Al Agnew

Funny...9 years later, so now I'm 68 going on 69 before too much longer. And I don't think a single thing has changed with me. Although I had to stop playing basketball when Covid hit, I'm now back to playing 2 days a week, 2 hours each day, full court...and I'm out in Montana now where the air is thinner. I'm gradually working myself back into basketball shape...one of the things that goes away quickly and takes a lot longer to come back is simple balance, being in balance when you make a move. I've been demolishing a deck off and on for the last week or so, and hit it hard today after playing hard yesterday; lots of lying on my back and unscrewing deck boards from the underneath, jumping up on joists and back down, using the crowbar to pry up 16 ft. boards. Fishing? I can't think of a single thing, yet, that I can't do now that I could do 30 years ago. But I've probably mentioned this before...a lot depends upon how you treated your body your whole life. Have a job doing hard manual labor? You'll stay in shape for a long time, but you'll eventually just wear everything out. It ain't hard manual labor to sit or stand at an easel and paint, which is mostly what I've done for the last 38 years. I think I've kept myself in shape without wearing things out so far.

Here are the bugs on the water just starting to get thick. But this concentration only lasted a few minutes yesterday.This was a rock at the edge of the water, covered in caddis. The mass just under the surface is their eggs, which are not much bigger than a pinhead when laid, and lime green. They stick to everthing and quickly swell up and dull in color to match the rocks better.And this is what this section of river looks like. Iconic Paradise Valley!

"Hog mollies" are northern hogsuckers. A clear water, Ozark stream fish, like several species of redhorse, which the old timers called "yeller suckers". You'll probably never seen a blue sucker unless you fish the Mississippi a lot.

Well, the bugs weren't as thick today. I thought I could just drift the elk hair caddis along the banks as I floated downstream in the little raft, but only caught a couple trout doing that. The hatch exploded for about 15 minutes, and I caught a few during that time. Other than that, I'd find occasional pockets of fish rising, but it was only when a cloud would cover the sun. As soon as the sun popped out again, the fish stopped rising. And there weren't all that many clouds. So I'd only caught about a half dozen by the time I got to the spot I'd caught the most yesterday. There was nothing rising; the sun was out full blast. It was also a little windy. When the wind would die down a bit, the bugs would get thicker. I figured that in about a half hour the sun would go behind a mountain; it was nigh on to 5 PM. Maybe then the fish would start rising. So I ate a snack, drank a Coke, and waited. Finally, the sun slipped behind the mountain. The shadow came from downstream, and as it reached my tail-out, the fish started rising. I had told Mary to plan on picking me up at 6 PM, and it was after 5:30. I called her and told her not to expect me for a while yet. And proceeding to have a complete blast. Mary asked me how many fish I caught, and I had no idea, but it was a bunch. Biggest was an 18 inch rainbow, and couple others 16-17 inches, but most were 12-14 inches. But when you have that kind of dry fly fishing, I don't really care that the fish are small. If I got a drift right in the feeding lane of a rising fish, it would take. There were enough bugs on the water that they didn't need to move sideways to eat, so you did really have to drift right through their feeding lane, probably no more than a foot wide. I ended up calling Mary to pick me up at 7:30! Too tired to get the pictures off my phone, didn't take any of the fish, but took a lot of bug pictures. Will post a few tomorrow.

So I've been in Montana since early spring (early spring by Missouri standards). It's been for the most part a cold, wet spring out here, with lots of wind. We are building a new patio and deck, so between the crappy weather and trying to line up contractors, my fishing time has been severely limited. But the highlight of the spring on the Yellowstone is the Mother's Day caddis hatch--if you can catch it right--and I've been hoping for it to happen. Last week it almost happened. We finally got three warm days in a row. Problem was, one of them was TOO warm. You see, the hatch requires the water to warm to a certain temperature, like up close to 50 degrees, before the bugs metamorphose. But if the weather gets too warm too quickly, it starts the higher altitude snowmelt. Which blows the river out. So there is more than a 50/50 chance in any given year that by the time the bugs appear, the river is chocolate milk. So last week, the caddis started happening on the second day of warm weather, and got pretty thick on the third day, the hottest day at over 80 degrees. And then the bottom dropped out of the temperature gauge...next day it was 35 degrees and snowing. The bugs, of course, shut completely off, and that day the river also started rising; it takes a couple days for the rise to get from Yellowstone Park to Livingston. It quickly rose more than 2 feet and got muddy. But the cold also stopped the snowmelt. So I was hoping the river would drop and some moderately warm weather would happen this week. It did. From a high of over 8000 cfs, it dropped below 4000 yesterday, and further dropped today. The last two days before today had temps in the high 50s, and today it went up to the high 60s. And that was enough to get the hatch going. Mary and I had to do some stuff the morning, but we finished at noon, ate lunch, and then got ready to get on the river. The bugs were flying around at the house, not only caddis but some nice brown drake mayflies. I watched the river a bit but didn't see anything rising. So I wondered if the bugs were going to be thicker upstream--the hatch always seems to move upstream. So I called the shuttle service and arranged a shuttle from Pine Creek to Carter's Bridge. At the put-in, there were caddis. On the banks near water's edge, they were thick enough that there would be about 20 per square foot. The air had about one per square foot, and there were a few floating on the water. But nothing was feeding on the surface. Floating with Mary in the little drift boat, I have to do the rowing (she wants to learn to row but a shoulder replacement and some arthritis in the other shoulder makes it tough for her), so the only way I can fish is to stop and wade, or anchor the boat. We stopped at the first likely riffle eddy, and I tried nymphs with no luck. So we continued downriver, looking for rises. The bugs were getting thicker. We reached a long, rip rapped wall (it separates the river from the spring that forms the famous Nelson's Spring Creek), and it seemed the caddis were thickest along the rip rap. In a small eddy I saw a few fish rising. So I anchored the boat a cast length downstream along the bank and tried for those fish. I was using a caddis imitation that was fairly realistic and a match for these bugs, which are about 5/8ths of an inch long. Problem was, the bugs were getting thicker, and I simply couldn't see my fly in among the real critters. I struck a couple times where I saw a rise where I thought my fly was, but no luck, it was a real bug taker. And suddenly, as if by magic, the hatch really took off. It's hard to describe. From a bug every 6 inches or so on the water, now there was less than an inch between bugs. They congregated in the slick water between the swirls and wavelets in carpets, some of them 3 feet wide by 6 feet long completely covered in bugs. They were clustering together in little clumps of a dozen of so in a ball...we've called these "caddis cookies" in past hatches. Now I knew it was impossible to fish a fly that perfectly matched the real thing...you coudn't see it, and what were the odds of the fish taking your imitation in among hundreds of real bugs within its feeding station? So I switched. I dug out an Elk Hair Caddis at least two or three sizes bigger than the real bugs. It was also lighter in color than the real ones. So it was easy to see. And I suspect it imitated those clumps of caddis. Trout are opportunists, too. If one can gulp down 6 caddis at once, why not? At any rate, it worked. I'd pick a spot, anchor, cast to an eddy where fish were rising, and usually get a take or two. But really there still weren't that many fish rising. So we kept moving for the most part, watching for signs that the fish were really turning on. Well, the hatch began to thin about 4 PM, and THAT's when I saw the fish turn on. Now they were picking out individual caddis instead of the clumps. As we were drifting down the main channel, I saw constant, multiple rises in a smaller channel just off the main river, separated from it only by a thin spit of a bar. The side channel was still good sized, it wouldn't be easy to wade across at the riffles. There was a nice run, tailing out in a wide, shallow riffle, and fish were rising constantly. So we stopped. In a stretch about 50 yards long above that riffle, there must have been at least 40 fish rising, all over the channel. I walked quietly up along the edge to where it looked like some bigger fish were coming up and gave it a shot. The first fish I drifted over took, and it was a nice rainbow, about 15 inches. Alright! I'd been a little afraid that most of the fish were whitefish. So for the next two hours, I fished that 50 yard stretch. A good portion of the fish WERE whitefish, and while whitefish take dry flies well, they are more difficult to hook because of their small, underslung mouths. But I'd say that about every third or fourth cast, on average, I'd get a take. I didn't keep track of how many I caught...maybe 15 trout and 20 or so whitefish. At one point, I got at least a dozen takes in a row and never hooked a fish...and then I checked my fly and I'd been fishing without a hook! I was slowly working my way down to the shallow tail-out above the riffle, and was thinking that surely it was all whitefish there, when I got a take at the end of a long drift downstream and a big rainbow leapt three feet out of the water. It would have been the biggest of the day, probably 18-19 inches, but it got off as I got it close. It was now 6 PM, and time to head in. I left that spot with fish still rising, and rowed the last mile to the take-out. So tomorrow I've got the afternoon free, and the weather is supposed to be like today was. I'm going to take the little Water Master and probably do the same float. If the hatch occurs like it did today, I'll take some pictures of it...you have to see it to believe it.

Yup, blue sucker. In Missouri, they are found in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and have been reported from the lower Gasconade, lower Osage, and lower Current River. They are evolved to live in strong current, hence the streamlined shape and sickle-shaped fins. They are apparently a lot rarer than they once were.

Another big difference between warmouth and the Ambloplites genus is that all goggle-eye have six anal fin spines. Warmouth, like sunfish, have only three spines. But as for appearance in general, goggle-eye have black spots on a lighter background, warmouth, if they have real spots, have light spots on a darker background. Warmouth are highly variable in color, however, but they always have the light lines radiating outward from their eye.

Phil, ever since you mentioned it to me, I've been thinking about getting into that league. I just started playing again a couple weeks ago, having not played since Covid started. I'm out here in Montana and the air is a little thinner, and I wasn't in great shape anyway, since basketball is usually my main exercise. I showed up at the gym with everybody complete strangers to me...the guy who invited me said they had good players and not so good players. Well, most everybody, except for two guys, were in their teens, 20s, or at most 30s, and nearly all of them were good. I was able to pair up with one or the other of the other older guys on opposite teams so we could guard each other. I was a complete clutz after not playing for over a year. But by my fourth day of playing (2 hours, full court!), I'm starting to get into shape, starting to not feel awkward, and my shot is coming around, except after the first hour when I start to get tired. But it sure would be nice to play with guys my own age (dinosaurs).

Yup, classic hybrid!

I'll go ahead a paste my reply from your original post in the wrong place, just to further the discussion...Personally, I like my topwater rods to be shorter than my other rods. My canoe rod is 5'3" medium power, just a typical fast action. My jetboat rod is 6 ft. medium power as well. I just like the way the shorter rods work in using walk the dog topwaters. Others' mileage may vary. But from the canoe, the shorter rod really does make a difference in how easy it is to walk those lures; the shorter rod means a better rod angle with tip down, while sitting in the canoe. The rod you made sounds like it might work well as a crankbait rod.

Personally, I like my topwater rods to be shorter than my other rods. My canoe rod is 5'3" medium power, just a typical fast action. My jetboat rod is 6 ft. medium power as well. I just like the way the shorter rods work in using walk the dog topwaters. Others' mileage may vary. But from the canoe, the shorter rod really does make a difference in how easy it is to walk those lures; the shorter rod means a better rod angle with tip down, while sitting in the canoe. The rod you made sounds like it might work well as a crankbait rod.

Being sure doesn't mean being right. Nothing Biden has done at this point has reduced the supply of oil, nor raised its price.

All the floatable Ozark streams have SOME channel catfish. But the ones that are a little more fertile (slightly murky water) should have better populations. Like Gavin said, the St. Francis is a great catfish river. Lower Black below Clearwater Dam is good. Meramec, Big, Bourbeuse are all good. Gasconade is excellent. James is good. I think any of those would be better than Bryant.

Mitch, not everybody has agendas, but most people believe the people they want to believe. Your default position seems to always be to believe one side. My default position is usually to believe the other side. But at some point, you have to read or listen to both sides and make an informed decision. In this case, I think the real science is on the side that banning DDT in the U.S. was on balance a good thing, and I've read both sides.

As much of a fish nerd as I am, I just can't get too interested in microfishing...I'd rather take the seine and see what I can dredge up. But when I was a kid I microfished. My grandpa had a concrete tank that he kept his crappie fishing minnows in. He was always trapping creek minnows, and the tank was always full. I'd get a stick, some of his fishing line, and a pin, bend the pin into a very small bend, put bits of earthworm on it, and fish in his tank. I even imagined that the minnows I caught were something else. Creek chubs were giant largemouth bass. Stonerollers were brown trout. Bleeding shiners were rainbow trout. I'd make up species for any others he had that I caught, too, but those were the most common. 😆

Yeah, I scrapped the mobile app as soon as I tried it. I just bookmarked the regular web address that took me to the statewide streamflow table on my phone, and went from there.

It will take some getting used to, and they are still working out the bugs and adding features. There are things about it I like...it's easier to change the time frame from the 7 day default period shown on the graphs to 30 days or a year, and the it's a lot more precise on levels and flows every 15 minutes for the last week, and the median flow. But I don't like having to use the map to click on an individual gage, I like the statewide table of gages by river system a lot better on the old one. I wonder how long they will keep the old system, because I could see using it first and then clicking on the new page for certain things.

Worst thing is when the current is so strong it washes the trailer off the side of the ramp before you can get the boat on it. Did that once at the Riverview MDC Access ramp on the Meramec.

Yeah, it's kinda tough to take something that has become automatic for me after all these years, and try to break it down in a written description of what I actually do. You're right, in many places you can just get the canoe into the slow current on the other bank, but on my rivers that means you have to make a fairly long, cross-current cast to the good bank. I'd rather keep the canoe close to the good bank and fish more parallel to it, so that my lure is in the good stuff longer. One thing is for sure, low water and little wind makes it all a whole lot easier.

Exactly. Since I don't like to get out and wade much, if I need to fish the slow stuff, I look for spots where I can get the canoe into an eddy, or up against a log or rock, even slide it up onto a water willow weed bed or up against the bank. But most of my warm weather fishing is with the "power" stuff. Wrench explained it well. The rod never leaves my (left) hand, and at the end of a cast, if the canoe position needs to be corrected, I grab the paddle and make the one-handed strokes I need to do so. Usually, I'm looking ahead to figure out the current line where I want to be, and getting into it with plenty of time. Once I'm there, the positioning strokes are mainly keeping the canoe pointed the way I want it to be. And most of them are backstrokes at various angles, or as Wrench said, sculling strokes. Just one example...I'm drifting down a bank. The current is faster toward the middle, away from the bank. I'm casting ahead, at an angle to the bank or almost parallel to it. I've already realized that the slower current is close to the bank. I'm wanting to keep the canoe with the back end of it in the slower current, because if the front end starts to get into the slower stuff and the back end starts to veer out toward the middle, the canoe is going to soon be sideways to the current. So my corrective stroke is to get that rear end back into the slower current. Say I'm fishing the left bank. My usual corrective stroke would be a backstroke with my right hand, turning the paddle blade so that I'm pushing the paddle outward, maybe even reaching back way behind my seat and pushing the stroke outward more than forward (pushing the paddle forward is a back stroke because it moves the canoe backwards, just to avoid confusion). On the other hand, if I'm drifting the right bank and the front end starts to get into slower water, my corrective stroke is still on the right side, since I don't want to lay the rod down to switch hands, but now it's reaching way out from the canoe as well as behind me to start the stroke, and pulling the paddle forward and toward the canoe. Heck, in a solo canoe, I often scull, and if I'm sculling holding the paddle a bit behind my body, it's slowly turning the back end of the canoe in that direction as well as moving the whole canoe sideways. Or sculling with paddle in front of my body does the opposite. Probably way more than anybody wants to read.

Haven't ever seen any paddlefish in the upper portion of the river. Decent catfishing from Steelville downstream.

Yup...I think calling them white suckers is the best we can do. They just fit that better than anything else.

My grandpa and great uncle once left on a Thursday to go fishing somewhere pretty far away for the time, back in the late 1940s. They told my granny they would be back on Sunday. Sunday came and no sign of them. She was kinda used to that, though, so she didn't think much of it. By Thursday she was beginning to get a little worried, but what was she gonna do? Finally they showed up the next Sunday. When she confronted them, Grandpa said, "Well, I didn't say WHICH Sunday, did I?"

Well, they ain't as cheap as an inner tube, but if want something that's like tube fishing only a heck of a lot better, get a Water Master one person raft. Or one of the other brands that are very similar. This is the ONLY watercraft I've ever used that makes it exceedingly easy to fly fish from the craft by yourself. It's a big, oval-shaped "tube" with a platform on the rear part of the oval hole in the middle that you sit on, so you sit a lot higher, out of the water, but with your feet dangling in the water. You use swim fins to kick yourself around and keep yourself in position to fish, hands free. You can have a stripping basket across the front that is an accessory, but I don't use it. When you come to places shallow enough to wade, you just stand up in the hole...don't have to worry about the thing drifting away because it still surrounds you. If you need to go somewhere faster and easier than what you can do kicking with the swim fins, you just raise your feet out of the water and onto a strap going across the front, and use the attached oars. The only drawback is trying to walk in shallow water with the swim fins on. And oh, yeah, it's not the best thing to use on really windy days. But other than that, it's SWEET. I use mine out in Montana on the Yellowstone River, where it's the perfect one person fishing craft, nothing else comes close. It wouldn't be quite as good on Ozark streams because there's a lot of almost dead water where you'd have to turn around and kick yourself backwards to go down the pool fishing, but I've really thought about getting one for Missouri anyway. It also fits into the bed of my pickup blown up and ready to fish, and only weighs about 38 pounds.

Mitch, those "disastrous effects" are being pushed by people with agendas inimical to conservation in general. As has been pointed out, DDT was never banned across the globe, and is still being used in many tropical countries. It was banned in the U.S. I doubt that there was a single person that died in the U.S. due to DDT being banned. And if you're talking about "disastrous effects" of decisions, there may very well have been truly disastrous effects on human life if DDT HADN'T been banned in the U.S. and curtailed across the world. What would make you think that something that had that bad of effects on highly visible wildlife wouldn't have had serious but not so immediately obvious effects all across the food chain with continued widespread use? We see a lot of serious unintended consequences just about anytime there is extensive and widespread use of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals that alter food chains and biological systems. It's always a balancing act between the good they do and the damage they do.