Wayne SW/MO

I know there is never enough. A lot of the good trout cover has been covered by gravel and I don't know if this reduces their numbers or concentrates them?

I don't know of any hot spots, but the channel swings against the bank under the hiway 76 bridge in Shadow rock park. If you want use your net for bait fish i would throw towards the bluff near the mouth of swan. Normally there are no snags there.

There are some beauties out there.

I'm not seeing any smallie in the picture, but now that I can get it to load I do see the kentucky. The mean mouths I've caught have all had some smallie mottling, especially towards the dorsal and head.

Nice report and I'm glad your son had an exceptional trip.. That's a nice bigmouth, especially for the river.

There was also one at the Springfield Conservation center. As to floaters, it isn't floaters that can harm the river it's the excess. It's no difference than a patch of grass. If a few everyday cross over it every day it will look none the less for wear, but send 500 and the grass disappears.

What a great way to spend some money! Can I sat "As Rome is burning........................................"?

So uh, what fish do they recycle? Do they make them into playground equipment or do the actually make them into fish again?

It has and it is indeed high on the list of probable causes. Some scientist however believe it is somewhat like the flu in that it is more deadly in stressed animals. Amphibians are stressed virtually everywhere now, so that could be another reason why the virus seems to worse.

I think the lesson is that it can and will happen if nothing is done. There is little to no hope of reversing what has been done, but stopping further damage is. If you look at the summer homes on the NFOW now and the disruption of the natural dependence of the river on the border of land, picture it with homes and clearings along with septic tanks and the trees that normally slow water absorption from one end to the other.

Sand Springs is fine and you have a restaurant right across the lot. Vogels is very reasonable, or was, and of course there are Jim Rodgers places on up the hill. Nothing wrong with Larry's, but they can be hard to get.

I've been around Missouri waters for a few years and fished many of them before the 60's and I don't see anything in Brian's post i could disagree with.

Good read. He's always been a straight shooter.

While it's hard to know what happens on the river, what happens there stays there, but they have and some have been caught so it happens. You don't see near the suckers you used too so who knows what they feed 20 people with?

Troutguy I would get a hold of Larry Dablemont, there isn't much if anything that he doesn't know about river jons. Dablemont FYI, the Lowe River Jon was copied after some Gasconade wooden jons. The Lowes took measurements and then transfered them to what they could press and weld. If you need measurements check with James River Outfitters in Galena, they have some river jons. I had a river jon and it was no light weight in AL and in wood would be even heavier. I would stick with the original measurements if it were me.

Sounds like you have a big problem, you like what you have. Maybe you should duplicate it because it never hurts to have a round ready for the second shot.

When I fished the Deschutes, McKenzie and the Metolius rivers, which are fast and rocky, I found an indicator a real handicap. Trying to get a good drift into a lie was alsmost impossible with a float pulling the line and controlling the depth. I can see where a float on the Long hole at BSSP would work fine because the water is slow and maintaining a depth under those conditions is difficult. Or the energy from a take coming up the line and revealing itself.

well Junkman look at it this way, walking is good for you and there will be just as many fish in the stream.

I've never heard that before, but if that is a problem its unacceptable given the fact they have to harvest them and get them out of the country!

Nothing comes free, so practice helps immensely. If you think about it an indicator offers a controlled drift in an uncontrollable environment. I like being able to address my drift to the various changes in the stream. While fishing some waters that resemble a pond can make an indicator efficient, it's hard to impossible to work a changing current with lots of seams and still pick up every take. The leader is an indicator and you just have to work at reading it.

Exactly, if a long out of sight drift is the goal then a spinning rod would be a better choice.

I've fished them pretty consistently over the years. Depth can be important, especially if they are bedding and the best way I know get a slow level retrieve for gills is to carry 3 different weights and distinguish them by using different colors of tying thread as an indicator. Gills aren't picky and the head color isn't likely to make a difference to them. I'm not one to stick hard to patterns when i think it isn't necessary. Bluegills have always seemed to be suckers for any bulky wet fly that has noticeable yellow or red on it. That is why I left the original McGinty and started tying a sparse hackle instead of wings. I don't know that I ever used hen hackle or partridge, but I would today probably , especially the partridge. They also seem to like any small dark topwater that has legs. I didn't read all of this, but it looks as if he has some variants. McGinty

That it is, but I don't blame NRO either because it isn't their place to determine what's good for the river and what isn't, it is the Missouri DNR. The biggest problem is that if the DNR decide it gives a crap about the rivers it will need to get out of the rental business. We need canoe rentals so that many can enjoy the rivers and increase the allies in favor of supporting healthy rivers.

Justin while the NFOW doesn't seem to have a rental canoes problem, the Niangua is a virtual highway through a lot of the summer. If 500 people walk through a shoal dragging a canoe, how do you maintain a viable insect population? If you haven't seen the 10AM launch on the Niangua, you should because I believe even you would be amazed.

If the line lays out the leader should because it is meant to be an extension. It's always hard to give an opinion on something like a leader without seeing it, but my guess would be that the leader lacks the stiffness to lay out. That's one, another would be that the leader is too light to overcome the air resistance of the fly and another would be that it still had too much memory of the reel.