WestCentralFisher

The primary purpose of this week's trip was to fish the trout factory that is the upper Current River. And we did, to great effect. My dad's leg is mending from an ever-lengthening string of surgeries, so we sat at the social hole in Montauk and caught what he'd so poetically call snot rockets on Powerbait. He's a fly fisherman, and an excellent one, so this was a ding to his pride, but it beats the hell out of not fishing. We then went down to the "real river" as he calls it at Baptist Camp, and we did get to catch fish on a fly rod, albeit from lawn chairs. The pool right at the access usually looks good but comes up blank, but in high and dark green water it gave up its secrets more readily. I would like to say the river saw our situation and threw us a bone, but rivers in my experience tend to be pretty apathetic to our day to day concerns. He's a tough guy and he'll surely bounce back, but it's tough to see him like that. So when we parted ways, I needed a little more time before returning home and checking emails and doing the dishes. So I stopped by my favorite little wild trout creek. Well, it's usually little. At twice its normal flow, it was running dark green in the riffles and tan in the deep holes, and you'd stand a fair chance at getting a jon-boat down it without incident. I immediately knew the fishing would be good. These are the conditions you always hope for, but dare not expect. The first fish was the regulation 6 incher at the head of the first good pool I came to, a beautiful, obnoxiously colorful fish that lept twice but was ultimately limited in the fight it could put up even against ultralight tackle. A few casts later and in the deepest part of the pool, the line stopped. It was a feeling that is so similar to snagging the bottom that it almost feels the same, but is just noticeably more alive. Soon, a fat 16 or 17 inch rainbow was leaping in the air, before submarining back down and doing its best impression of a smallmouth bass, trying to wrap me around a log. This was a borderline trophy on this creek, and things were quickly getting hectic. Naturally, I noticed that the one other guy within a half mile was up on the far bank, watching the whole thing. But somehow, I didn't bugger it up. There was drama at the net, with a flubbed attempt that will so often knock the hook out, but this time didn't. After I finally netted him, the little barbless single hook I'd put on my Panther Martin fell out. I admired him for a brief, happy moment, then flipped the net over and let him swim away. It was the largest fish I've ever caught on this little creek, and a memory that won't fade for a good while. I was just feeling like everything was going to be alright when the guy on the far bank, seeing the fish swim out of the net yelled out "oh no, you lost him before you could get him on the stringer!" I don't know if he was serious or poking fun, but either way it snapped me back to reality, and I took it as a sign that the trip was at its natural conclusion.

Sometimes pictures are better than words. Love this river.

A rather forbidding looking Mark Twain Lake, the morning after a storm. Met my brother for an attempt at his maiden voyage on the used Boston Whaler he recently purchased. The motor never quite got around to turning over, but I got to see a new place and spend a day outside, which is always worth doing

I have never officially participated in the slam, but I think I am just missing the North Fork of the White, which I have somehow still not fished. My advice for the smaller creeks is timing is everything. Go when the water is up but not blown out. The places you will have sworn are empty in dead low water suddenly tend to come alive. Not as important for the larger creeks and rivers. And just float the Eleven Point. It's possible to catch them wading, but that river can only be experienced really in some form of a boat. I see so many people complaining that they couldn't catch any under the 19 Bridge and therefore don't see the appeal of the river. I'm a bank and wade fisherman at heart, but that's just not the right way to fish that one.

Beautiful evening on the lower Osage. The objective was crappie and white bass, which were around, if in smaller numbers than I hoped. But this bass was the most fun fish of the day, and after a winter and early spring almost exclusively catching trout, it reminded me how hard river bass can fight and how I need to get back in the swing of targeting them. It's about that time. Jigging along the bottom with with 2-3 inch shad imitating jigs worked the best.

Yeah, it looks like it's 2 fish under 14 inches outside the special reg zone. It looked like most people I saw did not have stringers with them and I saw a lot of what appeared to be legal sized fish get released even by people tossing bait, which was encouraging. Although I suppose it's possible they were just waiting for their two 13 and 3/4" fish

Final analysis: Many rainbows caught. I don't know the exact number, but it's fair to say I could have probably caught just about as many of them as I wanted. Every fish caught was a rainbow ranging from 10-15 inches. There was one little guy that as unlikely as it seemed looked for all the world like a brookie in the water and got me excited, but no. Just a very oddly colored rainbow! No complaints, though. I never even felt like I had to wade, and at no point did I feel like I was doing a whole lot of problem solving. No water got ran while I was there, and the mighty White River had about about the same flow as the Current at Baptist Camp, maybe smaller if anything. Marabou jigs and egg patterns did the trick. Indicators were ok when it was windy and the surface was rippled, with sun and no wind they were unnecessary and unhelpful. I couldn't always see the take, but I could see when my jig/glo bug wasn't there anymore. I pinched my barbs because I thought I was in the catch and release water....turns out I read the map wrong and was in the "everything goes" stretch, but that's ok. It cost me a few fish here and there, but who cares? Whatever I used, I'd either get a take on the first drop, or strip it in a foot or so and the strike would come immediately after that, or not at all. There was almost no current so fish were just cruising like they were in a mountain lake more than a river and not even consistently facing upstream. There were plenty of other people fishing, but most everyone was catching fish and having fun, and therefore friendly. I got a kick out of what appeared to be a frat weekend outing. They were fishing on the wrong bank of the river, so one of them was trying to help their buddy by grabbing the end of his line and paddling his bait for him in a kayak out to the middle of the river. Only the guy on the bank forgot to open his bail, so the line just broke nearly immediately. Unclear why he didn't just lend his bro the kayak to fish with, but there was an attempt made, and the whole hooting and hollering panicked exchange between them kinda made my day 🤣

Got out a little more today. Maybe a tiny bit slower in bright sun with no wind to obscure the water, but still a real good day.

I know familiarity with a water leads to seeing and understanding problems a visitor like me wouldn't even notice. But on the surface level, it's a really impressive place. I have already started sketching out a plan for a trip back, which would involve camping and canoe rentals. Hopefully May or early June....this is more of a couple getaway with some fishing mixed in, but this place commands much more attention than I can give it this weekend. I had been very discouraged by absolutely banging my head against the wall to zero avail at Taneycomo on Thursday. Now, there is a body of water that seems to dislike me. I know it's an excellent fishery, but I am at odds with it. Whenever I go, it's always me and the other poor soul at the public access getting blanked or maybe catching one and then the tricked out guide boat coming in saying they caught 152 fish all over 28 inches. And you want to think they're lying, but the limits of fish they're throwing in the cooler strongly indicate at least an element of truth. I might be exaggerating a little, but you get the idea, and it's enough to drive a fellow crazy. It's just not a place real suited for a blue collar bank fisherman, I am starting to figure. So when I started down here yesterday, I was resigned to a trip to a pretty place with few if any fish caught, and then I immediately started hauling them in. Well, I was hooking them like crazy. More than the normal share got off, but even then it was what I would have to call a banner morning of trout fishing.

Everyone else on the river seemed to be wondering where the walleye and/or big browns were, while I was actively having to restrain myself from saying "HOLY CRAP THERE ARE SO MANY RAINBOWS HERE" the whole time. For someone that doesn't get to fish water like this too often, the scale of the fishing down on these tailwaters is just on a different level.

Fished the tailwater this morning, and....holy crap. This place is awesome! Nothing particularly large but it's so beautiful here and the fishing is pretty easy. I am thoroughly impressed.

The White River below the cabin we're staying in, right as it begins to transform into Table Rock Lake. Somehow, this photo still does not do justice to the majesty of this view. Heaven on earth.

The past couple weeks fishing for me has see-sawed from amazing to terrible. On Saturday, I fished a really good little smallmouth stream in very warm weather, saw lots of fish immediately, and figured I was in business. Not so much! Most were steadfastly ignoring everything. I went through my tackle box twice over and never figured it out. I did catch 5 or 6 <12 inch smallies out of sheer grit but I never figured out anything remotely resembling a pattern. I just found the few fish that would bite on anything. Then yesterday, on a lightning quick after work outing in cooler weather and seemingly worse conditions on a way less productive (usually) creek it was easy fishing. I stopped after catching a half dozen in perhaps 15 minutes. This is my personal limit I've set for catch and release on this creek since I have always thought the population can't be large, and any amount of catch and release mortality could be damaging, but on this day I probably could have almost named my number.

Even in a place like the Ozarks where you can fish quite successfully even in the depths of winter, for most of us there is still a certain seasonality to fishing. For me, from about early November to mid-March, fishing is a once every few weeks type deal. There will be stocker rainbows on the Niangua here, wild ones on spring creek there, and a few smallmouth bass scattered in too, with any luck. But fishing is best described as more of an occasional drip than a steady flow. In late March or early April most years, that changes. Instead of an occasional trip, fishing becomes a part of the weekly routine. And the bigger trips begin to come into focus. Last year, there was Lake Taneycomo in June, then a four day jaunt along the drainages of the Big Piney, Little Piney, and upper Current. Many trout and smallmouth bass were caught, and memories were made. The year before, it was a big float on the Eleven Point and a long Current River camp trip, along with nearly constant fishing on creeks near home. This year, we saved a fair bit back, and the plans are looking decidedly more grand in scale than looked possible a couple years back. Later this week, we plan to ease into things with a four day trip to the Arkansas Ozarks. Plans include a healthy dose of the Beaver tailwater, a day trip to the Buffalo, and perhaps more. There is unusually posh (for us, anyway) lodging involved overlooking the river, and the whole thing seems pleasantly unlike the sort of down-home trip I'd usually plan. You can credit the lady friend for that, who planned this trip for me as a belated birthday present. I am legitimately unsure she could have done a better job. Following that, I plan to get back to my blue collar nature and try to replicate a really fun mid-week floating, fishing, and camping trip I took on the Niangua last year. That will be a solo mission, of which there needs to be at least one per year. This is all to work up to what we hope to be the crescendo, in the form of Alaska. We saved for over two years for this trip, and the whole thing has gotten out of hand, in the best sort of way. The plans include a salmon boat on Prince William Sound, dolly varden on feeder streams, grayling fishing in the shadow of the largest mountain in North America, and, because since some things never change no matter where you go, a couple days on a small lake supposedly full of stocker rainbows. The last one is a sentimental choice of a family member who used to live there, but I'm not above willfully forgetting their origin and pretending they're real Alaska native rainbows. It looks a lot like 8 days of hell-for-leather fishing and general outdoor shenanigans, and the 17 hours of daylight probably won't do anything much to slow me down. After we return, it will surely be hard to avoid a feeling of anti-climax, especially in the late summer heat. But it won't take more than one or two trips to renew my love affair with Ozark streams, if past trips to Montana and Colorado provide any context. I find these big trips show you the wider view of what's out there, but unless you have a very different mindset than me, don't make the creek near home any less charming.

Ok, that sounds pretty awesome