Gavin

STL Post Article http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...2F?OpenDocument Looks like our Governor wants to eliminate water patrol on the NFoW and Niagua...give your state reps a call and tell them what you think about that.

STL Post Article http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...2F?OpenDocument Looks like our governor wants to eliminate water patrol on the Niangua and North Fork of the White...Give your state reps a call and tell them what you think about that.

Thanks for the tips Al...I think its just a matter of time till I get one over 20" on the fly...My wife and I gave it a go on a popular clear water creek near Onanadaga yesterday. We didnt catch any big smallmouth, but we caught stupid numbers of cookie cutter 8-12" fish. We tried everything to get into better fish, brought my casting rod, and tried the spook, buzzers, big spinnerbaits, shallow, and deep cranks....My wife tried 4" tubes and flukes on the spin rod, I tried big poppers, sneaky, big shamu steamers on the fly rod......but in the end, the only consistant bite was for something 3-4" long in brown or olive...Didnt matter if it was plastic or fly.. Cast it out, let it sink for a second, twitch, smack...almost every cast..Multiple doubles...We saw a few nice fish, but the little ones were too fast....My wife hooked the fish of the trip on a fluke in a log jammed back eddy. Big Largemouth around 22" or so, she hooked it about 75' out over a big log jam and did a great job of keeping it out of the logs for a minute or so...till it gave us a nice tailwalk display and parted company...My best was a 14" smallie on a brown sparkleminnow. Guess there are too many dinks in that creek.

Fished it a couple times in 2008...and the bank stuctures looked pretty nice...nice deep holes in front of many of them...Fished it in March of this year.. and it looked like they had a high water event that collapsed a few of them, and silted alot of the deep holes.. It also looked like there was a lot of additional work in process at that time...some new excavation, bank structures, heavy equipment tracks in the stream and along the banks..... All in all the CA water looked pretty ugly in May and I wasnt impressed. I caught plenty of fish, but most were above or below the CA. Maybe things look different know. I dont know....but I'll keep my mind open and make another trip. Cheers.

Great post...I still struggle to catch big smallies on a regular basis...I usually catch a couple nice fish every year, but I've never caught one over 19" in Missouri...Caught a lot of 15"-18" fish and it still makes my day when I hook up with a smallie over 15". Boat control, and missed casts when floating solo....and the fact that I use a fly rod often probably account for that....Its really hard to fly fish while soloing a canoe unless you are anchored, or you have a tandem canoe with someone in the back of the boat who's sole task is to control the boat for the person in front. Float fishing out of a tandem canoe with the fly rod and big poppers, or a streamer can be very productive and efficient...No line to real in...just pick it up an bang into the next spot...Problem is most folks want to fish all the time...and preferably out of their own boat. I'm sure that would catch more fish, and bigger fish if we worked in tandem but it rarely works out that way. When wading with the fly rod...I usually do best with top water presentations fished upstream...long casts and leaders are often needed especially in low clear water.....Hard to get within 50' of a decent sized bass w/o spooking them. You can get a bit closer in low light conditions and at night on those clear water creeks, but forgetaboutit during the middle of the day. For flies..... Topwater... #2 sneaky Pete in Chartruese, make sure the rubber legs dont foul on the back hook...its worthless then. Blockhead Popper..not the little ones..Heads on mine are about an inch wide, inch long...total length around 3.5 or 4" Dead drift usually produces best...but sometimes a twitch or two will induce a hit, other times they want it chugged back as fast as you possibly can. Night...big popper or a Coffey Grinder(fly rod tiny torpedo) fairly active steady retrieves. Just Subsurface Drab-Shenk's Streamers in various colors...White, Chart, & Black, sometimes pink...make it wiggle like a fluke Flashy-Pearl Sparkleminnow Usually 3-5" long.. Bottom.. I dont believe in realistic crayfish flies....Fish dont care if it looks like a craw or not, but some realistic ties work well as nymphs under a strike indicator...Don's Craw, Clouser Craw, or Bill Miller Craw. Stuff that works w/o a bobber. Flashy-Pearl, Brown, Olive, or Black Sparkleminnow Drab-Brown, Olive, or Black R. Leg wooly buggers. Usually 3-4" long on a number 4 long shank hook min.. Cheers.

That could cost you a big fish someday. If that reel doesnt have enough drag to prevent a birds nest when you strip line. Return it and get something else. Cheers.

Thanks gents!

Lots of options if your hauling your own boat. 6x to Ross on the B. Piney is a good float, but I like Slabtown to 6x better...kinda long for a day float on that river though. Boiling Spring Accees to Mason, or Mason to Slabtown on the B. Piney would be possibles. The Gasconade around Hazelgreen, Lower Osage Fork, and Little Piney offer some decent options as well. Poke around here for some ideas. http://www.missouricanoe.org/rivers.html Cheers.

Ozark Outdoors has a lot of options available, they are located in the Onandaga area...Harpers on the Huzz to Ozark, or Blunts on the Courtois to Ozark might fill the bill for a very lazy 2 nighter..Maybe Birdsnest or something a little further up on the Meramec to Ozark might fit the bill if you want a longer float. Upper river...Cedar to Scotts might make for a nice trout smallie float. Adventure Outdoors or Greens should be able to shuttle you up on the upper river. Cheers.

Nothing wrong with PBR...its my float beer of choice...cheap, tastes good when ice cold, and it keeps the food moving..No headache like Bud either.

I wouldnt be in favor of any massive logging operation, new toilets, pay phones, etc...the more infrastructure you build the more crowded it becomes...Just look to the Current and Jacks for an example..Folks start using a dirt road, next thing you know its graded and graveled, a parking lot and pit toilets appear, more people come. I wouldnt object to a permit system, or an increase in fees provided the money went into a trust to fund the park as opposed to NPS general revenue. Cheers.

If you cant make the meeting, you can enter your comments online at the link below...look up the Buffalo NR read the open documents and enter your comments. Give em heck. Cheers. http://parkplanning.nps.gov/publicHome.cfm

Sure...plenty of camping...Your not suppossed to camp at Tan Vat, but folks do...Poor choice for a campsite IMO...Around Baptist...hike downstream two hundred yards or so and there is a decent gravel bar...Better camping down about mile and a half from Baptist, but you will want a canoe to keep your gear dry unless the river is really low. If your bringing your pop up..I'd stay at Eagles Park right across from the Tan Vat Access..They have level RV sites, and a showerhouse. Plus its not as smoky as the state park CG, and you dont have to deal with the state's screwy reservation system. Ozark Mountain Ranch is another option, but I've never stayed there. Cheers.

I cant really see a need for C&R on the wild trout creeks, though I wouldnt oppose it. Most fish dont make it to 15" on those creeks due to habitat issues, and I rarely see evidence of poaching, though I'm sure some occurs. Habitat improvements at the parks.....Bennett, Meramec, and Roaring River dont really look like trout streams..They seem to be configured like hatchery raceways for the most part...A more natural setting would be preferable, but I'm not sure if they could handle the traffic they receive if they were allowed to revert to a more natural state. Montauk still has a stream like character, but it in need of some bank restoration in areas, and there seems to be a siltation problem on the upper Current. I'm not sure what the cause is. Could be erosion problems up Pidgeon Creek, or water table issues, a combo of both, or something else...I'm not sure why, but the upper Current seems to be a lot shallower than I remember it 20-30 years ago. Habitat improvements elswhere...It would be nice if the float operators, NPS, and Park Service would stop cutting woody debris that falls in the water...It would make a lot of places harder to canoe, but I see no problem with it. Adding structure is a problem in most Ozark streams because of the way they rise and fall..Man made improvements seem to wash out pretty quickly during high water events...Least they did on Mill Creek...MDC put a bunch of lunker structures in there a couple years ago and they washed out...They added more this year, and I dont have high hopes. I think it would be best to leave the river alone for the most part, except for stabilizing banks, and repairing the riparian corridor... Little Piney...could be a great stream. It has more flow and potential than any other wild trout creek. Unfortunately, its got some severe habitat issues...Several Gravel Mines (old gravel pits above 63 bridge heat up the water, one gravel pit in operation below Vida, another gravel operation at the G. Nade confluence, and there is lots of damage from gravel mining activities on private land along the creek. Cattle in sections of the creek too. Its often a half-mile or more between pockets of good habitat. Cheers.

There's one of the major problems...Many of the folks in rental canoes and tubes arent on the river enough to know what to do when they hear a jet boat coming....Their kids are in the water swimming, their paddling through narrow spots w/o a clue about what that obnoxios noise from down river means. And frankly, why should they have to get out of the way? What kind of person takes their jet boat out to a river crowded with canoes, swimmers, and tubes? Doesnt display very good judgement IMO... I dont mind sharing the river with responsible folks, but I dont like to share it with folks who make a nuisance out of themselves by using the river as a race track in loud boats, drunken twenty somethings, folks who litter, and those who blare loud music on boom boxes. Folks like that seem to have no respect for others, accourdingly, I have no use for them. Cheers.

If you want to catch trout at night..Less light is best...Keep your lamp off the water, and nights with no moon are best. Cheers.

The Steelville Guage is at 476cfs which is close to my max for wading below the park in the Cardiac area..it will still be difficult to cross in most spots if your on foot, but it should be fine for canoeing. Dont expect any solitude this weekend unless your headed up above Hwy 8. Cheers.

Depends if they are active or not...If they are active, they will go for buzzbaits, walk the dog type plugs, tiny torpedo's, or pop-R's...If they are less active try a floating rapala, suspending jerkbait, fluke, or a 1/4 oz spinnerbait...no action on any of the above fish plastics on the bottom. Focus on areas with some current, wood, chunk rock or boulders, and willow weed. Bigger baits usually do better for the big fish..mainly buzzers, walk the dog plugs, largemouth sized spinnerbaits, flukes or rapalas in the 5" range, or a big jig and chunk. Cheers.

Thanks a bunch...My wife and I are thinking of taking the kids down there the last week of July. I couldnt find a nearby stream guage on the Kings...does the river normally have sufficient flow between Rockhouse and Trigger Gap in the July/August timeframe?

Thanks Zach, River Ridge looks interesting....but their webpage doesnt tell you much..Are any of those cabins on the water? This place looks interesting too. http://www.kingsriverretreat.com/cabins.php Anyone know anything about them?

zhoyt, I've never fished the Kings but I've been thinking about it...The wife wants to go someplace new rent a nice cabin with a river view and a good swimming hole.. Any recommedations for a spot on the Kings?

I'd go with a sit on top kayak or solo canoe because you will sit a bit higher and its easier to get in and out of the boat. Cheers.

The Ozark Fly Fishers will be casting at the lake in Tilles Park in St. Louis on Thursday evening..There will be plenty of good casters on hand if anyone wants a casting tuneup. Cheers.

Mike, Cherokee landing services that area..It changed hands a couple years ago. The new owners are named Steve and Christine and they are really nice folks. Its mostly a weekend operation but give em a call and see what they have available. I think they have a lower float available, but I'm not sure. As for flies...Poppers, Sneaky Petes, streamers..youll want em to be 2-4" long if you want to keep the sunfish off. Floating is definetly the way to go on that stretch of river because pockets of good habitat are the exception rather than the rule...Use the canoe to paddle over the lead mine tailings areas (looks like a sandy bottom but its not) and through the long slow holes and focus on the areas with current, clean gravel, rock, willow weed, wood, and combinations of the above. Cheers.

Since your in Troy...next time your in St. Louis, stop by Tom Hargrove's shop and check out some of his custom rods...I own two of them, and his feather inlay work is fantastic. Cheers.