Al Agnew

Hank, I started fishing Senkos for river smallies a couple of years after they first came out, and for about two years I caught a lot of fish on them. Like Gavin, I didn't like fishing them all that much, but they were a bait that really DID work when my usual stuff wasn't working. More about that in a bit. Then, they just kinda stopped working for me. Since those first two years I fished them, I've fished them quite a bit, usually when other stuff didn't seem to be working, but sometimes when the other stuff WAS working, just for the heck of it. And I can't seem to buy a fish on them. I think we all tend to try different things when our old reliables aren't working. And, probably most of the time the new stuff won't work under those conditions, either. So a lot of anglers discard a lot of lures that other anglers just love, simply because they only tried them when NOTHING would have worked. I still carry Senkos and other stick baits. And I suspect that at some time in the future they'll again save a day for me, and become a more valued part of my tackle selection. But right now, I'm wondering why I'm still carrying them. Creek wader...you gotta BELIEVE! Or just keep using what works for YOU. That's what I do.

After spending much of June and July in Montana, I got back to home in Missouri weekend before last, anxious to do some stream smallmouth fishing. But my wife was throwing a baby shower for over 40 people this weekend and I had to get the lawn and flower beds back in shape, and I also had a couple of deadlines to meet with catalog cover art, so the fishing would have to wait. The shower went off well, and today at noon I finally finished the art for the covers. So, a wading trip to a local creek was definitely in order. The drive is about 40 minutes no matter which way you go, and there are several ways to get there, but like the guy said one time when I asked directions to some obscure place, "Ya cain't get there from here." So it was about 2:30 by the time I got to the creek, and even as I got out of the car I could hear thunder in the distance. I won't name the creek, but let me describe it for you. It was probably the first place I ever caught a smallmouth. I was probably 6 or 7 years old, and my grandpa would take me there because it was his favorite place to trap live minnows. He loved crappie fishing above all else, and kept a cement tank full of crappie minnows at all times. So we'd go to this low water bridge and he'd trap minnows while I played in the creek. One day, I saw what to me at the time was a BIG fish dart in to the box culvert under the bridge, and told grandpa. "Smallmouth," he said. "Wow," I thought. I'd heard of smallmouth. Dad used to fish for them all the time before he got interested in reservoir largemouth fishing. I said, "I'd sure like to catch that fish." Grandpa said, "Well, let me set this minner trap, and then we'll see if we can ketch him." He dug into the trunk of his car and came out with a spincast outfit. "Now go ketch a crawdad or two while I tie on this hook." I did, and he took the crayfish and hooked it in the tail. "Now, go up to the upstream end of that culvert, and let the current take that crawdad under the bridge." I did, and sure enough, I immediately felt a bite. Grandpa saw the rod tip bow, and told me to let it have a little line. I did. "Now, set the hook!" I jerked, and was fast to a smallie of 10 or 11 inches, a big fish for me at that age. So I was thinking of that when I parked at that same bridge. It was rebuilt a few years back, and the box culvert is gone, but the smallies are still there. The creek was quite low; the riffles were no more than ankle deep and just a few feet across, the pools almost still. I hadn't been to this creek since a couple summers ago, and it seemed to be flowing much less water than what I remembered or expected. But the water was clear and cool over wide gravel bottoms. I tied on a topwater lure and approached the first pool upstream. The first cast in these small pools is often magic, but this time it was the second cast, a little farther up into the pool, that produced the first fish, a 10 inch smallmouth. Next cast, an 11 incher took the topwater. Two casts later, a 14 incher. And up at the upper end (only 50 feet upstream from my first cast), I got a strike from a bigger fish that I missed, and caught a 14 inch largemouth. Next pool was even shallower, no more than two feet deep at the deepest, but it produced a beautiful 16 inch smallie and a couple smaller ones that were still over 12 inches. And so it went. The thunder got closer. The sky began to darken. The fish were everywhere they were supposed to be--indeed, just about everywhere they could POSSIBLY be. In a scant hour before the thunderstorm ran me off the creek, I caught 30 bass, including two smallies approaching 17 inches and a 16 inch largemouth. They were eating the topwater lure with wild abandon, often striking the instant it hit the water, like they could see it coming. Some of the places I caught fish were so shallow you could see the wake approaching from 10 feet away. I'd gone about 8 pools and a half mile up the creek before I decided that prudence dictated I get back to the car in a hurry. I took a shortcut on an old road bed, and the rain started just as I threw the rod into the car. I could tell the storm was going to be pretty wild, and since it took so long to build up I figured it would last a while. So I decided to start for home. There was another creek that I'd cross on the way, and I figured that if the storm was over by the time I got to it I'd fish it for a while. But it was still raining hard and lightning was still streaking the sky as I crossed the other creek, so I went on home. When you stop to think about it, it's amazing the number of little creeks like this that lace the Ozarks, many of them just as full of smallmouth as this one. This creek is not even my favorite local flow. I fish two others that routinely produce bigger fish than this one. And fortunately, although these creeks ARE fished by others, it seems that most local anglers have finally soaked up the catch and release ethos. Several of the fish I caught today had obvious hook scars. And the thing is, they simply aren't fished enough to make the bass very sophisticated. On an average summer afternoon, it isn't really a big challenge to catch these fish. The small water and limited fishing pressure make the fishing easy as long as you are stealthy--these fish don't like a lot of splashing, gravel crunching, and they don't like movement and shadows. But if they don't know you're there, they almost always seem to be active and looking for a meal. On the other hand, they simply can't take a lot more fishing pressure than they get. While I love creek fishing, I seldom fish the same stretch more than once or twice a year--I don't want to "wear 'em out". And while catching fish like this is great fun, I love the greater challenge of catching smallies in bigger, more heavily-fished streams and I love catching them from a canoe. So I spend more time on the floatable streams than on these tiny gems. But not much beats standing in a cool creek on a hot day, catching wild, stream-bred smallmouth bass on light tackle. It's the simplest form of bass fishing, just a rod and reel and a couple of favorite lures, shorts and wading shoes...just you and the creek and its denizens.

Clay, I know what you mean about sponsors and having to push their products. I realize the realities, but was just saying what I'd LIKE to see. I have run into the same thing in doing fish art. Much of my fish art is originally done for Bass Pro Shop catalog covers, and they send me the lure they want in the art. It's always a BPS brand lure, and while BPS does some pretty decent, reasonably-priced lures, it's often a lure or a color that I wouldn't personally use. It makes me uneasy enough that, if the painting ends up being in print other than the catalog, I often change the lure to something I WOULD use between the time it appears on the catalog and the time it appears in non-BPS print. (On the other hand, I wish they'd have me do some covers with BPS brand reels in them, since I'd need a reel for a model--and I really like some of the BPS reels ).

Deep is relative. You'll find plenty of bass and sunfish in water that's less than 3 feet deep as long as it has current and cover.

Hmm...I'm been giving this some thought, and really can't come up with a real good answer. It's a whole lot easier to say what I DON'T like. I don't like pushing sponsor's products incessantly. Unless you can credibly tell why that particular product will work far better than anything else, it's insulting to my intelligence. I don't like getting too specific on the waters you're fishing unless it's someplace that everybody already knows about. Fishing remote, untapped locations is good to watch once in a great while, but don't make a steady diet of it because your viewers aren't going to be doing much of that. Fishing private waters is totally useless. The Bill Dance shows where he catches the same cookie-cutter 6 pound bass from beginning to end are as boring as watching MOSS grow (and it grows slower than grass). Education is okay...but don't talk for 5 minutes about some technique WHILE HOLDING THE FISH YOU JUST CAUGHT. Put the fish back in the water, dang it! Don't be dishonest. I get really tired of watching fishing shows where they are trying to make you believe they caught all those fish in just a few hours, but the weather completely changes from one fish to the next. I guess I could come up with a few points about things I'd like to see... As difficult as it often is to get the shot, the things I love most when watching fishing shows is seeing the actual strike. The trout taking the dry fly. The strike indicator dipping. The bass engulfing the topwater lure. You can't always show the strike, especially when fishing with lures or flies on the bottom, but it sure is great when you can. Decide who you're gearing the show toward. If it's for beginners, fine. But I don't care to see a five minute segment on how to tie the improved clinch knot...I already know how. Show the entire experience. I don't mean showing you eating breakfast at the all night diner that morning (although that might be interesting at times). But show the landscape, approaching the fishing spots, setting up the boat or wading to get into position. I don't need to see you tying on the lure, but maybe selecting it and telling why. Above all, be honest. I don't mind a show with few fish caught, as long as you don't hype the few fish you catch, or else explain why you're actually pretty proud that you did as well as you did under the conditions. Make it real. And go to places the average joe can go to. Go to places I can relate to.

It's been several years since I've floated the Big Piney through the fort, but as I remember there was a lot of wade-able water within the fort, and good smallmouth fishing. The big pool that Stone Mill Spring flows into was mostly shallow water but had some good fish-holding spots, and there were a lot of riffles upstream from there that held lots of smallies around them. I'd just get on the Piney wherever you can and wade upstream and down, should find good smallmouth and goggle-eye fishing. Anywhere around deeper water would be good for channel and flathead catfish.

I'm not a fan of tandem canoes that are so short, but other than the length I like the specs...will be looking forward to the 16 footer coming out.

Yep, definitely largemouth. I have an 8 pound largemouth mounted on my wall from many years ago, which has a tooth patch on the tongue. About 15% of largemouths in MO have the tooth patch. And I suspect you weren't measuring the upper jaw correctly. You should close the fish's mouth tightly before looking at the upper jaw. On a largemouth it will be definitely behind the eye with mouth tightly closed, but if you have the mouth partially open, it will look like it only goes to about the rear of the eye. Just looking at the mouth of the fish in the picture, though, even with it wide open, you can tell it's a MUCH bigger mouth than spotted bass have. And the coloration is pure largemouth. I've got many close-up photos of both species that I've taken over the years for reference for my artwork. When I get a chance, I'll post some that show the various ways to tell spots from largemouths. I've caught so many, and studied them so closely, that I can tell them apart at a glance with 100% accuracy. In fact, I can actually tell them apart by FEEL. Put one of each side by side, blindfold me, and I'd be willing to bet that I can tell them apart by touch. Spotted bass scales have slightly rough edges, while largemouth scales are smooth-edged. When you feel them, the largemouth feel slimier, the spotted bass feel less slimy with scales more discernable.

As I understood it, Bobber, he was floating from Tyler Bend to Gilbert. Should be a simple shuttle, just one guy needed to drive them and the canoes to Tyler Bend, and then he drives back to Gilbert. Now if they were wanting somebody to come pick up their vehicle after they put in at Tyler Bend and drive it to Gilbert, yep, that means two people are necessary. But if that was the case then it was a bit of a goofy way to do the shuttle. If I'm right and it only took the one driver, then that was WAY excessive compared to other streams. I've hired a lot of shuttles over the years. Cheapest ones for the distance traveled I've ever done were for the float from Buffalo Point to White River, either Buffalo City or Norfork. That's a one way shuttle of over 50 miles, and they have to use two people and their own vehicle to drive your vehicle to the take-out. The first time I ever did the Bufalo, many years ago, one of the Dillards, who was running a little motel at the time, did it for $15! And he thought he might be overcharging me. So I used Dillard's Canoe Rental every time afterwards, and although the price rose over the years, I think the most I ever paid was $70. I've also had some cheap shuttles on the Jacks Fork and Current. One of the canoe rental guys at Alley Spring did several shuttles for me from Buck Hollow to Alley very reasonably...I don't remember the exact price, but it wasn't all that much. And all I've ever had to do was call him ahead of time to tell him I was coming and when I would be putting in at Buck Hollow, he would tell me how much it cost, and to just put in whenever, hide a set of keys on the car, and leave the money in the car, and he'd come and get it and drive it to his place whenever he got the time. Of course, I've used some guys to shuttle so many times that we're now pretty good friends, and they usually give me a break on the shuttle. I've traded some of them a homemade fishing lure for the shuttle. BUT...I think the whole key to getting good shuttle service cheap is to go during the week. Weekends, nearly all canoe liveries are BUSY, and not only unwilling but sometimes unable to do a customized shuttle. You either go with all their rentals at their times, or you don't go. But during the week many of them aren't busy at all, and quite willing to accommodate you. I've also had some expensive shuttles. Anybody who shuttles on the upper Current in the trout sections tends to be pretty expensive. The canoe rentals at Ross Bridge on the Big Piney are pretty high. For a simple shuttle where they are going with you in your car to the put-in and then driving it back to the take-out, seems to me that they should charge a minimum of $20 for their time spent. I'd say they should base it by the time it takes, and charge about $15-20 for each half hour they spend on the shuttle. More complicated shuttles should cost more. The problem I've run into a few times recently is that insurance companies are starting to tell the canoe livery owners not to drive other people's vehicles, which means that you have to load your canoe and stuff on their vehicle, and if you're floating from their place downstream, they have to come and pick you up at a specified time. Canoe livery people HATE doing that if it's somebody they don't know, because they don't know whether the people can stay on a schedule and get to the take-out on time. I know that I'm always seeing canoe rental guys sitting at take-outs waiting on drunken idiots to get there. If you have a good experience with a shuttle provider, treasure them. A good shuttle guy who will put you in early or come and get you at dark or put you in way upstream from his normal float IS a real treasure!

One way that most people don't think about that produces on heavily pressured lakes is to fish them just like any texas-rigged plastic worm. Sliding slip sinker, EWG worm hook texas-rigged. They are much more of a do-nothing lure than the average plastic worm with curly tail or other stuff that provides its own movement. but they have a fatter, healthier profile than a finesse worm. The fish in 15-30 feet of water haven't seen them much.

The plastic that Coleman canoes are made from is notorious for being almost impossible to repair. Nothing sticks to it well. It doesn't weld well. Other (more expensive) canoe plastics are MUCH easier to repair. If you find something that really works, there are a lot of Coleman owners who'd probably love to hear about it.

Just got back from Montana, and the snow melt there lasted longer than usual. The Yellowstone didn't get even marginally fishable until about three weeks ago, and the Snake River was still high and muddy less than three weeks ago. But by now about everything is fishable, although still a little higher than normal. Colorado drives me nuts. Their stupid stream access laws really limit the amount of water the visiting angler can fish, compared to Montana. There are many beautiful stretches of rivers like the Frying Pan that are totally private. The public stretches mostly get pounded to death, like the South Platte. There are little fished public waters in Colorado, like the mountain creeks in Rocky Mountain National Park, but you really have to work to get to them.

If you're planning on camping at one spot and fishing during the days, public camping is limited on Crooked Creek and Kings River. Lots of it on the Jacks Fork, Current, and Eleven Point. You could camp at Two Rivers on the Current and have your choice of the Current or Jacks Fork to fish. There is good smallie fishing to be found on all the streams you mentioned.

Most crowded section will probably be the one above Ross Bridge. Least crowded might be the Slabtown stretch. All three are good fishing. I think the stretch above Ross is the most scenic.

To each his own, but just one note. The Osprey is a short, wide tandem canoe. The Ultimate 12 is a dedicated solo craft. Comparing one to the other is comparing apples to oranges. Most people who dismiss canoes have only spent a lot (or a little) time in tandem canoes. The difference between paddling ANY canoe that is designed to be a tandem, and one that is designed to be paddled solo, is considerable. Try paddling a Pack, or a Wenonah Vagabond, or a Mohawk Solo 13 or Solo 14. You will be surprised at how easy it is to make it move the way you want it to. I think that the biggest reason that canoes are not often used for fishing along the Gulf Coast is the wind factor. Canoes ARE much more affected by wind, which is seldom a real problem on Ozark streams but often is on bigger bodies of water. When I tout the advantages of solo canoe, I'm talking about stream fishing, not fishing big lakes, really big rivers, whitewater streams, or the ocean. Loading and unloading is not the only factor in considering the weight of your craft. I often fish places where access is difficult--long, steep carries to the water, through brush or down rip rap beneath bridges. The difference between carrying 40 pounds of river craft and 70 pounds or more is considerable. And I also often float marginal streams where I have to do some portaging around log jams, or over concrete slab bridges, and again the weight is important. Oops...that was more than one note!

Depends upon your camping gear, I guess. I've used my Vagabond for three day trips, carrying a good sized tent, tarp for ground cover, two sleeping pads, a sleeping bag, clothing, and all my food in a big cooler. I did not carry a lot of cooking gear, which would be the only other thing you might have to carry--for summer trips I'd rather fish early and late than spend time cooking food, so I take stuff I can eat cold.

Nope, I don't think color matters at all. If the boat is close enough for the fish to see it, they won't care what color it is. Heck, the bass pros catch lots of fish out of all colors of metal flake boats. Some people advocate getting a red one so that if you're on a body of water with lots of motorboats the boat drivers can see you better. Every canoe I've ever owned was either green or cream-colored.

IF you're only going to be using it without a motor, no registration needed...UNLESS you decide to take it to a state where registration IS required. I registered one of my canoes because I thought I'd be going up to float the Mississippi and St. Croix in Minnesota fairly regularly, and Minnesota requires registration. You can usually get a temporary registration for an out-of-state craft from the state you're going to visit--I think it cost $10 back when I was checking it out for Minnesota--but if you had a permanent registration from your home state you were good to go anytime.

I have a William Joseph shoulder bag that I got reasonable from Sierra Trading Post (retail on William Joseph stuff is higher than a cat's back). I wanted a shoulder bag that I could have ride high on my shoulder when I have to wade deep, but that I could rotate to my chest to get into. The William Joseph does look a bit like a man purse, but it holds a LOT of stuff. The thing is huge. It isn't quite perfect, but pretty good. I tried it for flyfishing, but didn't like it for that because it doesn't have but one big compartment with a single divider, and with all the little items you have to carry flyfishing, like fly floatant and split shot and tippet spools and strike indicators, the stuff the little pockets on fly vests are made for, it was like digging into a toy chest to find what you needed. But it works really well for wade-fishing for smallies, since I carry a couple of Plano boxes full of stuff, and a bottle of water, and that's about it. Before that, I always used fanny packs that I slung over my shoulder instead of around my waist. A big fanny pack might still be the ticket, worn that way.

Gavin, I know what you mean about clear water being tough for the flyfisherman because you really do have to make long casts. Another problem is that, often in very clear water, you absolutely don't want to give the fish any kind of good look at it. The fly rod lends itself to slow, deliberate presentations, but just about all the big fish I've caught in clear water came on lures fished very fast--either buzzbaits, my spinnerbait fished so fast it bulges the surface, or fast, splashy topwater lures. I think a big streamer or marabou muddler fished with long strips and kept just under the surface would work well if you get the right combination of strip and rod lift...and be able to do it on a long cast. The Sneaky Pete should work with that technique as well, but you have to be able to move it steadily but slightly erratically for 3 feet or more at a time. I'm picturing the way I fish the spinnerbait--long cast, not too close to the cover where you think the fish is but a good five feet past it, start the retrieve the instant the lure hits the water, and burn it pretty fast until it gets about even with the cover, then while still reeling fast, give the rod tip a hard twitch. This break in the steady movement of the lure often triggers the fish. But if you stop it or slow it, rejection. Also, the way I fish walk the dog topwaters and Pop-R types, steady hard twitches at a cadence of about two twitches per second, so that it's constantly moving and also being pretty splashy, the splashes obscuring the lure body to the fish's sight to some extent. If you can adapt those presentations to fly rod stuff, I think it would work...BUT, the other thing is that I'd think the size of your fly rod "lures" has to be similar to my baitcasting stuff to really interest big fish. I've tied up a bunch of big, bulky streamers, some with chamois strips in the shape of a curly tail, that I've been intending to give a real good try with the fly rod. But casting those things any distance is going to be problematical even with an 8 weight, the way I cast. Chris, I used to do a lot of night fishing, and caught a lot of big fish that way. For whatever reason I haven't done it much in the last few years. My experience with it was that you needed pretty clear water for optimum results, at least 4 or 5 feet of visibility. But it's a great way to fool big fish. My three most productive lures were always the old Jitterbug, and the equally old Heddon Meadow Mouse. Later, I started using my homemade crankbait reeled just fast enough to make it wobble. At that speed it was more of a wake bait, like the Meadow Mouse. On bright moonlight nights in clear water, I wanted something that waked the surface without making much noise, and on darker nights or water a bit murkier, I wanted the noise of the Jitterbug. I tried buzzbaits quite often, and caught a lot of fish with them just as it approached full darkness, but caught a lot fewer fish once it got fully dark.

Griz, you have a couple of choices for padding on the molded plastic seat, and I've used both separately and together. Option number one is a Thermorest type self-inflating foam pad, one inch thick. They make them of the right size to be a seat pad. Two is a shaped gel-filled pad that is made specifically for either tractor style canoe seats or kayak seats...you'd have to look at the shape of your seat and a picture of the pad to see which one would work the best. You can get them from Piragis Northwoods among other places. Like I said, I've used both together for lots of padding, but either one separately will give you enough. Don't know how easy it would be to move the seat forward with the Angler package, but it really will make a big difference if you can do it easily enough. Sounds like you're quickly finding out that a marketer's idea of what an angler wants isn't necessarily what YOU want, which is why I advocate getting a regular canoe hull and customizing it yourself.

I agree, Hank. There are nuances to lure selection in that one lure might do something you want it to do just a little better than another lure in the same class--maybe one deep-diving crankbait runs a little deeper or has a bit wider wobble than another, for example. But both, presented well, will probably catch the same fish. And if you start worrying about whether the fish are more likely to hit one lure one day and a similar but not quite the same lure the next day, you'll end up carrying a whole lot of lures and spending your days frantically trying them all and trying to figure out which exact one the fish wants the most that day. Same thing with lure color. I have starting points for choosing one color over another, which may be valid or not, but once I choose a color for the day I usually stick to it, and it seems to work well enough for me. It may look like I carry a lot of lures, but really it's a lot of examples of relatively few lures, because I do choose different colors and sometimes different sizes of the same lure based upon water and weather conditions. For me, that's a confidence factor. And even my colors mainly boil down to dark vs. light. White, pearl, and chartreuse for light colors, brown, green, and black for dark colors. Or if you want to put them on a continuum, from the lightest and brightest to the darkest and dullest, it goes chartreuse--pearl--white--green--brown--black. Based upon what the water and weather are like and whether it's a lure the fish will be looking up at or down at, I pick a color somewhere in that continuum.

The Native IS definitely a hybrid canoe/kayak. I'd rate it better than a kayak for fishing Ozark streams, but not as good as a good solo canoe. Its only real advantage over a solo canoe is that you CAN actually stand up in it to fish. If that's important to you (and for the average flyfisherman it probably is) that one advantage might just outweigh all the disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage is, as Glory said, weight. All the molded-in stuff brings up the weight--unnecessarily in my opinion. My thoughts on molded-in and permanently attached gimmicks such as you find on "angler versions" and Natives is that what works for one person while fishing doesn't necessarily work for another, and I'd rather get a bare bones hull and customize it to MY specifications, instead of depending upon some marketer's idea of a fishing craft. Glory's other con, the sluggishness of paddling the Native, means a bit more than just being slow. As an angler, I want to maximize my fishing, not my paddling. You will inevitably come to unproductive water, especially long, dead pools, when floating Ozark streams, and I want to get through such water as quickly as possible without working real hard at it. And, the same characteristics that make a boat harder to move through the water (slower) also make the current push it more when you want to stop or slow it. I owned an Old Town Pack for many years, and never found it to be very tippy. However, I did move the seat forward as soon as I paddled it the first time. I don't know why, but Old Town has always mounted the seat too far back in the Pack. It should be placed so that the front edge of the seat is just about in the center of the canoe. Where it is when it comes from the factory contributes to the tippiness, especially if it's loaded fairly lightly, because it's placed far enough back to be where the hull is a little narrower. Move it forward to the widest, flattest part of the bottom, and you eliminate some of the instability, as well as making it track better. The Pack will never be a good tracking canoe, because it's too short and wide, but when you're sitting in the middle of it at least each straight paddle stroke makes it turn somewhat less, and a J stroke will actually work to keep it straight instead of making it zig on the front part of the stroke and zag on the ending J. By the way, Esox, you can easily add sponsons or outriggers to a solo canoe, and then you can stand in it even easier than you can in a kayak, because you have more foot room and a flatter bottom to stand on. And any good Royalex solo canoe will weigh considerably LESS than a kayak of similar length. Of course, you do pay for the light weight, since Royalex is a more expensive material than any of the kayak plastics. Ham will tell you the biggest advantage to kayaks, and that is that they are less affected by wind than canoes. For lake paddling and fishing, that just might be a very important advantage. Couple it with the usually cheaper price, and it just might outweigh the definite advantages to canoes for your purposes.

Good replies... A bit more on wading in gravel. I'm NOT saying you can't catch fish, including big fish, wading. All I'm saying is that I KNOW that the fish a cast length away can hear you when you're wading. I know because when I've been snorkeling on Ozark streams, I can hear somebody crunching gravel both in the water and on the gravel bar next to the water from that distance, and fish are better attuned to their environment than I am. Most big fish in Ozark streams have probably been hooked at least a few times in their life, and maybe they can learn to associate the crunch of gravel with a bad experience. If you're floating rather than wading, that's one less negative cue for the big fish (as long as you're floating silently and not dragging the boat over the gravel or splashing your paddle or dropping your beer can in the bottom of the boat). Hank really summed up my efficiency point. When floating, as he said, you often get only one good shot at each spot, and to catch the big fish that's there you have to make the cast AND the retrieve count. The more trouble-free you are with your tackle, the better you can cast, the more care you put in setting up to make the cast AND make an effective retrieve, the more likely you are to get the fish to hit. And the more efficient you are at all this, the more quality casts you make and the fewer good spots you miss or mess up. If there is any one thing that separates the casual angler who might still be looking for his first 18 inch smallie and the guy who catches them regularly, it's this. When I float with one of those "casual anglers", it drives me nuts because they miss so many good spots. It starts with tackle in good condition, and from there it's probably simple practice and experience in handling your boat, reading the water, and handling your tackle. I don't think there are many short-cuts. But a lot of anglers NEVER get much better. Practicing doing the wrong thing only reinforces doing it wrong. TrophyFishR, the jig and twin tail trailer is an excellent suggestion. A friend of mine used to catch a LOT of fish on a jig with one of those original plastic twin curly tail frogs on it by swimming it FAST and keeping it close to the surface, with the little white curly tail legs waving madly. et84, your matching the crawdad color suggestion is also excellent. It goes along with my matching the bottom color suggestion, because the crawdads and other bottom organisms that smallies feed upon will usually match the color of the bottom closely. You match the craws, I match the bottom. One thing...not all crayfish are equal as smallie food. The most common crayfish in most Ozark streams is the golden crayfish. It's colored a yellowish olive with very dark brown bands across its body and bright red highlights on its claws and body segments. It also happens to have some of the biggest pinchers for its size of any crayfish, and also has a very hard, thick shell. If there are any other crayfish in the stream that are available to smallies, they often prefer them to the golden. In my home river, there is an olive colored, small pinchered, thin-shelled crayfish that I've never been able to identify to my satisfaction, that lives more in clay banks and underneath woody debri on the bottom in shallow water. When I was a kid and fished with live crawdads all the time, I found that the smallies MUCH preferred this one to the golden crayfish.

A recent post asking for lures to catch the bigger smallmouth in Ozark streams got me thinking a bit. As I said in the other thread, there is a lot more to catching really nice smallmouth, which I consider those over 17 inches, from Ozark streams that just the lures you use. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject...I hope others might have things to add. Streams--if everything else was equal, the bigger the stream is (as long as it's still decent smallmouth habitat), the more likely it is to grow lots of big fish. However, all other things AREN'T equal. The bigger streams, those big enough for rampant jetboat use including tournaments are so heavily pressured these days that I believe the population of fish over 17 inches is depressed in them in relation to their potential, and the fish that are left are sophisticated enough that catching them is far from easy. 30 years ago, it was a rare day when I DIDN'T catch at least one fish over 18 inches every time I floated the middle and lower Meramec. Now, there are still big fish to be found, but they come much less frequently. Smaller streams that are still big enough for canoe floating seem to be a bit better bet these days. Of course, the canoe hatch on the popular rivers will make fishing tougher, even though most canoe floaters don't fish. Just the commotion tends to put the fish down. However, there are good numbers of big fish in many of the popular canoeing streams; you just have to fish them when the hordes aren't on them. The less popular streams tend to be a little better yet, especially once you get a mile or so away from the accesses. The smaller creeks, those that are marginally floatable at best and more likely wading streams, are hit and miss. Some are excellent. Some have otter problems. Some have greedy meat angler problems. Some have habitat problems. You won't really know until you try them. Times: Weekdays are simply going to be better than weekends on most streams. If you have to fish from Friday through Sunday, try to do it early and late. But time of day during the week has much less significance. Don't hesitate to fish hard during the middle of the day on lightly pressured rivers. Time of year makes a difference. If you really know what you're doing, you'll catch the highest percentage of big fish as part of your total catch from November through March--I'm assuming here that you know the season is closed in Missouri in March, April, and May, so any fish you catch then MUST be released immediately. Spring can be hit or miss, depending on water levels and the degree of spawning activity the fish are in. Summer, from about mid-June to mid-September, is the second best time to catch big ones because the water is usually low and stable and the fish are more predictable. Fall, from mid-September to late October, can be very tough, due to exceptionally clear water, lots of floating leaves, and lots of bright sunny days. But bright sun isn't necessarily a bad thing when the water is warm or cold, it only seems to affect the fish a lot in the transition period of fall. Tackle: To catch big smallies consistently, you have to be able to reach them. The floating or boating angler has some advantage over the wader in that they can reach ALL the good water on a stretch of stream, and cover more water in a day. But if it's a stream that is easily wade-able, the wader has some advantage in that it's easier to cover the water you CAN reach thoroughly and carefully if you're wading. However, I believe that wading the gravel-bottomed streams of the Ozarks is noisy, and the crunching of gravel may alert big fish to your presence, so I like to use a canoe even on streams that are only marginally floatable, and get out of the canoe only when absolutely necessary. I won't go into which watercraft is best here. All I will say is that, whichever watercraft you use, one of the most important factors in catching big smallies is handling and positioning that craft to fish each spot most effectively. Here is one place where there is a huge difference between the consistently successful angler and the guy who can't figure out why he can't catch anything over 13 inches. You have to really pay attention to how you handle your watercraft, know how to slow and stop it in strong current, know how to approach good spots, and be meticulous in your boat control. Most floating anglers never fish some of the best water because they are too busy negotiating it in their watercraft. So whichever craft you prefer, learn to use it efficiently. As far as rods and reels, the most important thing here, like that of handling your craft, is being able to use them efficiently. You can get by with relatively inexpensive rods and reels as long as the reel works smoothly and the set-up is the right action and power to handle your chosen lures well. But there are some definite choices you should avoid... NO ULTRALIGHT! Three reasons. One, ultralight spinning tackle will not handle the size of lures you should be using efficiently. If you want to catch lots and lots of sunfish and goggle-eye and 10 inch smallies and maybe once in a great while a good fish, you should be using the lures that ultralight is designed to cast. But if you want to catch bigger fish consistently, and spend a lot less time unhooking dinky sunfish (time that is better spent making another cast for a big one), then use tackle that will handle lures big enough to interest bigger fish, and be able to set the hooks in the tough mouth of a big smallie. Two, your margin for error with ultralight is a lot thinner. Big fish often live in nasty places, and they know how to use rocks and logs and water willow to escape a hook. Yes, you can land the biggest smallie swimming in the Ozarks on 4 pound test line...IF you know what you're doing, everything goes right, and the fish can't reach anything to wrap your line around and snap you off. But I'd rather be able to pull that fish away from the logjam if necessary, and I don't want to take the chance of breaking it off and leaving a faceful of hooks in it. Three, I believe that the necessity of playing a big fish for a long time on very light tackle may make its survival after release less likely. The flyfisherman CAN catch big fish. But using a fly rod from a canoe or kayak isn't easy. If you're a very experienced flyfisherman, fine. If you're still learning, use it wading but don't expect to use it well from a canoe or kayak. If you are still using spincast tackle, consider switching to spinning and baitcasting. I don't know of any spincast reel that retrieves line fast enough to be really efficient at the kind of fishing you need to do to catch big fish consistently. More about that later. So, use spinning rods that are no lighter than medium light power. Medium is usually better. If you are practiced at using baitcasting, it is more efficient than spinning for some of the lures and techniques you need to use. Medium light and medium power rods will be about as heavy as you need to go with the baitcasting. 8 pound test mono, or braided lines up to 20 pound test, are enough power for your line. Lures: To me, there are two main classes of lures, those you fish fast and those you fish slow. Topwater lures, crankbaits, spinnerbaits, jerkbaits (including soft jerkbaits like Superflukes) are fast lures...you fish them either high in the water column or crank them in pretty fast. Jigs, tubes, and other soft plastics usually fished on or near the bottom are slow lures. With fast lures, the premium is on making lots of QUALITY casts to all conceivable spots that might hold a big fish. I find that baitcasting is the most efficient tackle for fishing fast lures...it's easier to make accurate casts and it's ergonomically better in that you have fewer movements to make the cast. If you use spinning tackle, however, you can get good enough to be plenty efficient with it. But I've never yet fished with anyone who used spinning tackle that could match me in the number of accurate casts I make in a day's fishing. With slow lures, the premium is on being able to hold your watercraft in position to fish a good spot thoroughly, and in KNOWING what your lure is doing as you move it (or don't move it), reading the currents that move it, and detecting soft bites. For this, I find spinning tackle to work better, especially with braided line. Others may not. Many river smallmouth anglers tend to focus on one or two lures. I don't know how many guys I've heard and seen say that "I don't use anything but (fill in the blank--usually some soft plastic)". If you do so, you'll have good days, the occasional great day, and days when you don't do well at all. To take advantage of whatever conditions you encounter, you need to be proficient with several CLASSES of lures. You don't need a whole lot of baits, but you need baits that cover the entire water column, fast and slow. Basically, I use three types of topwater lures. The buzzbait covers a lot of water easily and fast. The walk-the-dog topwater is totally different and can be worked fast or fairly slow. The Pop-R type topwater is usually fished medium to slow. I use two types of spinnerbaits. My homemade twin-spin is usually fished fast. A regular safety pin type spinnerbait, either single or tandem blade, I usually fish a lot slower. I two types of crankbaits. My homemade shallow runner is usually fished fast, and stays near the surface. I fish it in heavy cover. A deep runner that will go 7 or more feet deep can be fished fast or slow. I use jerkbaits like the Lucky Craft Pointer mostly during the transition periods in spring and fall, but it can be fished medium to slow. I use Superflukes in warmer water, usually fish them fast and shallow. There are a plethora of soft plastics and bottom bumping lures on the market. I've tried most of them at one time or another, and have never found one type to be much better than any other, so I decided to keep it simple. For fishing slow and on the bottom, I use the jig and plastic chunk, tubes, and finesse worms. That's all. I simply vary the size depending upon water conditions. Lure colors? Here are some simple rules of thumb. Rough imitations of what the smallies feed upon usually work, which means colors that look like minnows and colors that look like crawdads or other bottom organisms. If I'm fishing something like tubes on the bottom in clear water, my first color choice is to pick a color that most closely matches the bottom of the stream. Some streams have bright, clean gravel so a brown to almost orange color will match the bottom. Other streams have more algae-covered bottoms, and a more olive color is better. If it's murky, black is always good. But on lures that run higher in the water, I want colors that blend with the water surface in clear water, which means white, silver, and especially chartreuse. If there are two colors that are as close to universal magic on Ozark streams, they are brown and chartreuse. So if you look at my lure selection, you'll see a lot of pearl, silver, white, black, chartreuse, brown, and olive. Personally, I don't like orange bellies on crankbaits, I don't think fire-tiger is necessary, I don't like bright green, blue and purple aren't necessary either. Again, other people might have different experiences. Finally, big smallmouth spots and how to fish them... Big smallmouths like current, except in the winter. Those big, dead pools you find in most Ozark streams are pretty much a waste of time to fish. I often paddle through them in the summer. And big smallmouths like cover. They especially like cover that they can get UNDER. Big slick logs in moving water are great. Undercut rocks are excellent. The water doesn't have to be deep as long as the fish have someplace they can hide. They won't always BE hiding. In fact, you're most likely to catch the big ones when they are active, and when they're active they will be where their food is. There simply isn't a lot of smallmouth food in deep water. I'd guess that nearly every big smallie I've ever caught in warm weather came from water that was 6 feet deep or less. It might have been CLOSE to deeper water, maybe right on the edge of deeper water. But those deep, green pools that just seem to shout "huge fish here" seldom actually produce big fish. If the fish is there, it probably isn't feeding. So, some places are "optimum". Smooth strong current 3-6 feet deep with logs, rocks, even chunks of clay that have collapsed off cut-banks, is optimum. If the spot has more than one kind of cover it's even better. If it has water willow weeds along the edge that's a plus. If it's a rocky bank, bigger rocks along it, rocky points, drop-offs with current sweeping across them, are "spots on the spot" that are most likely to hold the fish. If it's a bank with logs, if it's a big slick log that's been in the water a long time, it's good. If it's a log the fish can easily get under, with current sweeping along it, it's better. If it's a big log that's perpendicular to the current or at least lying at an angle to the current, with current sweeping under it, it might be the best of all. On heavily pressured streams, some of the best spots are not obvious. Anglers fish all the obvious spots. A small pocket of deeper, slower water along the margin of a fast riffle. An opening in back of a log jam. An eddy on what looks like the shallow side at the bottom of a riffle. A sunken log lying right where your canoe has to go when you get to the bottom of the riffle, hard to see because of choppy water. A pool with moving water and rocks along one side, but at some point the current swings to the other side where there is a log or two...the "off-bank" that nobody bothers to go over and fish. The log on the "off-side" at the bottom of a pool where the current starts to pick up. An abrupt rise right at the top of a riffle. Even a seemingly featureless run of medium depth water with no cover that doesn't look like there's anything to attract fish, but happens to have one spot where there is a pocket of water a foot or so deeper. Thing is, you can cherry pick the obviously great spots, and spend all your time pounding them unmercifully with the bottom bumpers, and catch some big fish. Or you can fish fast, and make at least one good cast to EVERY POSSIBLE spot that could conceivably hold a big one. Both approaches work. But if you fish from a canoe or kayak, the second one is a little easier to do. I tend to fish fast in warm weather, with occasional stops in exceptional spots to fish them slowly and thoroughly. If that works, then I do more of it. If it doesn't...if it's one of those days when nothing seems to be working, I tend to keep fishing fast with lures I have complete confidence in, seeking the one active fish or waiting for the fish to turn on, rather than trying to force-feed the inactive fish. Whew! I'm tired of typing. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the "secrets" of catching big Ozark river smallmouth.