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Despite the heavy rain we've gotten, the Saturday Roanoke River float planned by the Float Fishermen of Virginia is still on. Ken Ingram, the float's organizer, sent below note earlier today. I'm just posting it now because I've been out on an assignment (getting soaked) all day. The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at Rotary Park in Salem, just downstream from the intersection of Apperson and Electric Road.

The article today was great. I've gotten quite a few calls today so the word is getting out.If you have time to get something in the paper, please remind people to bring safety gear."

A reader - aka "Concerned" -- posted this comment on a different, unrelated topic. I didn't want it to get buried because it's an interesting, important topic. As the reader suggested, it's one that would be worth my looking into if I could make it happen.

"Mr. Taylor,

As a fellow paddler I am sure you have heard of the "King's Grant" laws in VA as they pertain to public use of rivers, streams, and creeks. As a fellow fisherman I am sure you know of the headaches this has caused in the past below Lake Moomaw.

In 2008 there was hope as the commonwealth was close to appointing a committee to research, review, and update the out of date law. But as far as budgets are concerned there was no way to fund this committee (and all the others) and the issue was dropped. Little hope remains for this issue to be looked at in 2009.

I challenge you to delve into the politics of this law and why exactly we would want to protect and endorse this law that effectivly grants the actual water rights and water beds to individual land owners.

I will agree that the law has validity for landowners that need to use streams and creeks for drinking water or for watersheds that are simply too small to fish or boat on. But other creeks and even rivers are currently 'off limits' due to the threat of tresspassing charges, etc.

These watersheds are not just your simple trickle of water past a landowners house, but navigatble in fact waterflows that run at flows favorable for boating or fishing nearly year round. When the gov't deems a wateshed navigatable it looks at the past usage of the watershed and if it was ever used as a 'mode of transportation' for people or goods.

 Well fast forward to now. We are in a technological revolution. Alot of gear is used regularly now that did not exist even 10 years ago. Many enthusiasts regularly push the limit on what can be tried, done, accomplished, etc.

If we are deeming a waterway navigatable by how many logs were floated down it 200 years ago, how can that compare to what is being done now with current boats and technology? How can we sit back and pay taxes to build reservoirs, dams, & levees to control floodwater and protect the public and then simply be content with that same waterflow being completely granted over to a private landowner downstream?

Why do we help fund gov't programs to farm raise trout and release them into natural streams only to let them wash downstream into 'private' 'kings grant' 'no access' areas? As a lover of our mtn waterways i think it is time that we fought back agaist the 'commonwealth crux' that has hurt the paddling and fishing community in VA."

Have you ever seen a good bluefish blitz? The kind where a school of big chompers just attacks a school of prey? It's unreal.

I felt like I was in the middle of a blitz on Sunday when, after getting some project supplies at Home Depot, I swung into the soon-to-close Sportsman's Warehouse.

The place was an absolute zoo, with lines at that registers that stretched back toward the middle of the store.

Now, I could understand a buying blitz if everything in the store was 50 percent off. But most of what I saw was discounted 10 percent, although fishing terminal tackle was 20 percent off. The best I saw was 30 percent off hunting clothes, some of which already had previous discounts.

Now, 10 percent is better than nothing, 20 percent is getting somewhere and 30 percent is good. But the 10- and 20 percent discounts have been common at the store. All you had to do was get your hands on the discount cards SW handed out like candy at outdoors events and meetings.

The only thing I can figure is that everybody showed up looking for killer deals. When they saw the huge crowds they figured they better get in on the action, even without killer deals, for fear the items they were after would quickly sell out.

"I've had my eye on this tin of pellets for a while but I just couldn't do it when they were $3.99. But now that they're $3.60, I'm all over it! Yeah, man! I saved 40 cents! Now I excuse me while I go spend the next half hour in line."

Strange.

Thursday evening I met Franklin County recreation guru Scott Martin and four other kayakers for a short paddle on the Blackwater River. Conditions were great and we had a blast on the short section.

When we were done we had a dilemma. Somehow we ended up with five vehicles at the put-in, and one -- mine -- at the take-out. We had no problem stuffing all six boats in the bed of my Toyota Tundra. Finding a place for six people wasn't going to be as easy, because I have two toddler car seats in my truck and I didn't want to deal with the hassle of pulling them out. So two guys rode in the back with the boats -- I'm not endorsing this kind of behavior -- two guys shared the front passenger seat and another sat in back seat next to the kid seats.

Those of us in the cab had it easy. The two guys with the boats said the 4-mile trip back to the put in was way tougher than the paddle.