishing rod, so I put one in the boat with a sandwich bag of assorted lures. Just in case.
But I didn’t intend to do any fishing, and I didn’t. Rather, we went to sit in the river on a hot day and did just that. Sometimes we just drive to an access point and carry a chair. Sometimes, we take the boat to a good sitting place.
This time we motored to the camp of Dale and Donna Kipp, somewhere between Van Buren and Powder Mill, on Current River. There are lots of good places to be, but this is their favorite and they’re not real specific about its location.
Our plan was to go visit them, eat lunch, then float back to where we put in. We were not the only ones thinking about the river. We’ll have to tell you about the put-in - Waymeyer - about 10 miles upstream of Van Buren.
Tubing is one of the most popular ways to enjoy the river here, and scads of tubes were being put in, along with a number of canoes. For several hours, the river between here and Van Buren, indeed all the way to Big Spring, would have flotillas of tubes and canoes. Mostly, they don’t like boats, and boats going downstream with no brakes, don’t like the tubers.
But it is a big river. We went upstream from the tuber put-in. That’s all I’ll tell you about Dale and Donna’s camp location.
It was a family weekend for the Kipps, with kids and grandkids. Dale is a river guide, and true to his calling, he was teaching a granddaughter and her friend about casting and retrieving.
A couple young male members of the tribe were indeed fishing, however, and had caught enough goggle-eye to make a fish fry a possibility later.
John and Danielle had visited a couple lakes near their West Plains home two nights before and just the night before, the Kipp camp was treated to some fine frog legs.
Wade out, cool off. Talk. Get in the shade awhile. Talk. Wade out again. Then lunch. Talk. Wade out to cool off again and we bade them farewell and started our return trip, motoring slow or just floating.
Other boaters were on the river, picnicking and playing at various gravel bars. A woman was hanging on to a log out in the river current. I’ve spent hours in such a location, letting the current move my body back and forth.
I’ve never learned to snorkel, but that seems to be an activity with a growing number of participants. At a split channel, we took the shallow channel side of the island for our last sit-in-the-river break before getting to the landing. A couple of snorkelers came by as we tried to figure out what kind of tree it was that was blooming. (Turns out it was hornbeam. I think.)
We’d made the excuse that “we need to get back” when we left Dale’s camp and that was true. Some phone calls needed to be made. So we didn’t linger in the back chute either. The ramp was empty and we got the boat loaded before we got to serious sweating again. A nice summer day.
If you go to Waymeyer to launch a boat, you should know it is a steep, narrow, gravel ramp. You need to be very careful. And you need four wheel drive.
Two dozen years ago, August, 1982
Log Yard, on Current River, was pretty much an undeveloped recreation area in 1982, frequented mainly by people from the Ellington area. We camped by some of them in a small campground provided by the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. But after we set up camp, more people came and pitched their camp on the big gravel bar there. We wished we had done that.
We put in with a square stern canoe and a four horsepower motor and worked our way up to Blue Spring. Had to get out and wade up one rapids. Then floated back.
A big rain soaked the area and a walk in the morning found mushrooms everywhere.
Writer A.E. Lucas reported on making friends with an opossum unexpectedly. She thought it was a cat on the back steps as she put out some table scraps and then scratched its head. The opossum had first made friends with the cat, sharing the same plate.
An editorial said a soil conservation program had done spoonfuls of good in the face of shovels full of erosion. Missouri was about to plow $24 million in bond money into the same old programs.
Ste. Genevieve is the first permanent white settlement west of the Mississippi River, but Emma Comfort Dunn wrote about what was probably truly the first white settlement, in 1693, at a place called de Peres.
A wilderness bill was progressing in Congress and the fate of the Irish Wilderness hung in the balance. Reapportionment had changed Congressional boundaries and Cong. Bill Emerson’s district would include the Irish - if he were reelected. Emerson was on the fence.
Traveler began a series about a two-week float trip on the Meramec. Artist - then high school art teacher - Al Agnew and friend Clyde Glastetter were setting out to float from head of navigation to Times Beach. The first in the series described how they planned for the adventure.
A story described a fishing trip on the St. Francis River, down from Highway 72 through a set of shut-ins - and back up.
Bo Todd spelled his nickname “Beau” back then and wrote about taking in a bluegrass festival at Eminence.
The Conservation Federation was in the process of setting up a program that would have the affect of putting a bounty on poachers. It became Operation Game Thief, which still operates today.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was recommending deauthorization of Pine Ford Dam on Big River. It was not economically justified and would tend to concentrate lead pollution from mining areas upstream.
Also to be deauthorized were dams on Bourbeuse River plus some smaller lakes - all part of the Meramec Dam project that was voted down by Missouri voters.
There was a story about a feast on crawdad tails. The author and wife cooked 82 of the things and ate them along with a can of cold green beans. They cooked outside, but mosquitos at dark forced the couple to dine inside their tent.
Cover picture was a couple floating down a slow stretch of Black River on air mattresses. It is the sort of thing one ought to do in August.
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IN THE August ISSUE
