John Hotze's List of people & places
Here are some names of people & places that come to my mind as I think about Mossy (Comments or more information are welcomed). Notice that some of the names and places have hotlinks to a picture or document.
Bales - Sometime in the late 40's and early 50's I suppose there was a Bale family that lived in the old Collier farmhouse next to the cabin. I use to play occasionally with a boy from this family.
Colliers - John Collier and his wife Bertie were the original farm owners who sold the 2 acres to the Pulaski Rod & Gun Club. I remember my father speaking very highly of John. He said he was a very good craftsman and made most of the wooden long john boats that use to be kept at the landing.
Longs - I don't really have a recollection of the Long's but evidently they owned a spread down the road from the Collier's. I'm sure most of you have walked down to the silo. The silo is located on the old Long farm. I didn't walk down there much as a kid but I understand that there was a farmhouse near the silo and a lot of the sandstone for the cabin fireplace that my brother Earl rebuilt a number of years ago came from this house. Some of the sandstone for the barbecue pit in the yard may also have come from there.
Roesch - I had remembered the name but until I did some research on deeds my last vacation, all I could remember was the name. John Roesch (I always heard my dad pronounce the name "Rush") bought the Mossy farm from my Grandfather - John K. Hotze - in 1943. I haven't done the research yet on how long he had the farm but I suspect it was until the early to mid 50's. He probably sold the farm to Roy Laughlin. I'm not sure of the details and the timelines, but over the past 40 some years Roy and than Jim expanded the farm to now over 3,000 acres. They must have piece mealed this 3,000 acres by purchasing land surrounding Mossy every chance they could.
Helms - They were the first caretakers that I remember. They were a very nice family that lived in the lower gate house. My best guess is that they were there in the mid 40's and moved about 1955. They may have moved when Laughlin bought the farm.
Island - This was located a few hundred yards up river from the boat landing. It was more to the left side of the river as you went up river. Sometimes there was a pretty decent current along this island.
Crane Island - What can I say, except it is my all time favorite place to be on the Gasconade river.
Upper Slue - It use to go quite a ways back into where the dredging had been done in latter years. We use to go back in there to dig worms.
Earl's Burnt Log - I caught lots of bass and goggle eye out of this hole back in the 50s. This was located just below where Pretty Creek took off to the left and the river went on up and to the right. It use to be 6 foot deep and fairly swift in this area.
The BIG Rock - The real one is in upper Mossy eddy just below Earl's Burnt Log. I hesitate to tell you how big of catfish I saw break peoples lines when they would get them near the boat.. Dad use to anchor us about ten feet upstream broadside to the river and we'd fish with corks letting our lines drift just above the rock. I expect it was 8 feet deep there.
Pretty Creek - I never was positive of this one except I think the lower end was just to the left of Earl's Burnt Log, Maybe Earl Bent can shed some light on this one.
Wilson Eddy - Wilson is the first eddy above Mossy. It is a long slow eddy. Many turtles reside on the logs. There is a house on the left bank as you're going up river. I believe it start at the upper end of the 2nd rapids up from Crane Island.
Upper & Lower Spalding Eddy - These two eddy's begin after you reach the upper end of Wilson eddy. The features of these two eddy's are clay banks on the North side of the river and much of these two eddy's have shallow rapids running through them.
Ferris Eddy - Ferris eddy is a long slow eddy below the "Narrows". The upper end of Ferris starts where the "Narrows" meets with the south channel of the river which had split just below "Twin Rocks"
The Narrows - The narrows is located just below Twin Rocks - left channel against bluff. It use to be one of my favorite parts of the river. We use too picnic from the boat in this area.
Twin Rocks Eddy - Twin rock eddy's main feature are of course the two enormous rocks on the north bank below Portuguese Point. This is a fairly short eddy compared to most of the other eddy's.
Twin Rocks - Two huge boulders situated on the North side of the river below Portuguese Point.
Portuguese Point - The beautiful bluff that stands out as you float down from Riddle Bridge. The bluff is right above Twin Rocks. As you travel Southeast from Dixon, you can pull off Highway 28 at a small pullout on your right and climb down the bluff above "Twin Rocks" for a beautiful view of the river both East & West as well a great view of another Laughlin farm. You almost have to know where to pull off the road though. You have a some indication as you drive Southeast from Dixon when the road is getting close to the river.
Dripping Springs - It's in the left bank just above the rapids that takes you into Twin Rock eddy. This was usually as far up river as my Dad would take us when we went on a fishing excursion up river with dad's 3.5 horse Johnson helping to get is there. We always stopped at dripping springs and drank it's thirst clinching cold water. Sometimes we had lunch and fished here for awhile. One trip I remember my brother Frank landing a bunch of white bass just across from Dripping Springs.
Riddle Bridge - Missouri Conservation has setup a ramp to put in boats here. The old Riddle Bridge has been replaced by a modern bridge. The bridge is at the Northern terminus of Pulaski County highway Y.
Grandpa's Bass Hole - This was located in Wilson Eddy on the left bank. I was told this was John Kay's favorite hole. As I recall we tried it a lot back in my early days at Mossy but I don't really remember catching much but snags. I believe the picture of John Kay with my dad in the boat might have been taken just across the river from his favorite fishing hole.