WestCentralFisher

The recently passed John Gierach had a quote I really liked in one of his books. I'll probably butcher it, but it's basically this: whenever you have a problem, the solution is to go fishing, and the worse the problem the longer the trip should be. Life hasn't been easy of late. In the span of less than two weeks, both of my remaining grandparents passed. In neither case was it unexpected or tragic, but it's an awful lot for a very short period of time. The chaos having just ended, I really, really needed to go fishing, and it needed to be something slightly more adventurous than the little 2 acre pond a mile down the road. Right now I'm sitting beside what you could accurately describe as one of the more "remote" lakes in the state of Missouri. Now, anyone out west would laugh at that; all I really mean is you can't drive to it, and the couple mile hike to reach it isn't particularly easy. For that reason, while I know I'm not the only one who fishes it, I've never actually seen anyone else here. Naturally, there is no way in heck I'm telling you where it is. It's really pretty, but the fishing isn't special. There are a bunch of little tiny bass-again, basically no fishing pressure-and an assortment of panfish, which admittedly do run a fair bit larger than average. Objectively, it's not worth the hike from a pure fishing perspective; I can think of no fewer than 15 better places to fish you can drive right to within 20-25 miles. But the hike in is the main point. It's also a little tricky to fish. It's very shallow along the banks, so I packed in my waders. A rare sight on stillwater in Missouri, and this lake is the only time I've used them that way east of Denver. But unless you're a really excellent fly caster, or carry a kayak in with you, there is no other way to get an olive woolly bugger to where the fish are holding in November. And it is November. It's been a warm fall, but I wouldn't describe the fish as actively feeding. More, if you put something that looks like food in front of their face, they'll probably still hold up their end of the deal. I caught two little bass and a few panfish today; every time, the fight would start off sluggish, and then heat up when they registered what was happening. A staple of warm-water fishing in chilly water. I'm taking a short break to down a couple cliff bars and drink some water. I've not yet decided if I'll keep fishing or hike on down the trail a little further and see what's there. I'm leaning towards the latter. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to catch anything more impressive than I have already, and at a certain point I wonder what point I'm trying to prove by catching a couple more 10 inch bass. And before too awful long I'll want to get out of here to beat the worst or the rain forecast for this afternoon. Nonetheless, this little lake always fulfills it's role. My legs are tired, my brain is happy, and there's just something special about catching what are probably the last few bass of the year before I transition to chasing trout pretty much exclusively for the next few months. I guess my point is, find an inconvenient, hard to get to fishing spot of you haven't. Sometimes they're exactly what you need.

On a bluff overlooking the Osage.

Quick trip on the lower Gasconade born of opportunity and really, really needing to go fishing after a very long week. Stunningly beautiful evening. Slow fishing, but some success for largemouth bumping little brown jigs along the bottom in slow pools and backwaters at creek mouths. Not a lot happening, but fish could be caught with enough persistence, basically. Fall colors were nice and the river couldn't have been any more inviting, though.

I had a fishing and hiking trip planned for Friday to Sunday in the Ozarks, but you know what they say about the best laid plans. Instead, I am attending to an ill family member. It is not a tragedy, or unexpected; she's 95 years old and is in the end stages of a long and exceedingly well-lived life. But it's still rough, and while she's asleep and there's nothing much to do, you'll excuse me if I'd rather talk about fishing. This April, I had a random day off on a Tuesday, and it occurred to me I hadn't been fishing in awhile. So I packed up what was shamefully the only fishing rod I had, bought some little rooster tail spinners, and drove down to the Niangua River. It was a lovely, very warm spring day. There were trout surfacing everywhere. I was also very rusty to the point of bordering on incompetence. I had a wonderful day. I also caught one trout in about 5 hours on a heavily stocked trout stream in perfect conditions. But it lit a fire under me. After all, fishing used to be the one thing I was really, notably good at, and sucking at it wasn't acceptable. I got a better fishing rod, then two. Filled up a respectable tackle box. I started looking at maps, finding flowing water near me that might hold fish. Some of that yielded results. Sometimes it was a bust. Usually somewhere in between. But I was relearning the whole time. This led me to about 20 different bodies of water on and at least 19 species of fish, as diverse as common carp and flathead catfish to brown trout. I've fished about 50 times in those 6 months, though many of those are no more than a short hour after work. More importantly, I found "my" places. The ones that feel like home. In the summer, it's a small river that I'm not going to name. It's not a secret, and I'd heard of it before my first trip, but it's not the sort of place anyone would call "world class". You can float a canoe on it in reasonable water conditions (and unreasonable, as I've seen very frustrated people attempting it in August drought) but it's a wading stream by and large. It's not all that clear, but it has a nice greenish tint. And it's loaded with smallmouth bass. There are days where fishing is positively easy, and days where it's finicky as hell, but it's always good enough to keep me coming back. But I've always had a serious weakness for trout, which takes us back to the Niangua River. I'd always treated the Niangua with casual disregard as a trout stream in the years where I fished more often. I knew they were in there, but to make a trip down there to catch them? Unthinkable. I had many good memories of the Niangua River from my college years, and I can firmly attest zero of them were related to trout fishing. And yet, twice in the last two weeks, I've found myself on that river. And in the fall, it's quiet, still, and the kind of place that can make you sigh deeply and say "the world is beautiful." It's also the place that I realized, that after about 6 months of fishing again regularly, I don't suck at this anymore. The same trout I so struggled with in April provided little challenge. And for the first time, I wasn't just trying not to get skunked. I was targeting big fish, and sometimes catching them. A 17" rainbow last week. A 21" brown this past Monday. Not threatening the state record, but good enough. But the biggest difference I noticed the last few outings was the lack of any desperation to catch fish. I had caught a hell of a lot fish this year. There wasn't anything left to prove, though still much to improve upon. So it's OK to slow down a little and enjoy the reflection of the fall colors in the water. I've no doubt I'll be humbled again, because fishing always does that to you. In fact, this past Monday, I learned through what was probably near-hypothermia that mid-October is definitely too late for wet wading on a trout stream. A lesson, perhaps, that I shouldn't have needed to relearn. But it was hard to feel too bad about about it.

Beautiful. In many ways, fly fishing for longears on these little Ozark creeks is Missouri's answer to fishing for brookies on headwater streams in the mountains. And they're every bit as pretty.

That's a heck of a fish. Here's a truth I've found: larger trout behave an awful lot like bass in many waters, and you can fish for them with the same techniques you use for smallmouth bass with great success. A rebel craw is probably my favorite lure for stream resident trout in Missouri, with the exception of the smallest of the wild trout creeks where it's hard to run a crankbait. I don't do anything different than when I'm smallmouth fishing, except I'm more likely to target faster water a little more. You catch fewer trout than you would on a little spinner or marabou jig or a here's ear nymph, but the ones you catch are larger by about 20-40% on average. And if you're anywhere but the very coldest, most spring-fed section of the river, you'll likely make those lost numbers up with smallmouth bass and goggle-eye. On that note, I also find that on spring-fed rivers in Missouri, the best places to catch big trout are often the marginal sections. The lower parts of the managed sections where yes, technically you can trout fish, but if you're floating you're probably switching primarily to smallmouth tackle by that point in the day. Sometimes even the mile or two below trout management areas can produce big trout semi-reliably, though at that point you are gonna need some luck or a lot of local knowledge to succeed. Trout will hide in deep holes in those sections, the exact places you target for big smallmouth. I don't think these sections actually have more big trout than the better water upstream. I think there are just fewer 12-14 inch stocked rainbows that are so eager to hit anything that you can't get past them to anything bigger, even with methods intended for bigger trout. Yesterday I caught my biggest brown of the year that way while fishing for smallmouth on the Niangua. In that case, I spotted him, and actually switched to more trout centric methods, which were not effective and drew no interest. Tied the rebel craw back on, hit like a freight train. Had a similar situation on the Current with a smaller but still real nice brown a couple weeks back.

Got out again today. Largely smallmouth fishing on this stretch, which was solid. One pretty good brown spotted and eventually caught. Fun day.

Dang! I left right after I originally posted so just seeing this now. Sorry.

Hope everyone's having a good Friday. As I write this, I'm sitting on the bench by the confluence of Bennett Spring and the Niangua River. A gentleman just caught and released a pretty good sized rainbow from either the first foot of the White Ribbon section or the last foot of Bennett Spring Branch. Been on the Niangua since early morning, and it's been one of those days that'll get me through the cold days of winter in a few months. The leaves are starting to turn, the weather is perfect, there's a little breeze, and the fish have been biting. I have fished several sections of the Niangua today already (surprisingly, not including the section immediately downstream of Bennett; I'm just here to relax and people watch now until it's time to head home shortly). The fishing was....not terribly difficult. Quite a few rainbows were caught, ranging from 8 inches up to one real good one that may have pushed 17-18 inches. Panther Martin spinners, mostly. I also found a few schools of goggle-eye which provided pretty heavy action on the ultra-light, and caught two smallmouth bass as well. I released all the trout except one that will be dinner, and that is the one I took a picture of. All of the smallmouth and goggle-eye are back in the water too, though some of the larger goggle-eye made me think on that a little. Just a glorious day to be outside in a pretty place with far fewer people for company than a couple months back.

Shockingly, I've never fished there. It is about 2.5 hours from me, a little less than Montauk. I think its just it being a bit further than I'd prefer for a day trip, and when I've considered going there for a multi day trip, I've always ended up on the Current or Eleven Point because they're familiar to me, or on the White below Bull Shoals. I need to, though. Taneycomo and NFoW are the two major trout fisheries in Missouri I still need to get to.

I live in a tiny town not particularly near the city, but I am not blessed with proximity to trout streams, unfortunately. Montauk has always been my preference when trout park fishing, but it's also 3 hours away instead of an hour. So Bennett/Niangua is really the only option for day trips for trout. It's Montauk/Current River/11 Pt when I have a couple days to camp and do it right. Bennett/the Niangua is fine from about November-April but they're a mad house in late spring through early fall to the point of being outright unpleasant.

These types of creeks go through a similar rhythm every year. In April and May, amidst high water events, you can catch some smallmouth bass, but it's tough and you have to pick your spots when the water isn't too muddy and/or high enough to be outright dangerous. Then sometime in June, the water drops, and with a few exceptions through July, the fishing is easy. It's not that you kill it every trip, but it's never particularly challenging, and occasionally you do have one of those days that in time turn into gold-plated memories. The ones where you do really get a follow nearly every cast, and where you see fit to stop counting after the first dozen or so smallmouth or caught and released. And then one day you show up in August. The water is low and clear. The fishing isn't exactly slow but it's not the same. You actually, the horror, have to try if you want to catch fish. That happened about a month ago. But I came back yesterday anyway. It was the perfect picture of a smallmouth stream in early fall. Crystal clear water, leaves dotting the surface. There was one other truck at the access, a floater who couldn't have been having an easy time with maybe 40 or 50 cubic feet per second of water flowing over the wide stream bed. Gone were the smallmouth from the quick riffles and the shallow heads of pools. But in the pools themselves, there they were. They weren't exactly actively feeding, but certainly not in the state a shade or two above suspended animation they'll be in about a month. The fishing itself was not a particularly dramatic affair. I had to work a little, but after some missed strikes, I managed to hook and land enough smallmouth bass to be thoroughly happy. None I'd call large, or even the nebulous zone I'd call "good sized " but even the 10-12 inchers fought hard in the cool water. I've no doubt I could fish the creek for several more weeks and do well enough; if I was persistent enough, I could likely fish through the warm days in winter with some degree of success. And I might do just that. But it occurred to me that this was probably the last trip where it would still feel somewhat feel like a summer creek; the last trip with shorts and without waders. It's been a fun season on this creek, and I hate to see it go, but hiking in the hills above it after I got done fishing and seeing the start of the fall colors, I was reminded other seasons have their allure as well.

Natural Tunnel at Bennett Spring State Park, and the glades in Fiery Fork Conservation Area, both taken earlier this year.

Montauk Lake and the little spring creek below it on a rainy, misty fall Saturday.