Greasy B

Boy this is tough, hell I get all worked up when I see water running down the curb in front of my house. I like any water that moves. There’s no way I could pick out a single coolest, but one the streams at the top of the list is Coyote Creek in the Valle Vidal area of northern New Mexico. The creek is about a foot and a half wide and all but hidden in tall meadow grass until you walk right up on it. The Native Rio Grande Cutthroats are beautiful beyond description and the western landscape is breathtaking. When I fished it several years ago non native rainbows were busy hybridizing the Native trout out of existence just downstream in the Rio Costilla, It would be heart breaking if these wonderful fish were to vanish.

Yea if Saturday’s level was 3.5 then 2.5 or 3.0 sounds about right. I judge the river best by the volume or cubic feet per second (cfs). Depending on the contour of the stream bed a ½ ft difference can mean double the volume. There are two gages upstream from the confluence of Bennett spring branch and the Niangua. This Morning the volume at Windyville was about 362 cfs, Bennett Spring was at 191 so the volume below 64 HWY is in the mid 500’s. Yesterday it was probably closer to 600 cfs; at that level the river was barely wadable in a few places and probably dangerous to anyone not surefooted. I would say a canoe or other boat would be the only effective way to fish this stretch until flows go below 300 cfs. One brown I caught had an 8 inch chub or stoneroller half swallowed head first, a sculpin half swallowed tail first and my fly in its mouth. The fish also had a large gig scar on side. As I was releasing this wonderful fish I had to wonder it had lived through. If it was 8 or 10 inches when it was stocked it had probably spent two years or so in the river to get to this size. The gig scar was well healed so it more than likely survived 2 gigging seasons. I can’t imagine how many bait, lures and fly’s it refused in this time. I would guess it has been released at least once or twice, probably broke off someone’s line once or twice. For one reason or another it didn’t follow its instinct to migrate which would have stranded it outside the Niangua’s short cool water area. Even in the area of suitable water quality it had to survive periods of thermal stress. All that plus it survived otters, eagles, herons and mink.

The word I got yesterday was that the fish are biting and the poachers are catching.

My experience at Taney has been a mixed bag, I’ve seen all the crowding and rude behavior but I’ve also had windows of peace and solitude and of course wonderful fishing. Whether it was almost being thrown out of my boat by a wake or having morons wade into the fish I’m working every instance of rudeness happened on lower water. It’s a similar situation on the main stem of our smallmouth streams during the summer, recreational power boating has created an environment that I cannot fish in. Low water at Taney creates a situation that I have no desire to be a part of. This would be devastating to my way of life if it were not for all the other angling opportunities in the Ozarks. I find that my trips are planned around avoiding people as much as catching fish.

Things are looking up, thanks.

Good lord have I got a bad case of the shack nasties. From what I can tell by the usgs gages today the river will be coming down and probably still off color for the weekend. 500 csf should be about right, maybe a foot or a little higher than the dead low water we had. Maybe we’ll get lucky and a little drizzle will keep fair weather fishers away.

Thanks for the info, sounds like I’m going to have to try it again. As I recall the lake looked real nice and who knows maybe I’ll catch one of those bizarro fish. The trip I made last year was on the day after I had my best ever smallmouth fishing on Big Piney. The river came up over night and my buddy and I needed a reason not to go home early. I’ll probably try to make it a combination smallmouth / bluegill trip. If a person times it just right those big redears will be all over a popping bug.

I threw a Popping bug for Bluegill on Little Dixie during Prime spawning time last year. i got blown off the lake by a huge storm just about the time i got settled in and started catching fish. I've always wondered what i missed. Should i got back this year? Thanks for any advice,

200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures sparked a fire in me. With so many places to go and so much to see I’ll never run out of fishing dreams.

The first human hook up that taught me a lesson happened on the Gasconade somewhere downstream from Adams Ford. My brother had a Rooster Tail caught in a tree; a firm yank sent the lure flying right at his face striking him in the forehead with the hook embedded in the tender flesh between his eyelid and nose. After much commotion we pulled over to weigh our options. Medical help was a long way off and we still had two days of fishing ahead of us so it was obvious we would have to take matters in our own hands. While I’m well aware of the various techniques for hook removal this amounted to my brothers desperate plea to just jerk it out and me complying. About the time we got the hook out his skin his forehead started to swell up from the impact, after an hour or so he looked like Frankenstein and his eyes were just about sealed shut. Since that time safety glasses are required gear on every trip. The other human hookup involved a rambunctious smallmouth, the skin on top of my hand and a Zara puppy connecting both. With two hook points deeply embedded I had to cut my flesh with a dull knife to free one so I could push the other through and snip the barb. Since that day I have bent down the barbs on all my lures and flies. As it turns out going completely barbless has had little impact on my ability to land fish and has greatly decreased my anxiety when unhooking a fish or jerking a lure off a snag. Admittedly fishing barbless top water baits especially buzz baits l turns into touch and go fishing but I’m good with that.

The notion that “Arkansas has more progressive regulations” threw me for a loop. The difference between the way Missouri manages its limited but diverse trout streams and Arkansas manages its mega tail waters is like the difference between the way a small farmer would manage a varied landscape with a variety of crops in order to maximize yield and sustainability and way an industrial corporation would miss manage the best crop land in the world by planting its crop without regard for its welfare then harvesting it when it has just sprouted.

I think the classic river john is a best motorized craft for most any Ozark river typically run in an aluminum boat. I have been using my Shawnee (20 Jet) on the Meramec and Gasconade for many years. While the river john doesn’t jump up on plane like the high powered boats and does require a higher level of water reading skills I think it far out shines aluminum when drifting and fishing. Some of the advantages are the extreme rocker (Shawnee) that allows the craft to be turned on a dime when entering and exiting eddies. The rocker also means that when drifting, idling or under full power the jet intake is not the deepest drafting part of the boat. Only when plowing do you have to concern yourself with vacuuming up gravel. The fiberglass slides quietly over shallow rocks when drifting meaning if a shoal is open enough you can drift and fish your way down hitting pocket and eddies along the way. The position of the driver and passengers in the boat is the same whether under power or drifting making it unnecessary to climb up and down to a deck to go from powered travel to casting. The length allows 3 fishers to spin or bait cast without concern of snagging each other, though most times its best to limit fly casting to two at a time. The open floor allows two fishers to pack plenty of overnight gear in the mid area and have a huge space for casting. When two people and gear for a multi day trip are packed and the boat is well trimmed I have an open uncluttered area about 4’x 5’ in the rear. I have smacked, banged and crashed in to countless rocks, the hull shows little more than chips in the gel coat. If you question the durability of fiberglass take a look at all the 20 year old rental boats on the White River tail water. Maybe I’m a little sappy but I can’t help but be sentimental about the classic ozark john boat. When I first started floating I recall admiring the 20’-24’ wooden boats I would see on the Eleven Point. It took a good boatman to get up and down that river with a prop motors on a jack plate. The basic design is time tested and I think the old timers had it pretty well figured out.

Hello to all, It’s that time of year when I ask myself, why am I staring at screen and not at a river? I guess when the day’s are as dark and cold as they are now a warm fire and a good book will have to do. I’ve been reading (and mostly enjoying) this forum off and on for some time now and I guess its time to start piping in. I hope my occasional contribution will be positive and I promise not to talk politics.