Phil Lilley

That was the whole idea... we have to be back here to host the crowd coming in for the holiday. Of course... we don't even go to town unless we have to.

No trout stamps either...

My son's birthday was the 21st and we hadn't been floating all spring so we thought it was a great excuse to go. Russ has been reporting on some great conditions and fishing on the Elk and Big Sugar Rivers so we decided to head to Pineville. With the party- Caleb (Cob), the birthday boy, Greg, his younger brother, Megan, the older sister and her husband Jimmy and Aaron our live-in college kid. We arrived at Hog Heaven at 9 am- it's a 2.25 hour drive from Branson. Met Russ and his wife. Very nice people. Heaven is one of these places that is family operated and adds the "down-home personal touch". We loaded a canoe, a 2-person kayak and 3 single kayaks on his trailer and headed up the Big Sugar. Russ briefed us on a couple of spots to watch out for on the river. The flow was perfect and the water looked great. No one else at the put-in and ended up seeing only one other person on the river the entire time. Our timing was perfect. I fished off and on as we floated. I threw a sculpin 3/32 oz jig and caught numerous smallies from 6 to 13 inches in the deep holes. Russ said he'd seen some fish on beds. I saw a few after we hit the Elk. Close to the end of the Sugar there were some man made chunk rock jetties along the outside bend of the river that held bass. Cob and I drifted inbetween these jetties- the bass weren't spooked at all by us. They were aggressive, chasing sun fish around like they were practicing for protecting their nests. They chased our jigs too. Caught my nicest smally there. All and all a great trip. Would recommend Hog Heaven to anyone and the river is a great float and fishery. The sign was just recovered from downstream, washed away by the flood. Russ showed me how high the water was... amazing!!

"It was worth the cold shoulder, for that kind of action." Boy I'm sure glad Becky doesn't read the forum. Wish I could have been with you...

To be honest, I wanted to get a couple of other opinions on the different areas named here before I made it an official map on ozarkanglers but I haven't had time to do so. With all due respect to Trav, his knowledge and time he put in on the map, that was my plan and still is. This posting may speed up my efforts on this task.

Already, FireFox 3 is already doing the same things the old version is doing... drop down boxes aren't working as well as blocking some images, namely the banner on the forum. And it's getting progressively worse. Checked IE and they are working fine. Very irratating.

The bass are on spawning beds I bet on the Buffalo. They are on the Elk River.

I just bought a BlackBerry Curve yesterday- does anyone have one? Without googling and researching, what are some of the cool things it does? My son told me he has a friend who hacked into his and now he can watch youtube videos on his... not that's what I want to do but is there other useful things you can do outside of the default apps?

C Sports Optical is a great place in St Louis. Chris Vogler. I'll try to find out how to get ahold of him.

I fish for trout here using jigs... 1/8, 3/32, 1/16 oz throwing them straight and smaller under an indicator. I've used them on smallies and other warmwater fishes in these streams... sculpin or brown #1 color, olive, brown/orange, black are more colors I'll have in the box. 2-4 lb line. Work the riffles and deep holes.

Yea right. MDC is going to make everyone buy bear-proof containers for their trash and other smelly items. This can't be good for the bears. No place to move them.

We're going tomorrow. Will report tomorrow night. I'm taking jigs.

It's also a temperature thing... MDC can't stock trout in the lower lake when the temp is high. That's why they stock mainly in the winter down there. In the summer, it's strictly a temp thing. They go as high as they have to to stock, according to the water temp. They've gotten in trouble in the past by stocking too low in the lake (Branson area sometimes) and the trout die as soon as they hit the water. They also stock according to pressure. More trout in the summer and less in the winter. More trout before a holiday.

The sole use of this topic is to provide good information about floating and fishing the Elk River and it's tributaries. Promoting businesses such as lodging, outfitters and fishing guides is strongly urged! Anything posted here could and will be used in other locations on OzarkAnglers.Com for informational use. To start it off, here's a few posts by OAF members that should be helpful: Regulations - http://ozarkanglers.com/index.php?option=c...6&Itemid=88 Al Agnew: At one time or another I've floated all of Current River from Tan Vat to Doniphan. I even guided on it one summer when my friend and guide Gaylon Watson needed an extra hand. I remember one float where we were guiding a big family group, and I got stuck with two teenage girls in my canoe. They weren't all that into fishing, and continually hung up in the trees when they did fish, but I was proud of the fact that one of them actually caught the biggest smallmouth of the trip. This was on Gaylon's favorite stretch, from Powdermill to Van Buren. He had a perfect gravel bar a short distance below Paint Rock Bluff that he always camped on overnight, but on this trip one couple refused to camp on a gravel bar, and we spent one whole day before the trip getting a camping trailer down a very rough road to the vicinity of Paint Rock, so that the couple could camp in it while the rest of the party camped on the gravel bar. On a trip with Bob Todd below Big Spring, we were drifting through a side channel off the river when we jumped a doe. Then we saw two fawns standing on the bank where the doe had been...and one of them was an albino! Beautiful little creature. The stretch above Cedargrove is the only place where I've actually seen a live armadillo in Missouri (plenty of road kills, but no other live ones). I've spent a lot of time flyfishing between Montauk and Baptist Camp and below, and that's where I've caught my biggest MO brown trout, a 29 incher. I floated from Williams Landing to Two Rivers this past summer, and caught more than 70 smallmouths. None were very big, though...I think the biggest was about 16 inches. It's a great river, and only the boat traffic and party floaters keep it from being one of my favorites. Kicknbass: Current River is a great smallmouth fishery. My home stretch of water is from Owls bend to Van Buren. I had several 30 fish days this past year. The only problem w/ the fish is that most fish are 10-13 inches. I did catch a few 15-16 inch fish this year, but not many. I have fished the SMB management areas on the meramec and the big piney rivers. These areas have much larger average fish. A few years back on the piney, I had a weekend float in August catching over a hundred fish most over 14 inches that trip rivaled Ontario. Current River in the Ozark National Scenic Riverways is a prime location for a SMB management area. Great population of fish, great habitat and food supply to grow monster SMB. It is not even on the MDC radar for a SMB management area. I remember a trip w/ my father back in the early 70's when dad and I fished one hole of water and caught 3 huge fish. 24, 20 & 18 inches. Wow what an outing. This type of fishery is still possible on this river. The main reason the fish aren't larger is they take a long time to reach these sizes, and are harvested a year or so after reaching legal length. This river and also the meramec are used extremely heavily in the summer months. If each angler soaking worms takes 1 or 2 legal fish each outing, the number of mature fish is diminished. Changing the limits would force the law-abiding anglers to put the fish back into the river to grow giving more fish a chance to get to trophy size. Current River and the Eleven Point are Missouri's treasures known nationally for their scenic beauty. They should also be known for their fishery. Al Agnew: I agree, Kicknbass, the Current has a lot of potential that's not being realized. I think the reason it isn't on the radar for special management is precisely because the growth rates are slower due to the colder water, or at least that's what a lot of the old data showed. It's almost like "conventional wisdom"...Ozark streams in general have slow growth rates because they are cool and infertile, and the most heavily spring fed ones are even worse. I really wonder about that. The more time I spend on these rivers and on rivers in other parts of the country, the less I agree with the conventional wisdom. Growth rates in many parts of the country that produce bigger fish regularly aren't much, if any, better than they are here. If you're comparing river fish to lake fish, yes, there is a difference. But rivers all over the ocuntry have similar growth rates. And I think somebody just decided that slow growth rates on rivers like the Current are due to cold water just because it seems to make sense. I disagree. I think fish on the less heavily spring fed streams go more dormant in the winter, so they have a warm weather growing season, but the fish in these heavily spring fed streams feed more all year long, so they may actually grow in winter as well as the summer. I think, based on what I've seen on the Current (and I don't spend much time on it compared to other streams) that it has LOTS of small fish. As you said, many are probably being cropped off at 12 inches. And it's also possible that the smaller fish may be a little overpopulated and that's contributing to slow growth rates. A slot limit would seem to me to be a great idea on the Current. Best one to two day float- Al Agnew: If you float during the middle of the week, the traffic usually isn't too bad. You'll still run into canoes and jetboats, but usually a manageable number of both. And the fish don't mind, they are used to the traffic. Best two day if you want to avoid SOME of the jetboats would be Round Spring to Two Rivers. Lots of fish in that stretch. But there are bigger fish downstream, along with more and bigger boats. I used to really love the Powdermill to Van Buren stretch, but I haven't floated it in several years. It's a long two days. As for one day floats, a nice short one that can produce good fishing is Two Rivers to Powdermill. Jerktail to Two Rivers is nice, too. For a longer one that doesn't get as much canoe traffic (but more boat traffic)...Powdermill to Logyard. And although all the horse traffic has somewhat messed up the lower Jacks Fork, you can still catch smallies from Eminence down, and it's a rather interesting float to go Eminence to Powdermill and fish both the smaller water of the Jacks Fork and the Current...doing that float, after getting accustomed to the Jacks Fork, the Current seems like a HUGE river when you get to it. By the way, about this time of year the upper Jacks Fork gets a LOT of canoe traffic on weekends as well, though you won't see jetboats on it. Fish on the upper Jacks Fork aren't quite as used to the traffic, since it is mainly on spring weekends, so the fishing sometimes isn't all that great there this time of year. As for camping...if you want campgrounds you can drive to, Jerktail is about 3/4 of the way through the Round Spring to Two Rivers stretch, and Logyard is a good place on the Powdermill to Van Buren stretch. But it's a whole lot better to just pick out a gravel bar and set up camp. There is no shortage of gravel bars on the Current. Gavin: If your insisting on the Current and Smallmouth, I'd probably go from Pulltite down to Round Spring on a weekday. Its ten miles, so it can be done as a loooooong one day or easy two day with ample camping opportunities. Plus there are no jet boats in the summer time. Its not as productive as the waters Al mentioned (downstream) but we usually catch enough to keep it interesting. Cheers. Horsepower limits on the river- http://www.nps.gov/ozar/planyourvisit/horsepower.htm More info to come.

The remote says it all...

Good story... but please finish it when you have time

You've got some great waters close to you around Fayettville, if F-Ville IS Fayettville. And there's a good TU and FFF clubs there too. Welcome.

Dan- Just curious... do you see the google ads and the banner ad at the top of the forum?

When posting a fishing report, use the posting icon Reports will show up better.

The sole use of this topic is to provide good information about floating and fishing the Elk River and it's tributaries. Promoting businesses such as lodging, outfitters and fishing guides is strongly urged! Anything posted here could and will be used in other locations on OzarkAnglers.Com for informational use. Thanks!

Russ said Cyclone to Hog Heaven... less people. I'm going to collect as much info about the area as I can and build a section on oa for the Elk and Big Sugar. Any info would be helpful. I'll work on it when I get back.

We are heading over to that area on Thursday and float somewhere... I've put that decision on Russ- he's going to take care of us. Taking the family over- Marsha, Greg and Caleb, Megan and Jimmy and possibly Aaron, our live-in college kid. We're looking forward to our first float of the season. Am taking a bunch of sculpin jigs... they are smally killers. Well, catch-n-release killers.

http://zennioptical.com Just got my second pair and have no complaints. Took less than a week. I've paid over $400 at WalMart for same pair of no line progressives and with shipping I paid less than $70 at Zenni. Save yourself some money and try them.

You may have noticed- I've been moving my google ads around lately. Google has disappointed me so far this year. I checked my pay out from this April to last April and while my impressions went up from 7000 to over 12000 (average per day) my earnings dropped from $5.28 to $1.06 per day. Clicks were part of the problem and I'm sure it was because the ads were at the bottom of the forum BUT my problem is that the same ads appear each day... they need to find a way to rotate ads better. Anyhow... it's hardly worth it for a dollar a day. The ad space at the top of this forum is worth about $500 a month by most standards... Anyone else mess around with google ads?

Yea, the admin went in and deleted the comments... I thought they were referring to Rich. I'm watching out for ya buddy! Sorry... trying to be funny. Isn't working.