Brian Wise

The closer you get toward Norfork Lake the worse the flood was. Don't get me wrong, the flood affected the whole river but it was definitely worse in the heart of the trout water. Seems like smallmouth populations above Rainbow Spring weren't hit as hard as the trout.

Hey guys, long time no see! I heard through the grapevine that there was a discussion on the river, stripers, trout, dams, floods, etc and thought I would pop in. First, it doesn't surprise me at all to hear about pods of stripers above Rainbow Spring. This is something that has happened for several years, and is a yearly occurence. The stripers usually move in sometime around Memorial Day and will usually stay until sometime in October. When they enter the river, they are literally scattered from "The Forks" (the headwater of Norfork Lake, well below Dawt Mill) all the way to the put-in at Hammond......seriously, I saw one in the pool at Hammond which probably means they will go higher than that---I just haven't seen them above that. They are NOT in the river all year long, period. MDC refuses to cull any of these fish. Their excuse is that it would be very expensive shocking, keeping the fish alive, and releasing them back into the lake (which it honestly would be.) MDC is taking a completely literal hands-off approach to the whole issue. The trout fishing since the flood has not been what I would call productive. You 'can' catch fish on the upper end of the Blue Ribbon section, but it takes work. One could blame the poor trout fishing on the stripers and the Dawt Mill dam being removed. I personally don't know exactly where I stand, because no matter what excuse you throw on the table there is an argument against it. If you totally blame it on the stripers, you have to remember that we consistantly had stripers in the river for 7 years before the flood, even before Dawt Mill Dam was breached. In those years, all it took was for Norfork Lake to back up over Dawt Mill and the stripers had free roam of the whole river. Those 7 years before the flood are what I would call the glory years of the NFOW. The flood was obviously the most devastating thing to happen to the river in anyone's memory. This was a massive, massive event on a scale that no one alive had ever seen--and it changed the river dramatically. The riparian corridor was basically moved to the base of the hill on either side of the river valley. But, in the last couple of years this has started to get better. We are seeing TONS of good growth close to the river, and the trees that we are seeing are getting big enough that they are doing just fine with higher water events that we tend to have. In my eyes (note: these eyes are not educated, just having observed the river go from horrible fishing in the late 90's to phenomenal fishing in the 2000's and guiding on the river through that whole time) the river will never be exactly the same since the floods, stripers, etc....but we 'are' seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Now to get MDC to step up and at least try to do something good for the river...... If you want, here is the Fisheries Biologist for the NFOW. Nathan.Recktenwald@mdc.mo.gov