09/10 Report

[jwpage]

After long absence I decided to head down to the LIR on Saturday to see how much the river has changed since my last visit in December. WOW! The river was muddy and all the regular haunts were not familiar. The river has no character any more. It is just a river with two banks and all the work that had been done is gone. Fly fishermen and the river will rebound though.

As for the fishing, it was very slow. I got down to the Gravel area but it was closed with a no trespassing sign. Not sure how to get down without trespassing. I then went to the Simp Watts area. A few bait fishermen and a couple of fellow flyfishers. Tied up with a purple san juan. Fished the entire length down to the gauge and nothing except a small catfish. I then changed to a micro wooly buggar with a gold bead head. Started catching some trout on the end of the swing. Worked my way back to the parking lot and landed 6 trout, 1 small striper and a sunfish.

All in all it was not a bad day. It was certainly concerning to see the river in the shape it is in especially after all the work that has been done to make it a good habitat for trout. I'm sure it will get better. I also met a couple of guys, a father and son, that fished the LIR for the first time. They were really surprised to see such a dirty river holding trout. I told them that the river doesn't normally look like this. Anyway, it was nice to meet them and hope they come back.

Tight Lines!

John

[DaddyO]

I'm ready for the water to clear up. Maybe once the water clears, the river will show us it's new character.

[SteveO]

I'm ready for the water to clear up. Maybe once the water clears, the river will show us it's new character.

Phil are you getting any info or forecasts from other anglers on how long it will take the river to recover its clarity?

Now don't just make some answer up....like usual. I'm actually serious. :-)

[DaddyO]

SteveO,

The best explanation that I've seen was offered by Bill Butts in the "Water Clarity" topic http://ozarkanglers.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=29145

[jatchley]

9/11 report - Fished for a short amount of time at the dam, hit the riffles pretty hard with a few different patterns and didn't have any luck. We also made the long trek to the car hole, which you should definitely save your time on. Hiking in from MarVal is almost impossible with the way the river is shaped, but yes we did make it happen. They then turned on the generators, so we hiked out at T&M and hitch-hiked, quite an experience. All that to say, fish the Watts area. It wasn't what I would call slow Saturday, but it wasn't that hot. I'm sure you have heard, but the water is extremely murky, and I will just leave it at that. Sunday we got into some good fish. You can tell while you are walking in that the area just below the parking lot is no good; still water that pretty much looks like a large pond. Take the trail and runs you downriver and to the riffles. From there, the other set of riffles, just another 300 yards downstream worked nicely as well. Red for some reason seemed to be the hot pattern. I hooked up on a red #10 wooly, #14 copper john, and a (red) #18 midge. Those were by far my most productive patterns, as I pulled in 11 in the evening on the Copper John and wooly alone (all while dead drifting with occasional slow strips). My #14 hare's ear (brown with bright gold flashback) also proved well, as did yellow flashtail mini-eggs and Y2k. The fish were quite picky, more than usual. Therefore, I would suggest light tippets, I did the best when I used 5X. I would also suggest throwing a two fly rig. My most productive was when I trailed the wooly with a flashtail egg. If you get bored, the channel cats were hitting on the woolys, worth a shot every now and then. Hope this post is helpful, best of luck out there.