While one fishing tournament scheduled for this weekend had to be canceled, another will go on as planned as more and more things return to a hectic normal.
The Current River Smallmouth Association will fish out of the Watercress ramp at Van Buren Saturday.
Launch time is slated for 7 a.m., and the weigh-in at the ramp will start at 5 p.m.
This is the first tournament of the year for the CRSA, and they have eight more scheduled this summer and fall, including June 13, June 27, July 25, Aug. 8, Aug. 22, Sept. 12, Sept. 26 and Oct. 10.
If you have questions about the club or its events, give Paul Henderson a call at 573-785-8433.
While the tournament on the river will go on as planned, the Wappapello Bass Circuit had to cancel its Saturday event at the lake.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at Wappapello Lake has canceled all special use permits through the month of June, and that includes large bass tournaments.
The organization has another tournament scheduled for June 27, which likely will get canceled unless the Corps changes its policy, so with that, the tourney scheduled for July 25 could be the first one of the year for the group.
Trap Shoot
Poplar Bluff High School’s trap team, sidelined because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is getting back into action this weekend when it hosts an Amateur trapshooting Association shoot at the Poplar Bluff Gun Club.
The ATA Registered Shoot will kick off at 8 a.m. Saturday at the club, which is located on County Road 546, northeast of Poplar Bluff off Highway NN.
If you’re not an ATA member, you should be able to sign up and shoot at the event.
Past ATA shoots have been well-attended, so this one should be as well.
Coon Hunt and Show
The Poplar Bluff Coon Club also is getting back into the swing of things after having to cancel a few events, and the club will host a UKC show and hunt Saturday night at its headquarters off County Road 607, just south of Poplar Bluff.
The show is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m., followed by the hunt at 7:30.
Questions about the club and its events can be referred to Terry Uhl at 573-714-1624 or Kevin Payne at 573-281-6580.
Roads Reopening
Officials with the Mark Twain National Forest’s Poplar Bluff Ranger District are set to reopen all the side roads in the Cane Ridge area of northwest Butler County and southwest Wayne County on Monday, which will open up a lot of access for squirrel hunters, since that’s pretty much the only thing huntable right now.
The secondary roads along Cane Ridge, part of the Forest Service’s designated spring walk-in turkey hunting area, have been closed since mid-March, a process done to make for higher-quality hunts and less disturbance for nesting turkey hens.
I’m hoping to get back to one specific area when the Cane Ridge roads reopen, not only for a squirrel hunt, but also to get my hands on the giant chicken of the woods mushroom I found on the last day of the turkey season.
Water Levels
Anglers continue to have to deal with fluctuating water levels in area lakes and rivers, but the situation has gotten a bit better, even as almost daily rains have fallen on the region.
Clearwater Lake on Wednesday morning was sitting at 504.92 feet, about 7 feet high, and was rising ever-so-slowly.
The Black River downstream, on the Poplar Bluff gauge, was holding at 8 feet. It is projected to rise to 10.1 feet by Thursday morning and fall back 7.5 feet by Saturday morning.
At Wappapello Lake, the water level was holding pretty steady Wednesday at 364.33 feet, about 4.5 feet high. Without a large amount of additional rain, the lake is projected to remain stable at least through the middle of next week.
In the St. Francis River below the Wappapello dam, the water was at 5.9 feet Wednesday in Fisk and is expected to remain at that level for several days.
On the Current River, the Van Buren level on Wednesday was 5.88 feet. The river is on a slow fall and is expected to drop slightly to 5.3 feet by Saturday morning.
Downstream at Doniphan, the Wednesday reading was 3.54 feet. It is expected to have a small bump to 3.9 feet overnight and is projected to drop to 3.2 feet by the weekend.