DainW

Gavin, in your experience, what's usually the best time of year to fish the Current? As I've mentioned, my other trips have been in the spring. Late april last year was really good for me. Middle of march was a little bit harder work but still decent fishing. My other trip was on Memorial day two years ago and considering that it was my first time fishing the river I'd say I did pretty well. This was my first time fishing it in the fall. I am assuming summer is probably pretty crowded. What about winter? I'm considering another trip up there in late december/early January.

I'm not the most experienced fly fisher out there, but I like to think of myself as somewhat competent anyway and I've fished the Current before probably three or four times and have always done pretty well. One day late last april I had one of my best days fishing anywhere at Baptist Camp. On this trip I threw the flies that usually work for me there, but I've also never fished it this time of year either. That being said, I did catch about ten or so fishing Tan Vat in the morning, which is about an average day numbers wise for me on that section, it's just that I'm usually catching 15-18 inch fish and this time they were 8-10 inch fish. I kind of think water levels being lower than what I'm used to fishing. Discharge when I was there was around 95 CFS and the other times I've fished it before it has been closer to 120 CFS. The difference in flows was definitely noticeable at the bluff hole and the run below that. I'm usually able to pull at least one or two nice fish from around the bluff hole, but this time nothing. My guess is the lower water level dictated a stealthier approach, lighter flies and tippets, maybe a dry dropper even, but I chose my standard strategy of throwing a heavy nymph rig with a big Pat's as the point fly, complete with shot and a bobber. Hindsight being 20/20, a change of tactics might have paid dividends. As far as Little Piney goes, the one other time I went I had better success, but water levels were a little high and off color, which I think helped the fishing a lot. I'm about 6'5 300 pounds, so stealthiness doesn't come naturally lol.

Hopefully we can get together some time and fish it. I hit all the likely holding areas, pools, riffles, runs etc but just didn't have great luck. Of course I was also nymphing so that may have been the issue as well.

It was fun for sure. A little disappointed in how the Current and the Little Piney fished though. I wished I had gone to dry dropper sooner on the current and tried it on the Little Piney. Anyways good luck in Iowa. Hope to see a cool report when you get back.,

Hey just wanted to update everyone on the trip. Had a great time. Fished the current last thursday from Tan Vat down to the bluff hole. Caught about 10 fish all 10 inches or less. Not sure what was going on but couldn't turn any bigger fish. Not sure if it was a water being low or air pressure or just good ole angler error. Fished mostly nymphs but maybe should've gone to the dry dropper rig as I would find out later. Broke for lunch then fished the park, which is somewhat ridiculous trying to get those fish to eat sometimes. A blizzard like caddis hatch started up though and I was able to get a couple bites on a small emerger and dad pulled a really nice fish out on a pheasant tail (sorry no pics) to end the day. Packed up and drove to alton to fish the eleven point with Brian Sloss. I'll let the pictures do the talking for that portion of the report. Needless to say it was an awesome day with close to 40 fish brought to the boat, and one goggle eye. Drove to Rolla Friday night and got up early to fish the little piney. Fishing was slow here with only a couple 5 inchers brought to hand, although admittedly, I've only fished this river once before and don't know it all that well. Around noon, the decision was made that if we're going to get our butts handed to us, better to do it on a river that we know, so we packed up and headed to Baptist Camp to close out the afternoon. I switched to a dry dropper rig, rubber leg stimulator on top with a prince/pheasant tail/20 incher/copper john underneath and caught a couple nicer, but still not what I'm used current river fish and dad caught about a 12 inch brown. Did have one nice (15 inches or so) brown blow up on the stimulator and was hooked briefly but from the way it went down he missed the dry and I fouled hooked him with the dropper and he got off pretty quickly. Did see several nice browns in the river though, looking like they were engaging in spawning or at least pre-spawn behavior, sort of jockeying for position with each other and swimming around in circles. I know browns don't spawn successfully in the Current right? I'm assuming they do go through the motions? Anyway, all in all it was a good trip and I'm already looking forward to the next one. Here are some pics in no particular order.

Good to know, thanks for the reply. Looks like the gauge hasn't moved too much over the morning.

Ok so headed up to licking this evening hoping to fish the blue ribbon section of the current tomorrow morning and I'm keeping a close eye on the weather forecast and the montauk state park stream gauge. I'm assuming that 200-250 CFS is about the upper limit of wadeable flows for this section and there's about an inch of rain in the forecast for today. It looks like current gauge reading is 94 CFS. Does anybody have a reasonable guess as to how much an inch of rain will affect the water level for the blue ribbon stretch? Will it be fishable by tomorrow morning? Thanks

Awesome thanks for the report Al. Sounds like a heck of a day. Glad to hear that river is open and fishing well.

That's awesome man looks like a fun trip. Congrats on the new personal best from that creek. I'm headed to the Little Piney in t-minus two weeks from saturday and this report got me pumped up. The new nymphing style you're referring to, this wouldn't be czech nymphing would it?

Doesn't look like it was too slow lol. Thanks for the report.

Coming from OKC. I love the tailwaters myself especially the C&R section of the Norfork don't get me wrong, but I'm kind of wanting to see some new water this trip.

I would love to go to the driftless. I saw a TU presentation on it not too long ago and in just the one county where Viroqua, Wisconsin is there are over 220 miles of fishable water. Being a 5-6 hour drive for me though, I can't complain about the ozarks at all. I fished NFOW in april for the first time and it was pretty cool but next time I'm gonna have to hire a guide. Without a driftboat we were pretty much limited to fishing the riffles and had to row past lots of good looking water. Anyway, good luck planning the trip.

Full disclosure here, I'm about 6'5 300 lbs and a former Mizzou offensive lineman. I'd say the term elephant is a pretty good description of the way I wade lol.

Thanks again for the replies everyone. How do you guys usually fish mill and bsc? Do a lot of people throw dries or nymph or what? What about size/length of rod? I've got a 7'6 3 weight that I threw when I fished little piney, but I almost felt like it wasn't long enough to properly mend.

So what's up with the Meramec guys? I mean it's a similar situation to the blue ribbon section of the current river, down stream of a trout park, gets stocked similarly...what's the deal? I mean does the one additional fish they let you keep make that much of a difference in the fishing?

Okay coming up to Missouri for a 3 day trip mid-october. The plan is to fish the current river blue ribbon section one day, float the eleven point with Brian Sloss the next day, and then 3 is kind of up in the air. What do you guys think of these options. My plan is to either fish the Meramec red ribbon section or fish some of the smaller wild creeks like Little Piney and Mill Creek or BSC. I've fished Little Piney before briefly, but never Mill or BSC or the Meramec. Anyone have any suggestions, or possibly another option I'm not considering?

Will do.

Nice report thanks. I'm planning on taking my first trip to the eleven point middle of october. I've booked Brian Sloss as a guide. Really looking forward to it. Hope we have as good as luck as you did.

Not sure how much you've heard about the LIR since the flooding, but basically the river has been chocolate milk since it's been fishable again. It's slowly been clearing, but as of my last trip which was end of July it was still pretty murky, although more of a green than a brown if that makes any difference. I've had pretty good success this summer drifting a black or brown woolly bugger, sometime both in tandem, on the bottom either dead drift or a slow strip back upstream. I'd focus on fishing closer to the dam than the Watts area.

1/6 oz little cleos. Gold and red or silver and red.

Can I ask a couple questions about this? First of all, as far as I know in Christianity, getting a divorce and being remarried is considered a sin as well is it not? Why do we not see any Christian bakeries that are refusing to serve cakes to people that are getting married multiple times? If there was some sort of precedent for that type of thing occurring then I might be a little more inclined to get on board with them choosing not to serve gay couples, but what it looks like to me is that we're seeing selective outrage over which sins are really an issue to them. In any case, nobody forces anyone to start a business, but if you do start a for-profit business in this country, you have to abide by the laws of this country, which state pretty clearly that you cannot legally discriminate against someone. My second question is this. When I was a kid, all of my christian friends used to wear these bracelets that said WWJD, which stands for what would jesus do. Now let's apply that to this situation. Let's say jesus owned a bakery and a gay couple wanted him to bake a cake for them. By a show of hands, how many people here really think that he would say nope, not gonna bake a cake for you guys. What happened to love the sinner not the sin? Doesn't the bible also say something along the lines of "render onto Caesar what is Caesar's...." In other words follow the laws of the country that you live in.

FWIW Jerry, as beloved as Reagan is by conservatives, I don't care much for him. He basically invented deficit spending to fund his "star wars" military spending program and set us down the road to $19 trillion in debt (the debt doubled under his watch). He introduced us to the concept of supply side trickle down economics which is one of the leading causes of the massive levels of income inequality we see today, He armed the mujahadeen in Afghanistan which would eventually become Al-Qaeda. He sold arms to Iran in exchange for releasing American hostages and used the funds to support Nicaraguan militants. His administration also stepped up the "war on drugs" which has been an abject failure in every aspect as well as disproportionately affecting the black community. By the way there are a couple things in that meme that you shared that are factually incorrect, basically everything that has to do with policy positions. For example, Reagan was anti-illegal immigration, but he signed a bill that granted amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants. He was pro tax reduction, but raised taxes 11 times. He was pro-2nd amendment, but endorsed the Brady bill after he left office. To me the idea of another Reagan is terrifying.

I agree with that, but do you think Trump isn't a pathological liar that will tell his supporters whatever they want to hear? I get it though, it's a lesser of two evils situation and if you're a more conservative leaning person Trump is less evil and if you're more liberal leaning Clinton is less evil.

1. I never claimed that every single Trump voter was a racist, as I just explained to you in my post that you quoted. 2. Even IF i was trying to say that every single Trump voter was racist (which I'm not), less than half of the country actually votes in any given election anyway, so that would make the number of racists in this country somewhere around 20-25% which seems to jibe with your poll that says 80% of the country approves of interracial marriage. For the record, I doubt if it's even that high, but it does still exist. 3. I think you're taking his statement about "being in our DNA" a tad bit too literally. I think the historical implications of racist American policies can and do still influence race relations in this country today, but I'm sure you'll disagree.

Okay so then you're reluctantly voting for Trump. What I read is that you don't really care for either candidate but you'd take Trump over Hillary. Ok fair enough. If you read my post closely, it wasn't really directed at you either. I'm speaking to the Trump is the last best hope for our country crowd that thinks if he doesn't get elected our country is going to perish. These are the same people that have been criticizing the current administration for the last 8 years for running an out of control, lawless government and having a feckless foreign policy but worship at the altar of Donald Trump. There's a difference between these folks and being a reluctant Trump voter. As far as president Obama's comments about racism being in our DNA, I mean he's not wrong. This country was founded by British colonialists, who if you've studied anything about, are the original purveyors of white supremacy. These same people imported slaves from Africa, wrote a constitution that stated that black people are 3/5 of a person, tried to deny voting rights to black people, and up until about 60 years ago told us that black people shouldn't drink from the same water fountain as white people. Look the country has come a long way since all of that sure, and I can't honestly remember anyone every claiming that 50% of the country is racist. You'd have to source that out for me. The election of the first black president was a big step, but it doesn't mean that racism is over. There's still work left to do. I don't know what the exact percentages are really, but if you think racism is dead take a drive through Harrison sometime.