WestCentralFisher

Based on what I heard here and read elsewhere, we decided to do the Eleven Point instead. Not giving up on the North Fork totally, just didn't sound like late July was the right time. We're going to try it in October. I'll admit the information I've read since I posted this question have my expectations significantly more in check. I somewhat regret never hitting the NFoW when it was still talked about as one of the better non-tailwaters in the Ozarks. But it looks pretty enough to be worth taking a flyer on even if the fishing isn't great.

My internet glitched and double posted the previous comment, apparently.

One of my favorite ways to fish in mountainous areas is find a decent sized stream that is known to hold trout, then look for any solid blue lines on the map feeding into it. I'll usually make a list of 5 or 6 to check out, and a couple will work out. The rest will be raging torrents or impossible to get to. I've had this save trips before. Once I planned a 3 week trip to Vermont and the Adirondacks to fish for trout. Then the heat wave of the century came in. All the famous rivers were well above 70 degrees, but the little hop-across creeks high in the mountains were in the low 60s and the brookies were happy. Alternatively, I've had it fail completely. Once in Colorado, I planned a trip around fishing the high mountain tributaries of a famous trout river. I caught one 6" cutthroat in like 4 days of fishing before bagging it and hitting the main river. Turns out most of the high mountain streams there are fishless or nearly so because of issues with past mining.

Similar creek, a couple watershed over. This one is better known further downstream (and honestly fishes better there as well) but the small upper reaches are a fun challenge. At one point I had two bass hooked simultaneously on either hook of the rebel craw and landed zero, but we won't talk about that.

It was good. Nothing fancy but perfect "just paddled a canoe all day" type food. I hadn't remembered it being there, but wasn't certain. I did some work out of Winona for a few months the better part of a decade ago. I'd fished the Eleven Point once before that, but that was when I really fell in love with it. I didn't have a canoe/kayak then and was dependent on wade fishing, which was NOT always easy on that river. Back then, I could consistently catch trout just about any place on the Blue Ribbon Section on could find my way to and that had wadeable water. And I was willing to hike a lot so I found some good places. I did get lost on both roads and trails several times. I also got to know the upper Jack's Fork around then, which is a lot easier to wade fish. That'd be my fallback when I got tired of getting tossed around like a rag-doll on the slick rocks on the Eleven Point.

A few things I meant to mention in my report but forgot to: the fishing was bizarrely on and off. I would say about 80% of the fish caught came in two one hour stretches. And I know it wasn't changing spots, because we did the bulk of our fishing/catching on the trip in the same few spots near where I camped. And it wasn't even all that correlated with normal good fishing windows (morning and evening). For example, on Friday the fishing was awful all morning, but from approximately 1-2 pm I was getting strikes from either trout or smallmouth bass very regularly. I caught about a half dozen combined, but with better reaction time on hooksets the number could have been higher. Then from 2 pm until dark, I hooked two fish that weren't creek chubs or mooneye, both trout, one caught and one lost. Saturday morning, fishing was dead at sunrise, but from 7:30-8 am (when I stopped to cook breakfast and take down camp) I was hauling them in. The fishing stayed hot once we got in the canoe, except the trout were in all the wrong places. Deep holes with dead current. One was caught when I accidentally left my rebel craw in the water while paddling through frog water. Basically, the fishing was overall just fine if definitively unimpressive, but it was really strange. Just when I thought I had something of a handle on how that river fishes, clearly I don't. Oh, also Bigfoot Burgers in Winona was a clutch after the float/fishing trip dinner spot and I would highly recommend it.

Thank you! Our run was strange in that the two "named" rapids (Mary Deckar and Halls Bay) went somewhat uneventfully, but around Whitten (both above and below) there were several places where we got forced pretty hard into some sweepers on outside bends, mostly in places the river split into two channels. We didn't tip, but once we came pretty close and took on enough water we had to stop at the next gravel bar and empty it out. At the flows it was at (recent rains mostly skirted the watershed) it was annoying, but you could see the same places being a little spooky at high flows. I've usually run it in kayaks; it was MUCH harder in a fully loaded canoe. Like, orders or magnitude. So much less agility, it was really jarring.

Here's a phrase I always say about the Eleven Point: there are probably better places to catch trout in Missouri, but no better place to fish for them. We started at Greer Crossing on Friday morning. Before putting in, I fished a little around the access. I quickly broke the skunk with the first fish, a chain pickerel, caught on a red and white Mepp's spinner. His teeth left a mark on my finger that's still healing. The first trout of the trip would not come as easily, however. Shortly below the put-in, I hooked and lost what appeared to be a very small wild rainbow. That would be the last trout I'd hook in the Blue Ribbon Area. But not the last fish. A little above Mary Deckar Shoal, I found a deep hole with some little smallmouth. A rebel craw worked well enough. That, combined with the absolutely stunning scenery was enough to keep me happy, despite a real slow start to the trout fishing. There are few rivers that can keep me this happy with this slow of fishing, but the 11 Point is one. Several times I looked at the next piece of drop-dead scenery around the bend and just muttered to myself "this is heaven." We crossed Turner WAY ahead of schedule (11 am), largely because the fishing was so poor we ceased bothering to stop and fish. This resulted in a planned 3 day float from Greer to Riverton becoming 2. The fishing picked up significantly as we entered the White Ribbon section, however. From Turner down to Whitten, the trout fishing was solid. Not great, but pretty good. Mostly fresh from the truck type fish, but a few 16-17 inch holdovers mixed in. Furthermore the smallmouth fishing was fair to pretty decent below Turner in the deep, slow pools, especially bluff holes. All fish were released, except one rainbow yesterday morning in the White Ribbon section that took the Panther Martin too deep. He became a part of a wonderful breakfast. We didn't fish a whole lot below Whitten because the crowds got pretty heavy below there and some of the fast water that would be good fishing demanded significant attention to avoid canoe tippage. We camped on a lovely gravel bar between Turner and Whitten with a bluff on the far side, and a lively set of wadeable (with difficulty) riffles and pools, where a large proportion of the fish we caught and released came from. Panther Martin spinners worked well for the trout, and rebel craws were decent for both smallmouth and trout. All fished as deep as possible. This is still the Eleven Point. Overall, amazing scenery and wildlife, very enjoyable trip, enough fish caught to make us happy. Just a weird start with the Blue Ribbon Area fishing poorly for us and then getting better from there. Some initial pictures. Waiting on my buddy to send some more pictures of the fish I caught (other than the super grainy shot of the pickerel 😆)

Yeah, seems like it was very spotty. Gauge says it barely rose and capped out under 600 CFS. Guess I'll just have to conduct a 3 day long floating inspection to see if the gauge is accurate.

Sounds fun. Sounds like my first several trips below Truman Dam. Even after I've upped to much heavier tackle and 20 pound test, had some fish break my line with an absolute purpose.

Thanks again! And I know how it is. Some places are better than others but if you leave anything valuable in the car at a river access overnight, no guarantee it's still gonna be there. Anyway, possibly moot point. Seems like somehow both of the last big rain events seem to have mostly missed the watershed, or else the gauge at Riverton is broken. If flows aren't really elevated at all, well, time spent dragging a canoe above Greer is time I'm not fishing. Still looking forward to it. Anyway, I can most likely scratch my itch for smallies well enough. It's nowhere near the best place to fish for them but from a couple miles below Turner on down I can usually find some here and there. And a deep diving rebel craw works well for both them and the trout.

I used to hate eating any catfish much over ~2 pounds, but soaking the fillets in milk helps a lot with the gamey flavor.

Thanks for the info!

Ha! I now see what you're talking about.

Nothing like a Friday afternoon spent waist deep in a northern Ozark stream.

On a canoeing centric Facebook group I'm a part of, I always see the "just leave the phone in the car" posts. Worth noting the only time I followed that advice, my phone overheated and never turned on again. I probably could have protected it better. But combined with people smashing windows from time to time, I'd rather take my chances with a dry box tied to the canoe.

The more or less annual three day Eleven Point float and fish trip is coming up towards the end of next week. We always do the usual Greer to Riverton run. Which is absolutely incredible, but the wetter summer this might make the stretch above Greer floatable. So we're considering changing things up and going Cane Bluff to Whitten instead. While it is beautiful, the stretch between Whitten and Riverton is usually the only place where the fishing is only OK. Some smallmouth, some trout, not a ton of either unless you happen catch the stocking schedule just right (I did once, it was fantastic). So my question is this: the person I'm going with, and who will need to help with the shuttle drives a sedan with really low clearance. As someone who has spent a lot of time on Ozark gravel roads (and Whitten Access especially appears to be pretty far down one) I don't want to make any assumptions. Are those roads relatively maintained in general? I don't expect perfection but 2 foot deep ruts would make for the sort of adventure we're not looking for. If it doesn't work, nbd. A lot of worse things than a stretch of beautiful ozark river with only decent fishing.

I fished Hayden Meadows a few years back and did pretty well. It was runoff in a very heavy snow pack year and didn't really appear fishable, but I did pretty well anyway with the flashiest streamers I had in my fly box. The backdrop is as pretty as any place I've fished in the west. Would love to try it some time in more normal water conditions when wading is actually possible.

Yeah, I thought about that too. Just didn't get the sense that he'd be receptive to that discussion

Fished below the dam yesterday afternoon. Tried fishinwrench's advice from the previous thread and it worked pretty well. I didn't tear it up or anything, but caught a pretty decent number of whites and got broke off by what I'm assuming was a good sized hybrid. Several freshwater drum and a very aggressive green sunfish also made it to the shore. Fishing started off dead but then they started to run water and it got good for about an hour, which was when I basically caught everything for the day. As you can imagine the day before the 4th, there were plenty of people enjoying the river. But it wasn't all that bad. The only thing I found mildly entertaining was the guy who said "Hey, what you do that for?" or something similar just about every time I released a fish. I told him I was about to head out of town for awhile and didn't feel like cleaning fish (all true), but I think the whole thing offended him pretty bad.

Arkansas: White River/Bull Shoals Lake, rainbow trout, brown trout, largemouth bass, various panfish Colorado: Too many bodies of water to name, rainbow, brown, cutthroat, and brook trout, northern pike, smallmouth bass, channel catfish, probably others Connecticut: a creek I don't remember the name of, stopped while driving through. Brown trout Florida: Everglades and Pensacola Beach. Numerous nearshore saltwater species. Georgia: largemouth bass and rainbow trout. I was a kid and don't remember water body names. Idaho: cutthroat, bull trout (accidentally). Small streams I won't name Illinois: largemouth bass. Private strip pit ponds. Indiana: all black bass species, all common catfish species, rainbow trout, panfish, etc. Too many bodies of water to list. Iowa: rainbow, brown, and brook trout. Upper Iowa watershed. Kansas: catfish, largemouth bass, rainbow trout, panfish. Arkansas River watershed, ponds, Wilson Reservoir. Kentucky: rainbow, brown, and brook trout, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, various panfish. Mostly Red River watershed Maine: brook trout, numerous saltwater species. Tiny Creek I'm not naming and Atlantic Ocean Massachusetts: smallmouth bass, mid-sized river I stopped at passing through, name I don't remember Michigan: rainbow, brown, and brook trout, smallmouth bass, rock bass, yellow perch, catfish, panfish. LP: Pere Marquette, Manistee, Little Manistee, Muskegon River, UP: Sturgeon River, Bay de Noc (Lake Michigan). Missouri: Almost every common game fish species and many non-game species, too many bodies of water to name Montana: brown, cutthroat, brook, and bull (accidentally) trout, yellow perch, whitefish, smallmouth bass. Too many bodies of water to name. Strangely, zero rainbow trout. New York: rainbow, brown, and brook trout, landlocked salmon, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, yellow perch, rock bass. West Branch Ausable, East Branch Ausable, Boquet, Saranac River, numerous other Lake Champlain tributaries Out of time for now lol. But there are more

I think there is truth to that. But you have to be careful on who. One of my formative experiences as a fisherman was telling a family member about a small pond that officially speaking was a fishless pond, but in reality very much was not. I'd been releasing the fish I caught since it was so small and I only requested if he acted on my info that he consider doing the same. He responded to that information by taking his buddy the next weekend and filling a giant cooler to the brim. It was a very small pond, basically an oversized pothole. The fishing never recovered from what they did that day at least until I moved out og the area. Ever since, I'm very careful naming any small body of water that isn't already marginally on the radar. Even to family.

Yeah, I get it. I won't name the stream. It flows into one of the large reservoirs in the Osage watershed. That narrows it down to probably a dozen or so streams that roughly match my description (if not more), which I don't think is enough info for anyone who isn't so dedicated that they'll probably stumble upon it anyway.

Revisited my old friend this weekend, this time armed with a fly rod and a bunch of streamers. I discovered several different things: you will still catch freshwater drum and catfish with fly gear, just marginally fewer, a ~4 pound drum is a heck of a fight on a 5-weight, which I lost, and stream crappie fishing is very much a thing. I found one deep bluff hole absolutely loaded with 8-11 inch crappie, which was super fun. I suspect these fish ran up from the lake it flows into, but who is to say. Definitely the highlight of my day. Did hook into one largemouth bass that broke a bad knot, maybe 16-17". Overall a good day wading in a creek.