BigBrownTrout

I just spent 4 days and nights on the current. Having read this posting last week and hering some locals buzzing about snakes definitely made me more cautious than usual. I usually don't sleep in a tent on the gravel bars, but I did sleep in a ZiPPED tent this trip. Overall, I saw half a dozen snakes on my float - none venomous. I did see a dead copperhead 2-3 footer in the road on YY about a mile from the Baptist Camp access sign. With the warm winter, there is plenty of food for them.

Floated Baptist to Cedar from Friday night through Sunday morning. It rained both mornings, but that didn't stop the float crowds. Fished streamers with various nymph trailers dead drifted through deeper holes with some luck. I caught 10 bows and 2 browns - all but three were shorter fish. Caught a 17" bow on a bunny sculpin about 200 yards down from Baptist on Saturday morning, along with a 14 and 15 further down the river in the late afternoon...also on streamers. Picked up a short smallmouth about halfway through the float under a bluff. The fishing was slowly steady in the morning and late afternoon. Definitely didn't catch anything huge, but saw some large browns. Above Baptist early on Saturday I did stick a large fish that promptly snapped off my flies. right after the flies hit the water and started to sink, what I suspect was a larger brown ripped the streamer and trailer off. Beautiful river, first timer for the Current. I'll be back at some point in time.

June was too busy to go - but planning on heading down the 22nd - fishing all day on the 23rd and taking out on the 24th at Cedar Grove. A couple more questions...is there camping at Baptist Camp Access? How far below Ashley Creek does the water become slack water - is the slack water deep? I'm now thinking that it may be best for us to fish around Baptist on Friday evening and camp there. Are there any other sandbars to camp on between Ashley Creek and Cedar Grove? I would like to put us in position to split the float with equal distance on Saturday and Sunday, but I would like Saturday to be the more thorough fishing day. We get out of the boats all the time...and fish really slow - so the 8-9 miles from Baptist to Cedar will take us a long time...I never like to be in the boat unless we are in slack water...sorry for asking so many questions. I just want to make sure that I don't get us stuck on the river with no place to camp...

Not good. I honestly don't care for all the slack water. With two people in a canoe, gear, etc it is too hard to fish. We did not fish any of the slack water. The next time I come down I will be bringing a spinning rod for throwing crank baits and gitzits for smallmouth in the slack water. It is too boring to fly with a flyrod, and I don't like chucking streamers while sitting in a canoe.

Floated Cane Bluff to Turner two weekends ago. We definitely had to work for it a little bit. I caught about 25 trout between Greer Spring and Turner. Many of the fish were young and short fish. 5"-7". We caught them on girdle bugs, don's crawdad, both size 8-10. We also caught a bunch on prince nymphs, hare's ear nymphs, and copper johns...sizes 12-16. The fishing was steady below Greer, but above Greer in the slack water it was really slow. I did catch a good 14" rainbow about a mile down from Cane Bluff. Once we got into the trout, most were small. Most were caught off shoals and it I had to bet, the little fish were beating the larger ones to the flies. Great trip, camped on a rock bar, saw a bunch of ducks, otters, and two different bald eagles. Weather was good, fishing was slower and quality of fish was poorer than in past late summer trips. We'll be back later in the summer. The next few years of fishing will be great as all those young wild fish mature and grow.

Thanks for the advice. It looks like Baptist to Cedar Grove will be the float with us camping on the bar just after Baptist. Please tell me if you think this is a good option. Get dropped off at Baptist with canoes on Friday afternoon. Camp at Baptist on Friday night, wade upstream toward Tan Vat and hit that water really well on Friday evening and Saturday morning. Camp a couple miles below Baptist. Fish Sunday until we hit slack water and it slows down. Take out around 1 pm. Anyone have a good recommendation on the best canoe rental place? We will be coming from Kansas City.

Does anyone ever float and fish the current river's blue ribbon area? I've done a few overnight floats on the 11 point river and camped on gravel bars along the way. I'm looking at the current for a June trip, as I would like to see another Missouri river. Looking at tan vat to cedar grove. Is that float doable? It looks like 5-6 miles of river so it would be fished extremely slowly. How does the white ribbon area measure in comparison to the blue ribbon area? Anyone have a solid 6-8 mile float route? We'll be fishing out of the canoes minimally and mostly just getting out to thoroughly fish the good water. Any information about patterns, tippet size, unique things to bring would be appreciated. It seems like the current may have more traffic than the 11 point, but the ability to catch both species would make it worth it.

Have done this float with fly fishing buddies the past two summers in August and want to make it down twice this year at a minimum, April and August. Does the blue ribbon section fish much differently in April than August? I'm assuming the river level will be higher and we'll have to fish deeper than usual. Hopefully there will be a gravel bar that is fairly dry to camp on before Turner. We fish under Greer very slowly, as we have found that to produce the highest concentration of trout. Any tips for my 3rd trip to the 11 point? The weather forecast looks decent, probably a little to chilly for wet wading. I'll post a picture or two if we catch anything of good size. Largest fish out of the 50 I've caught out of the river almost went 18", but a buddy did catch a fatty that we taped at almost 21" - it looked like a football. Hopefully she is still around and we'll hook her. See you on Friday afternoon, Brian.