ozark trout fisher

Hey everyone. I realize it's been several years (at least) since I've been a regular here, but to those few of who have any idea who I am (and everyone else, of course), I hope you are all doing well and are healthy. It's been far too long since I've been able to wet a line in the Missouri Ozarks; I had a four day camping/floating trip on the 11 Point scheduled this month since literally last year. My folks and I were going to do the whole trout section and some smallie fishing dang near to the Arkansas border and were very excited about it...but my folks are a bit on the older side and have a few health conditions, so we decided to cancel it out of an abundance of caution, which broke my heart to a degree that is difficult to describe, but was probably a good call. In any case, here are a few pictures from my recent outings in and around Indiana, which, I'll stress, is not nearly as nice as the Ozarks. I miss you all, and I miss the Ozarks. Catch a whole bunch of fish, and be safe and healthy when I can finally come back to Missouri, ya'll.

Hello, all. It's been a minute. I recently backpacked in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness for a few very chilly and snowy days, took a fly rod, and this forum came to mind when I got back. Here are some pictures. None of them are of the fish, because not one of the 7 or 8 cutties I caught was longer than the cork section of my fly-rod. Blame the snowmelt and the raging flows in the upper Arkansas watershed, or my thin backcountry fly-box at your discretion. Only place I found any feeding fish was in backwaters and beaver ponds. The elk outnumbered the folks we saw outside our party, 5-2. It was a hell of a trip, with several 14ers summited, a lot of avalanche debris waded through and plenty of use for the snowshoes.

This got weird.

But more importantly, does the apostrophe come after the second "s" in his username, or do we add that third one in there?

To answer the topic question, no, I don't buy Miller. Usually Blue Moon Wheat, Coors light on float trips. Pretty picture of an elk, though.

It honestly didn't even look real. I've never seen a smallmouth anywhere near that big outside of a Bass Pro fishtank.

I lost a monster a couple years back in the Big Piney that haunts my dreams (like, I've literally dreamt about it.) Couldn't have been any less than 6 pounds.

That's awesome! I'm surprised by this. Used to hike out there all the time, beautiful area.

OTF's Totally Arbitrary and Meaningless Standards 16-18"= "Good one" 18-20"="Holy crap!" 20-22"= "Welp, that's probably the biggest one I'm catching this year" 22+" I, uh, I don't have experience in this area.

Do you mean Daniel Boone State Forest (between STL and CoMo) of Daniel Boone NF in Kentucky? If it's the latter, there a bunch on the hilltops around Cave Run Lake. I nearly got bitten on two occasions, but it was worth it. They're pretty cool critters.

I realize this probably will not help, but I saw 7 this past summer in the mountains of eastern Kentucky (Daniel Boone National Forest, near Morehead, KY). Found them mostly in rocky, glade-like areas on mountaintops. Wasn't looking specifically for them...was just doing forestry research.

Thanks! Pretty good morning on the water. Nothing of much size, but plenty of action all through. Best right around dawn, unsurprisingly. #16 bh hares ear the star performer. Hit both Baptist and Parker. A bit better at the former, I suppose, but not a real noticeable difference.

Headed back to MO right now for a long weekend...planning to fish the upper Current at Baptist and/or Parker most of the day tomorrow. I'm intimately familiar with that stretch of river, but just curious about current (no pun intended) conditions. It's been ridiculously wet and cool where I've been this summer in Appalachia, but I understand it's a teensy bit different in the Ozarks. Just want to make sure I'm not gonna be fishing over a ridiculously low river/stressed fish, basically. I can pretty much handle it from there.

That is not smart. Slight segue, but I saw a couple of timber rattlers early this morning on a rocky mountaintop in the Kentucky Appalachians. Managed to step out of the way in time. Afterwards I regretted not getting any pics, but in the moment I was fairly intent on getting myself and my crew out of there without any further excitement.

SW Colorado is awesome. Great pics! Looks like you got into some really nice cutties.