Gavin

It got stocked yesterday... I didnt fish it but those who were were catching them on flies and inline spinners.... Cheers.

Depends on the lake... My closest urban trout lake only gets a couple hundred fish. Most of them leave soon after..I've never caught more than one or two if I've missed the stocking truck by more than a week..Look for risers or nervous water. Some other lakes in the STL area get alot more fish, and the fishing lasts a bit longer. I really dont go to any of the urban mudholes with the expectation of catching a trout..Its casting practice, in between calls to operation game thief and I might catch a trout while I'm at it..I've always done best with buggers or leaches, sometimes with a wet fly or soft hackle trailer. Either under a cork and let the wind push it around, or count it down and a slow retrieve. Sometimes they hit midge emergers.

Wrench, I see a right pelvic fin on that fish, NO right pectoral fin. Guess, I mistyped it... Like snowfly, I've been out on the sampling runs with the biologists on the Current..They clip fins on the aft end of the brown trout..left & right pelvic, and adiopose to indicate year of stocking. Tail clips are used to indicate that the fish has been sampled when they shock the sample stretch again two days later. I clipped alot of fins on those two days, and none of em were pectorals. I'm not aware of any clips used to ID rainbows on the Current (other than tail clips during sampling) because most of them are escapees from Montauk.. FWIW, clipped fins will grow back if you dont clip em too close. Cheers.

The biologists do use fin clips to mark brown trout on the Current, but they usually clip the left or right pelvic fin, adiopose fin, or the tail. They do tail clips on the rainbows when they sample in the fall (the one above one appears to have a clipped tail) but thats it. Id have to say that the missing pelvic fin is probably the result of an injury or a deformity. Cheers.

IMO, King Salmon tastes the best, followed by sockeyes, and silvers....Halibut beats the heck out of any type of salmon though.

Nice Catch! Congrats!

The Gasconade has a well documented history as a float stream, several canoe outfitters, and a fair number of public access points. Your are well within your rights to put in and take out at public access points, fish, and camp on a gravel bars below the high water mark. It doesnt matter if that gravel bar is on public or private land, because its in a public right of way. Camping above the high water mark would be tresspass (unless it was public land). Cheers.

I dont use one on a motor boat, but I run one off the back of my canoe..If it hangs, its a matter of back paddling or cutting the rope..Adjust the length of rope to control the speed of your drift, and keep a knife handy just in case. Cheers.

I use a medium action spin rod with 4/15 powerpro, and a 6' leader of 8lb flourocarbon for floating minnow baits, and suspending jerkbaits..I dont fish Taney, but it works everywhere else. Add the leader with back to back uni-knots. Cheers.

I'd agree with Bman...the area closer to the spring tends to hold more fish in the Fall & Winter..Plus there is a marked increase in jet boat traffic this time of year...folks out gigging, bowhunting, and scouting for rifle season. Weekend afternoons seem to see the most boat traffic. Cheers.

Scary hit...glad everyone is OK to fish another day.

Its a short shuttle, but the last half of that float kinda stinks...and the fishing on the first half isnt great...I'd go above or below...and take a trolling motor. Lots of frog water on the BB...I run one of the back of my canoe on occasion, and its worked well. You can get a mount from Old Town..

Pretty much the same story for our group...Fished Kelly down to Sunburst on Saturday. Caught 3...on three different flies...Floated Sunburst to James on Sunday and Caught 4 trout..on 4 different flies, and two spotted bass. Would have fished till after Sunset, but I filled my waders down by Riverside and decided to paddle out. Had a group of 20-25, and most fished up river all weekend...fishing was slow for everyone. No pattern to the fish and incredibly soft takes. The lower river fished better for the group as a whole. Those who stayed out on the lower river till the cloud cover came in late Sunday afternoon had decent results. Fished my way home yesterday..Stopped at a local lake. Caught some largemouth and chain pickeral, and a mess of goggle eye below the dam. Second stop was one of th wild trout creeks near Rolla.. ...7 wild troutlings on a hopper dropper combo. Fun floating & fishing, but low water, blue bird skies, and wind usually make for poor fishing.

Pharmacies in Mountain Home area are reporting dangerously low levels of Geritol and Dentucreme ;>)!

I'd agree with Dano...they sound like post WWII japanese rods...some of the pipe cleaner flies are pretty cool..Might fetch 50-75. Probably not worth fishing with.

There is a lot of great fishing in that area but airfares to the smaller airports can be trip killers. I'd shop for cheap airfares and car rentals before I investigated the fishing and lodging opportunaties. I usually fly to Bozeman and rent a car, but you might want to check out the fishing around Missoula or Kalispell if you want more seclusion. Cheers.

Brown limits: I support a 24" lenght limit for browns, but I'm not sure that it will DO anything to improve the fishing. Most of the anglers who fish there are already practicing catch & release on the 20-24" fish..Frankly, a 24" brown trout is no big deal...Its no good to eat and its too small for a wall hanger...Might as well make it 30" if we want to set arbitrary length limits. Rainbow Limits...Leave them as is with a 12" to 20" protected slot..Most rainbows dont have the potential to grow to 24" outside of Alaska or a hatchery stock tank. Barbless...I'm not in favor because I think that that should be left up to individual choice. Other Issues: I wouldnt mind seeing a ban on shuffling, chumming, and snagging. A crack down on those practices would do a lot to improve the image of the fishery.

NRO is the nearest takeout..followed by Redbeard's. MDC's Barclay access is about 100-150yards below Redbeards.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mo/nwis/uv/?site..._cd=00065,00060 Youll be fine...looks like it came up around a foot and its headed back down...its at 1.9 at Akers right know, which is a great float level. Not to high, and not so low that youll be dragging. Have a great trip.

I used to live by the park and I fished it often..I've caught some really nice carp out there and plenty of trout in the winter time. I used to practice my fly cast on Lake #3..Lots of stunted bluegill and green sunfish in that lake, but not much else..I caught a 10" bluegill out of there once, but the average size is 2-3". Not sure when they stock, but I think that MDC has a stocking hotline for the St. Louis Urban Lakes. Track down the number and give em a call. Cheers.

Premier Bank put it on the block for $6M on Friday (the amount of the outstanding loan)...There were no bids. Since nobody bought it at the bankruptcy auction, the bank is the owner and they can market it any way they want. I'm sure it will sell to someone for a lot less than the $6M the bank loaned on the place. Cheers.

Who's rods are you looking at in the $250-600 range? Most of those are probably Chinese imports from Headwaters or Zhus rods and I'd stay away. Wha kind of fishing do you intend to do with it? I've got a bunch in the 2-5wt category, lenghts run from 6' to 8'. The ones I have are very nice, but many of the old production rods are junk (Shakespeare, South Bend, Montagues, H&I's, post WWII Japanese imports). You should be able to get something decent in the $600-800 range, if thats too much buy a one tip blank from a modern american builder and finish it out yourself. If your looking for starter cane, your best bet in a finished rod is a used Orvis, Granger, Phillipson, or Heddon in the 8' 5wt configuration or a blank from a modern builder probably something in the 7.5-8' range for either a 4 or 5wt. Let me know if you have any additional questions. Cheers.

Not sure that there is a private hatchery that sells them. Check with MDC for their list of private hatcheries...If you want to catch and keep them from public waters you have to abide by the state wide regulations. Brown trout are a non-native species and bait bucket biology is usually a bad idea unless your stocking your private spring pond ..Using them as bait is a no no too. Cheers.

The same cook times will work for charcoal or electric. Smoking on the electric is less work because you have better temperature control and you dont have to mess with the fire so much...With charcoal, I usually end up dissassmbling the smoker every 4 hours or so to add a fresh batch of charcoal. You dont have to do that with an electric. Cheers.

http://mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/mofish/mofish.cgi?st=9 Look at the link above...