WestCentralFisher

I'd originally planned to go camping and fishing on the Current River today and tomorrow, but life just kept getting progressively more in the way, and by this morning, my timeline had been compressed to the point where it was pretty much going to be a quick trip to Maramec Springs or nothing. I'll admit, I was originally quite disappointed...but then I got there and remembered how gorgeous this place was and how nice it could be if you didn't take the fishing too seriously. With the fall colors pretty much at their peak and the weather perfect, you just could not ask for a prettier backdrop. And yes, I did manage to catch a couple fish too. What started off as something I had expected to be a disappointing outing ended up being a great few hours.

This is really cool, but I could never be any good at this sort of thing. As someone who has been through that particular state many times and hated it each time, I just don't think I could make myself drive past good trout water to fish in Illinois.

Though I don't remember my first fish, some important fishing firsts I do remember: First smallmouth bass: Big Piney River, around age 10-12 It was on a float trip that also yielded my first few dozen smallmouth bass, after a number of failed attempts. First Missouri trout: Maramec Spring, around the same age. I only caught one that day, but it was still a significant improvement from my first attempt, where I hooked only my own hand, but at least it was deeply enough to necessitate an ER visit. First trout on a fly: Blue Spring Creek, around age 16-17. It was soon after getting my driver's license, and it was about as far afield as I was allowed to go. In retrospect, it's a terrible place to learn to fly fish, but I got plain lucky and caught one almost immediately First really big fish: a 12 pound channel cat in the pond near my parents house. I stalked it and missed strikes from it a number of times over a few months before finally closing the deal. He tasted mushy and gamey. This was also the first time I wished I'd released a big fish I caught. I'd learn that lesson, but slowly. First really big trout: an honest to goodness 4 pound brown on the White River. I was maybe 14 or so. Even the bait-wielding, catch and keep focused guide gently suggested I release it. I didn't. It was the second fish I really wished I'd released, and after this one the idea finally started to take hold.

The year isn't over yet, and I'm nowhere near done fishing, but when I drove down to a little trout creek it was drizzly, and the leaves were finally starting to turn. Something about that scene put me in a reflective mood. As I casted a little Panther Martin, I let my mind wander a bit further than usual. I started my year January 1st on the Niangua with my dad. The fishing was slow. I caught a couple little browns, and my dad did about the same. It was a strangely warm day, and as I remember, our shore lunch bled into and afternoon spent sitting on a gravel bar and not a whole lot of fishing. Despite starting literally as soon as I could, things slowed. Other than a couple trips to the local trout pond, I don't believe I made it back out for 6 weeks. This again was a family meet up, this time on a little wild trout steam. The fishing was brutally slow, but the trout were almost iridescent when compared to the snow covered background. The spring was something of a wash. Between bad weather and an insane schedule, I did not get out much. There must have been at least 2 trips to the Niangua, and at least one on the Osage, because my photo reel says there were. My photo reel also says that I caught a few fish. I somehow have only the foggiest memory that any of this occurred. Somewhere in there, there was a move, and the discovery of what seemed like it would be my new home creek. It was close to home, held a few smallmouth bass, and was clear and pretty enough. I still like it, though I'd learn that when it drops down to summer flow, it's nearly impossible to sneak up on the smallmouth bass, and can feel unsatisfyingly like yanking a goldfish from a tank on the rare occasions I succeeded. As we all know, the weather has been strange. A wet spring and early summer was followed by the faucet turning off in late July. But of course there was a sweet spot in there where things were just right. As it happened, our big summer trip was scheduled for mid-July, after the rivers were blown out, but while they were still a little high and that dark green color Ozark rivers get at medium-high flows. Any Ozark stream fisherman with a beating heart gets excited when they see that. And the fishing was exactly as good as it should have been. We spent four days on the Big Piney, Little Piney, and upper Current, and it was one of those rare times where almost everything worked. Occasionally the fishing required somewhat more than actually hitting the water with your casts, but not too much more. Of course, that wouldn't last. Just days later, the drought started to set in. There were more good days, of course. There was a nice float on a rare cool day on the Niangua where the trout fishing was positively decent, and an oddly good day catching above average sized smallmouth on a low, skinny river. But for the most part, it stunk. I never quite got skunked (I am aware that typing this out is the worst idea possible) but there were more than a few trips where that took a fair amount of persistence. But seasons change. Now, the air was cool, recent rains gave the creeks the slightest of bumps in flow, and the fall colors were finally starting. More to the point, I wasn't having to work all that hard for the little trout in this creek today. A missed strike from a trout larger than I've seen in awhile on this creek snapped me back to the present. Of course, as the year starts to wind down, any fisherman worth their salt would ask themselves if things were just now starting to get good.

A drizzly fall day on a little trout stream.

I know out west, winter approaching +relative lack of food is usually a bad combination. With the drought probably making some food supplies less available, that could explain some of it.

I have been fishing or going along on trips since I was 3, so my memory is pretty foggy. I remember a few fish I caught that would have to be quite close to the beginning, but it's unclear which is actually the first. I can tell you the exact moment I got hopelessly hooked on fishing. It wasn't even a fish I caught. My brother had been watching a fishing show, and told my dad that the weeds along the bank are where the pike lived. My dad said that this was a trout lake, and he'd do better casting out deeper past the drop-off. My brother cast his spinner along the weedline anyway and caught what was probably a tiny pike, but looked huge to us. Something about the big scary teeth and the fish not being where the Grown Ups said they would be captured my imagination. The sense of mystery that moment left me with has stayed with me more or less ever since.

Yeah, for me to the sense I quantify this, 15-16 inches and I'll really want to put the fish in the net and will spend a minute or two being bummed out about it if I don't, even if it would have been my 20th fish that day. 17-18 inches and it's something of an event, and if I land it, unless I'm close to the beginning of the day, or saw a bigger one chase after it during the fight (which does occasionally happen), I'm liable to stop fishing afterwards and go for a hike or just paddle and enjoy the scenery if I'm floating. I'm probably not going to top that, and what else am I trying to prove? Anything even marginally over 18 inches is a big, big deal and likely to be the highlight of not only the trip, but maybe the season. I've caught a few over the years in the 19-20 inch size class (none larger), and I remember every one well. There is not a single one of those where there wasn't a moment I was absolutely certain I was going to lose the fish.

Got out on the upper Current today. Location will be obvious to those familiar with the area. River was just drop dead gorgeous. It felt nice, but way too hot for October. Catching was just okay. Just a few stocker rainbows and little smallmouth. A lot more great looking holding water than feeding fish. That's fine, of course. I still couldn't have asked for a nicer day. My embarrassingly low clearance car didn't much like the road in, and there may or may not be some aftermath for me on that tomorrow. Zero regrets. Just the cost of doing business.

Yeah, at this point unless it's a true giant, which I'll let you all know when it happens, it just call any notable fish "a real good one". It describes what I'm thinking well enough, and has the benefit of being impossible to actually disprove.

Today I ran into a guy on the middle Current River with a big baitcasting rod spooled with what looked like 20 pound test. He asked if I'd caught any big ones. I said no, not really, most of my smallies were in the 8-12 inch range, but I'd seen one that looked real nice, maybe about 20 inches. He said "Oh, no, I meant real big ones." Either he's a really good fisherman or he didn't know what a danged fine smallmouth bass was.

I get it. Been there. When I was in college the only smallie stream I had access to regularly during the semester was the insanely polluted one in town that in retrospect I'm very surprised had any fish, let alone the few snallies it had. I worked in the Ozarks most summers and made the absolute most of it. Good memories

Good stuff. It's always fun looking back on the season when its done, or as close as it'll get. Looks like you had some good times. There might be something to calling it a season while the fish are still readily biting, though I've never been able to pull that off. There is always that one, sad trip, usually in late October where I realize the smallmouth fishing has finally gone off for the year. Every year I know it's coming, and yet every year it still comes as kind of a shock when the fish suddenly aren't where they're supposed to be, or if they are, I can't catch them. It can sometimes literally happen overnight. Last year, it happened to me on the Gasconade. It was a beautiful fall day, but the fishing had just turned off like someone shut off the faucet. Although, by way of a counterpoint, my best day of smallmouth bass fishing last year was on the winter solstice. It was just one of those beautiful, warm winter days where I got on the water because it was too nice not to, with zero expectation of success. And then I stumbled right into what must have been an epic wintering hole. One of those days where you stop fishing after an hour because even with careful C&R you worry if you keep going, you might actually catch so many fish any level of accidental mortality might have a real effect. I'm basically incapable of calling it a year and not fishing for more than a few weeks at a time, so it's always a search for those sorts of rare days.

There are gravel bars all along the Current and Jacks. The answer to that question amounts to what kind of experience you want. A NPS/private campground will allow you relative ease and convenience but more people and noise. A gravel bar especially in October will give you all the solitude and quiet you could want, but you better have everything you need and if you tip the canoe and lose something life gets hard. I greatly prefer gravel bar camping, and usually do that if I'm with people who are at least somewhat experienced outdoorsmen, but it depends on the situation. I'm planning to go down to that area this weekend and we're staying in a campground with lots of amenities, but that's because we'll have people in our party that aren't very experienced paddlers, and I don't want to deal with the fallout if they flip a canoe and lose a water filter on day 1, or what have you. If you want a site at a NPS campground next weekend, reserve it now, and even then you're going to have to take what you can get. Since those are weekdays you ought to be able to find something

After about 6 weeks of conditions decidedly not suited to chasing wild trout, a little rain earlier in the week, a cool morning, and a day off led to me getting on a couple spring creeks today. The first creek I fished is one of the larger ones of its kind in Missouri. It has both wild trout and stocked trout in various sections, and is generally my old reliable. I started the day off in the wild trout water, and after one glance at the creek, I put away my spinning rod and got out my 3 weight. One of the more impressive mayfly hatches I've seen in Missouri was coming off, and the fish were rising like crazy. I'd love to tell you I caught trout hand over fist, but that wasn't quite true. I didn't have the right fly pattern in the box, I experienced some of what you'd have to call operational challenges, and generally did not get mixed up with Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Still, small, stupid trout exist, and I caught a few of them. My own struggles aside, it was lovely. I then went a few miles downstream to another access. This isn't really wild trout water, and doesn't have blue ribbon protections, but the stocked trout were still fun to catch. It still looked awfully trouty down there (see above), but naturally there were far fewer fish. I finally left when I went back to the car to get a drink of water, and an unmarked white van pulled up. We were pretty far down a real secluded Forest Service road, and it might have been just fine (people are allowed to go fishing in unmarked white vans) but it still felt like my cue to move on. Next up was a smaller creek a few miles away. As soon as I found the creek and spring that fed it (and that took some doing, as it turned out; always a great sign), I caught little rainbows more or less effortlessly on a little Panther Martin spinner. I called it a day when I caught a "good one" which on this creek was an 8 incher. Wild trout and spring fed creeks are good for the soul.

This rainbow was seriously unhappy about being in a net. 😆 🤣

Fair enough. The difference in viewpoint just boils down to exact location. The streams in my area (north-central Missouri Ozarks) have technically risen, but in the sense that the streams that had been flowing at like 70-80 CFS are now 100-120. We got quite a bit of rain too, but it was steady rather than downpours, and the dry soil mostly just sucked it all up. Obviously very different over your way.

The rain is much needed and will be a good thing for our rivers and creeks. It also may mess with my Friday trout fishing plans, but if I'm lucky I may also catch the creek while it's on the drop but still the cloudy green color that tends to make the fish go nuts there.

The Greer gauge is useful in a very specific way, but not so much as a direct indicator. I've noticed the following pattern on the Eleven Point (Bardley) gauge after a big rain: 1. The initial rise, which hits the Bardley gauge some number of hours after the rain hits, depending on where exactly the highest rain concentration is. This rise is the result of runoff 2. The initial fall, which can take place over hours or days following the rise 3. A second, smaller, but often still pretty significant rise after the initial decline. Depending on the situation, this can be enough to turn the stream back to being muddy and blown out, or it can be barely noticeable except for maybe turning the water a darker shade of green. This can be as delayed as a few days later, and is the result of the event impacting the spring system. This is where the Greer gauge can be an advanced indicator of the river being blown out. Obviously it will eventually show on the Bardley gauge, but later. It's not unique for springs to be lagging indicators of precipitation events, but the Eleven Point is somewhat unusual in that it is so very reliant on one specific, very large spring. Rivers like the Current have similar trends, but it's muddied (some pun intended) because they are affected by many different spring systems that may behave differently. My source for this is that this concept once buggered up a would-be float trip for us on the Eleven Point. The initial crest and decline occurred, flows were fine, it was bright sunny in the whole aftermath, and then when we got there the river was muddy and blown out anyway. We ended up on the upper Jack's, which was a great outcome, but I still remember the initial disappointment keenly. I also really like looking at and analyzing river flow graphs, for some reason that I'd struggle to adequately explain.

The fishing is definitely weird right now. My home creek hasn't really been fishable for over a month now. I've been over there a few times without a fishing pole to look around, and the bass are stacked up in the few places with enough water, food, and oxygen. It's mildly concerning. They're pretty vulnerable. So I've been driving to streams with good, consistent spring flow, because with our wet spring and early summer, they seem to have decent flow. Even that has yielded pretty mixed results, and I've had a lot of slow days recently. This trip wasn't what you'd call planned. I had a few hours and really needed to get out of the house. This creek is just about an hour from home, so it's definitely worth more exploration. Just when the weather finally cools down.

The trip started off looking like a classic bust, though to be fair, there were never high expectations. It had been too hot and dry for too long to expect very much. The creek access I meant to go to initially didn't pan out. It apparently was a half of a mile from the parking lot to the stream with no obvious trail. If it had been 20 degrees cooler, that would be no problem, even welcome because of the solitude it would promise. At a stifling 95 degrees, it didn't seem too appealing. I crossed the same creek a mile later on the main road, and it was clear it wouldn't have mattered. It wasn't exactly dry, but the riffles were a pitifully shallow flow across wide gravel, and the pools looked stagnant and more apt to bullfrogs than smallmouth bass. On to plan B. This creek, at minimum, would actually have some water in it. It has more consistent spring flow, and even a virtually rain-free month would have far less effect on it. But there was no guarantee it would be any good. This is known as a combination of an occasional put and take trout stream, with warm water fish supplementing the fishing the rest of the time. In regard to the trout, the phrase "it gets fished out a couple days after they stock it" tends to come up a lot in the discourse around it. This is a creek I've heard of, but never bothered to fish. It has a reputation as a creek you might stop at if you're passing through, but nothing more. You may know which one it is by now based on what I've said, but I bet many of you have never actually fished it, either. It's just that kind of creek. It was smallmouth bass I'd be targeting, since it was almost certain at this time of the year that the stream hadn't seen a stock truck in a long time. At first glance, it looked more like a long, narrow pond than a spring-fed creek. With slow, deep flow, and almost no current, it had an overall feel that said "frog water" more than anything. I noticed two large fish, and they were both gar. Nothing against what is ultimately a feisty, native fish, but this was not the best sign. Nonetheless, I was there, so I tied on a spinner and got to work. The dead water seemed to be full of gar and longear sunfish, but not much else. I was just about to bag it when I finally worked my way to a pool with a nice, oxygenated riffle leading into it, and good current. Smallmouth bass were stacked up there, and after a couple lure changes, I finally hook and land two of them. Both are nearly identical, perhaps 14 inches. They're no trophies, but fine fish for a creek like this, and well worth getting big, goofy grin over, especially when caught back to back. I then get another strike, and to my surprise, this one's a trout, maybe 11 inches. I feel a little bad. The water seems pretty warm, and I hadn't seen a single trout or any evidence of their continued existence. In fact, I had pretty well forgotten this was even a possibility. It soon became clear the fish wasn't going to survive release. It wasn't how I drew things up, but I had a cooler in the car with some ice, and, well, I'd bought a trout stamp for just this sort of potential occurrence. If I'm not careful, this sort of thing can really bother me, but then these trout are put in this creek with largely this outcome in mind. He'll taste great with butter, lemon juice, and a side of fried potatoes. I broke down my rod, left the creek, and drove to a nearby gas station to get more ice to keep the fish cold. I didn't exactly feel guilty, but it put me off wanting to haul more fish in. I then drove upstream to look at the spring, for no other reason than I didn't feel like going home just yet. It was beautiful, in that aquamarine-colored, almost otherworldly way any good-sized Ozark spring is. I probably could have caught a couple more trout up there in the colder water, but I wasn't sure what the point would be. I'd already figured out what's true about most second-rate streams. There's probably a reason they're not famous, but it's rarely completely true when people say "Oh, it gets fished out a couple days after they stock it."

The White Ribbon section seems to have more consistent trout fishing now. The blue ribbon area has some really nice fish, but it's possible to go a good while in between hookups.

Good luck! Water is very low up there and very clear. A lot of the water seemed pretty dead, but good spots were full of fish...just not always easy to catch in those conditions. Weeds were a major problem up there, so anything higher in the water column is likely to make for an easier time.

Got back on the river, this time wading at a couple accesses sites. Both trout water and smallie water. Trout fishing was a little slower than usual, but still caught enough to be happy. Maybe 6-8 in an hour and half. Smallie fishing upriver was slower yet, but got one pretty nice one. Got a picture, but it didn't do it any justice. Caught lots of goggle-eye in both sections. Another good day on the river.