GALENA, Mo. | Dennis Whiteside slid his weathered canoe to the edge of the James River, then paused to reflect on his longtime journey.</p><p>&ldquo;If this old canoe could talk, it would have some great stories,&rdquo; Whiteside said as he piled his fishing gear into the canoe. &ldquo;If the water is moving and it&rsquo;s in the Ozarks, I&rsquo;ve been on it.</p><p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve put a lot of miles on this canoe.&rdquo;</p><p>Especially at this time of the year.</p><p>When fall arrives, Whiteside is on water as much as he is on land.</p><p>Maybe it&rsquo;s the brilliant fall colors. Or the cool, crisp air. Or the anticipation of tangling with a big smallmouth bass or coming around the bend and sneaking up on a flock of mallards.</p><p>For Whiteside, that&rsquo;s what makes floating in the fall so special.</p><p>&ldquo;You can float these rivers in the fall and never see another person,&rdquo; Whiteside said as he took his first paddle strokes down river. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s just total solitude.</p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s so peaceful, you can just feel the stress leave you.&rdquo;</p><p>That&rsquo;s how it was Tuesday when Whiteside set out on a float-fishing trip on the lower James River south of Springfield. His target: big smallmouth bass.</p><p>But there were plenty of distractions. The hillsides were alive with color &mdash; the bright yellows, oranges and reds of changing leaves. And the wildlife was stirring. A bald eagle flew low over the river, a snake slithered across the cool water and two deer paused on a hillside.</p><p>&ldquo;To me, this is about as close to what the Ozarks were like 200 years ago as you can get,&rdquo; said Whiteside, 62, who runs the Fish and Game Guaranteed Guide Service. &ldquo;You can get on some of the more remote sections of these float streams, and they&rsquo;re still pretty wild.&rdquo;</p><p>For Whiteside, that often translates into good smallmouth bass fishing in October and early November and good duck hunting later.</p><p>&ldquo;The ducks will use these rivers more than people realize,&rdquo; Whiteside said. &ldquo;And in a canoe, you can slip right up on them.</p><p>&ldquo;If you&rsquo;re quiet and use some natural vegetation to camouflage your canoe, you can move close enough to get some great shooting.&rdquo;</p><p>On Tuesday, though, Whiteside was hunting a different type of critter &mdash; smallmouth bass.</p><p>The strong current and high water didn&rsquo;t help matters. Heavy rains a week earlier had left the James high and rolling.</p><p>A 10-mile float trip is supposed to take some time. But Whiteside and I were swept downstream in six hours.</p><p>Along the way, we caught a few smallmouth bass and panfish, nowhere near what Whiteside would have liked but enough to remind him why he relishes being on Ozarks float streams in the fall.</p><p>A day earlier on another stream, a fisherman he was guiding, John Hardin from Medicine Lodge, Kan., had caught a 20-inch smallmouth on his last cast of the day. And Hardin&rsquo;s longtime friend, Jerry Pates of Wichita, had caught a 17-inch fish as well as several others in the 15-inch range.</p><p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s the type of smallmouth fishing you can have at this time of the year,&rdquo; said Whiteside, who lives in Springfield. &ldquo;These fish are feeding up for winter.</p><p>&ldquo;When you can hit the conditions right, you can have some great fishing in October.&rdquo;</p><p>Whiteside and his customers catch fish on everything from jig and pigs to spinnerbaits to topwater lures. In the fall, he often finds his best fishing along current lines and in deeper holes with cover such as boulders and logs.