Edwin Evers has essentially gone off the grid up the Elk River. If he gets much further up this classic Ozark stream, he’s going to need a Missouri fishing license.
On a personal note about the Elk River, it’s one of my favorite float fishing streams, and float fishing Ozark streams if my favorite way to fish. I would have fished the Elk River a lot more if it didn’t become one of the most popular party streams from spring through early fall. It becomes bank-to-bank inflatable rafts.
Not that he needs them, but Evers might start to catch some smallmouth bass as he goes further up the Elk River. Smallies dominate the Elk in southwest Missouri. One of my best memories is from a tremendous day of smallmouth bass fishing on the Elk River with my floating buddy, Ron Duncan. We stopped in a big ol’ package store on the way back to northwest Arkansas to grab some cold ones. An attractive young woman working the cash register said, “Y’all smell like fish.”
Normally, that wouldn’t be a compliment. But if you’ve caught-and-released enough bass to smell like fish, it seems like a compliment.
So I asked, “What kind of fish?”
She sniffed the air and said, “Bass.”
I said, “Largemouth or smallmouth?”
She sniffed the air again and said, “Smallmouth.”
To this day that remains the most beautiful thing a woman has ever said to me.