By Silas Gray

sports@joplinglobe.com

Brad Cardwell and I scrutinized every gravel bar that we passed as we floated along the James River in search of the perfect camp site.

In past years, I would have taken the first semi-level spot that was large enough to hold a tent and campfire. However, all the flooding that we’d had over the past months had created good camping spots everywhere. The strong currents had moved the gravel around, creating new bars as well as scraping away brush and debris along the older ones.

Earlier that morning, well before 5 a.m., I’d backed into Brad’s driveway in Carthage. His canoe trailer sat packed, ready and waiting for our trip. After homemade muffins and some of his home-ground coffee, we started toward the Hootentown Canoe Rental and Campground near Crane, Mo., for a two-day float and fish trip.

After several miles of back roads where we were forced to turn around only once, we arrived at the Hootentown access. Near the gate sat a ramshackle office, and further along was a small mobile home that was serving as the camp’s general store.

Brad pointed me toward a gravel lane which disappeared as it dropped off through the trees. Following his direction I drove onto a wide sloping rock area at the edge of the river which is used as a launch ramp. There were two flat-bottomed gigging boats drawn up on shore and secured. Their owners were most likely sleeping in the nearby campers after a night of hunting sucker fish.

I backed the trailer until Brad signaled for me to stop several feet from the water. We disconnected the four ratchet straps that had held the big 19-foot Grumman aluminum canoe during our drive and swung the boat to the ground. We then moved it into the water where it sat parallel to the shore, ready for loading.

With all the gear stacked by the water’s edge, I left Brad to organize everything while I drove back up to finalize our shuttle arrangements and to drop off the keys along with my truck.

I found the door to the office locked, and with no signs of life inside, I made my way over to the general store. The storekeeper, knowing what I was after, said that the camp owner was on vacation but that her son was staying in the trailer on the far side of the office and that he was taking care of things.

As I slogged my way back toward the office, I began to wish that I’d waited a little longer before putting on my rubber hip waders. My climb up the wooden stairs of the trailer was interrupted by the growling of a rather large dog that was coming down those same steps. It’s a good thing he turned out to be bluffing, because I was going nowhere fast in these flopping boots.

About the time the dog’s tail began to wag, a young man came out of the trailer and greeted me. He said that he and his buddy would drop my truck off early the next morning at the H.L. Kerr Access, our take-out point for the next day. I thanked him, paid him and handed him my truck key before heading back toward the river.

As I crossed over the rise, I saw Brad sitting in a cushioned high-backed chair, relaxing. He had packed all of our gear into the big Grumman, and it still had plenty of room to spare.

I climbed aboard and we pushed off into the thin morning fog that hung over the water.

It was a mere 20 minutes later when I landed our first smallmouth bass. It came from a wide and shallow section of the river where the main channel formed a two-foot drop. The fat 13-inch fish had been hiding among the boulders there.

The fish weren’t biting well, but we did manage to catch 18 smallmouth bass. The largest was a 17-inch beauty.

The water was moving more quickly than we’d anticipated, and we reached the halfway point of our two-day trip by 3:30 p.m. We began looking for a camping spot.

The search was short, and we were soon unloading the canoe onto a wide and quite level expanse of gravel. We gathered wood, unpacked our gear and assembled the tent. Even though we were finished well before dark, the temperature had dropped, and the fire that we built felt quite good.

After empting the canoe, we overturned it further up on shore, using it as a shed to protect much of our gear from the heavy dew that comes from being so near the river, especially in the fall.

Brad prepared a fine meal of steak and baked potatoes with little help from me.

After finishing and cleaning up and hiding any food from the raccoons, we barely had enough energy left to move our camp chairs nearer the fire and have a seat.

With the overnight temperature headed into the lower 40s, I made sure to bring any clothing that I needed for the next morning into the sleeping bag with me before calling it a night.

We were spoiled by our pleasant fall day where we needed only a light jacket as we drifted along the beautiful bluffs and wooded banks of the James River catching smallmouth bass. This, followed by an evening around the campfire at a perfect campsite, made me eager for the second day of our float.