Black River Overnight Fishing Trip 2020

No Mark we were not waiting on you. I saw you cancel your registration and almost immediately someone else snapped up your spot. Too bad you couldn't come, it was a good trip.
Gary

Thank you Gary for herding the cats on the beautiful Black River. Such beautiful weather and water, nice people made this a fun trip. Kathy

We can figure out the shuttle when we get down there. Then we can stop by the office and pay the fee for any vehicle left there.

I will met you at Parks Bluff Monday AM and we can start shuttle from there. Kathy

Yeah, I called Park's Bluff a couple of weeks ago and they said reservations are never needed on Sunday nights. The Hwy K parking lot on the east side of the river is the perfect spot for 2 wheel drive vehicles.

The trip is only a few days away and it would appear that conditions will be near perfect. The long range weather forecast looks very favorable and if there is no more rain the river level will be ideal. I will be at the commuter lot I-270 and Gravois Monday morning to meet up with anyone who wishes to caravan to Park's Bluff campground in Lesterville. I will be departing at 6:30 AM sharp. For anyone traveling separately don't forget to check in at the park office to pay your launch and/or parking fee.

There are more people signed up for this trip than anytime in the past four years. I guess being unable to work has some advantages. Since we are all consenting adults of sound mind we should be able to balance the potential risk involved in any group activity at this time with the reward of a pleasant experience. Social distancing while paddling and fishing should not be an issue and I'm sure we can keep our distance from each other while camped on a gravel bar. The tricky part will be the shuttle. I'm thinking if everybody wears a mask and we keep the windows open it should work out fine. If anybody can think of a better strategy than that let me know. Obviously if someone is sick or has been sick within the last couple of weeks, or has come into contact with somebody that is or has been please be considerate of everyone else and stay home.

For this trip I am going to be strict about these two items:
* I will require a completely filled out ACA WAIVER AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY form to participate. If you have already filled one out online that's fine but I still want a hard copy. You can print one off the ACA website and I will also have them available the day of the trip.
* There is a supplemental WAIVER/RELEASE FOR COMMUNICABLE DISEASE INCLUDING COVID-19 form that will need to be filled out the day of the trip. I have printed one off for every participant to sign.

Normally it would be desirable to carpool to the location but in this case I think we should consider everyone driving their own vehicles to minimize exposure to each other. We can still assemble at the commuter lot as planned on Monday or if anybody wants to camp at Parks Bluff overnight Sunday be aware they have raised their price from $9 to $10 per person. Their launch fee is still $3 per boat and parking for any vehicle left there is still $5.
I'm looking forward to the trip and am reasonably confident that we can accomplish this despite the difficulties involved.
Gary

For the two trips I added today I set tomorrow as the start of registration. It should work tomorrow.

I’ve marked my calendar. The website won’t let me register. Kathy