A
Almost every lake and bay has a party cove, but
one body of water bursts into the brain when
those words are uttered: Lake of the Ozarks,
known by nontourists as LOTO for short.
Located halfway between St. Louis and
Kansas City in central Missouri, LOTO is known
to play host on any given July Saturday to hun-
dreds, if not thousands, of boats rafted up in a
mile-or-so-long cove, filling it from shore to
shore in a spectacle that is ... well, a spectacle.
Some have called this phenomenon legendary. Others have
called it notorious. Among locals, it’s not popular and never
made the tourism brochures. To get the lowdown on it, last sum-
mer we asked the Missouri State Highway Patrol if we could
hitch a ride on the water. The commanding ocers suggested I
connect with Trooper Stacey Mosher, a 20-year veteran of lake
law enforcement.
We made a date for a beautiful Saturday in July. It was peak
tourism season and prime time for large gatherings in Anderson
Hollow Cove, the party spot popularly known as Party Cove.
Last time I was in Party Cove, a good 15 years earlier, it was
already buzzing by 10 a.m., full of houseboats, go-fasts, run-
abouts and cruisers. So, I was surprised when Mosher suggested
we wait until afternoon.
“It’s diferent now,” Mosher said. “You’ll have to wait and see
it.” I figured she wanted to get there about the time when things
usually get out of hand.
We settled on a meeting time of 9:30 a.m. at the Moorings,
about 2 miles from Party Cove and about 2 miles from the main
arm of the lake, the Osage River.
9:30 A.M.
Mosher welcomed me aboard
the patrol boat, an aging but
well-maintained Donzi cen-
ter console, handed me a life
jacket, and told me where to
stow my lunch and drinks. We
cast of, and Mosher headed
downstream.
The Moorings is on the
boundary of a 1.5-mile no-wake
zone marked of to protect
the shoreline of this narrow
stretch of lake from the wakes
of the boats that flood the
upper reaches of the Grand
Glaize Arm, seeking more soli-
tude among its less developed
banks — or its Party Cove.
Near the boundary a few hun-
dred yards out, Mosher aimed
her patrol boat to a sistership
idling ofshore.
Both chalky Donzis were
solid and probably rewired a
dozen times since they were
built decades ago. The twin
Mercury 350s still purred de-
spite the 2,600 hours on them.
It’s the gear cases that take the
BOATINGMAG.COM | MAY 2018 | 83
