I noticed on the Grafton fish fairs thread that there have been a lot of trees in the water and such on the Mississippi River. We navigate the Missouri in nearly all stages, but when the river is freshly up sometimes the debris gets too heavy to do anything. Trouble is, I need live bighead spawners from the Mississippi River and I need them soon. I need to set nets but if the River is full of trees I won't be able to do that. Any suggestions, or report on the status of the river? I can see on the USGS and NOAA pages that the Mississippi River is near flood stage and forecast to stay there, but that does not tell me too much about the debris load. Another option would bea tributary on the Missouri side (I don't have an Illinois collector's permit) that maybe would not be flowing too hard where I might be able to set a net?

By the way - the Missouri is up much worse than the Mississippi River. We were well over flood stage today and it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Last I seen it was up and it was very heavy with debris and trees. The parking lotacross frompere marquette was flooded and closed. We went up there to shoot some fish last week and the parking lot was about ankle to knee deep depending on where you stood. We also seen only 2-3 boats in the water. Normaly I would have though nothing of it but it was memorial day. Usually from what I have seen the river is loaded with boats on memorial day. But with the full size trees in the river everyone stayed away. I do know that if you go across the alton bridge into missouri there is some flooded timber that forms a lake that stays flooded all year round. There is for sure bighead in that water. Hope I was some help.

Thanks - we have put off our sampling until Monday. Hope things get better, but I am not holding my breath.