OKFlyFisher44

Anything Ross is a great choice, I have an Evolution, Vexsis, and an older Cimarron. Love my Ross reels! Check out the TFO Prism reel too. I have 2 of them and absolutely love them. Large arbor design with a great drag system for less than $100.

Put my name on a couple of stickers for my boat as well. Place looks good, cant wait to get down there. I havent been down to the NFOW in almost 5 years...its been too long.

Scudz...I normally ignore ur posts because they are random and sometimes confrontational but ur last 2 posts were actually worth reading. If u would post like that all the time, maybe there would be less drama? I don't care either way, its a free country and u can post however u like which is what makes this forum great. I agree with you on releasing all browns in the blue ribbon water... Nice fish by the way... The musky on the fly is sweet...

I think what Gavin means is most trout fisherman won't spend the time or use the techniques required to catch big fish. In my experience, that means fishing a bigger rod with big streamers with only a few bites all day or taking ur time to spot big fish and sight fish to them. Your normal every day angler either doesn't have the gear to chuck big nasty streamers all day or has the patience to take ur time to scan a piece of water looking for big fish and then spend the time to fish to those monsters. Most anglers just wanna cover as much water as they can, enjoy the scenery, and catch some trout.

Thanks fellas! Got tons of plans for fishing trips with this boat. Justin...NFOW is on the top of my list to float sometime soon. We will be crashing at ur place too.

Been kicking around buying a drift boat for the past couple of years but never could pull the trigger or find a good enough "deal". Finally bit the bullet a couple weeks ago and bought this used 2008 Headhunter Skiff from Clackacraft as an early birthday present (thank you wife). It arrived late last week and I cant wait to take 'er out... My addiction has reached new levels... I feel sorry for my wife some days

Awesome report and blog! I love Crane so much, my 2nd fav place to fish in the Ozarks. I recently posted a quick blog about Crane on my own blog, check it out. I added a link to your blog on my favorite fishing blogs list on my blog. The link is my sig...

Congrats on the baby girl man! I have 2 myself...my oldest is 2 years old and my baby is 6 months old, being a dad is amazing. My oldest is already showing interest in fly fishing, well, at least the casting part! Nice report. U didnt happen to see any Caddis coming off did ya?

After reading all 3 pages of this thread, I must say, points are made on both sides of the issue. There is no solution to the issue though. So IMO, enjoy the resource we have, take care of it, and support it however u can so that we can enjoy it for years to come. I started fishing the Current 3 years ago after planning a big trout trip for the crew and myself. I have fished it numerous times in the past 3 years and have always had great success. Maybe it depends on what u are calling a good day? Are you going to have a 40-60 fish day like u can on Taney, Norfork, or the White? I dont believe so. What I love about the Current is that its the "total package" as far as trout streams go in the Ozarks. With the exception of a few wild trout creeks, NFOW, and the 11 pt...there isnt another place like the Current in the Ozarks, IMO. Its a freestone river with TONS of beautiful browns and rainbows. Even the stupid stockers that wander downstream of the park will grow their fins back, regain their amazing colors, and fight similiar to a wild fish after they have spent some time in the stream. The scenery of the river is amazing, I truly feel like I am not in Missouri when I go to the Current. As far as crowds go, I can honestly say that I have never had an issue with "crowding" on the Current. The very 1st day I ever fished it, was when I saw the most people while I was fishing. Since then...almost solitude nearly everytime I've been on the water. I will say that there have been a few times that I have walked to the Tan Vat access from Eagles Park where we camp or pulled up to Baptist to find several cars in the parking lot, which is frustrating. Here is the thing, if you will spend a little time and energy to do some hiking upstream or downstream....those other fisherman disappear quickly. There is plenty of water in the trout section of the Current...and plenty of trout, just gotta do a little walking. As far as big fish go, I probably shouldnt comment because as I havent fished the river very long like Gavin and a few others, but there are plenty of them there. We went to the Current last september, the river was VERY low and clear. I'll just say this...there are plenty of big browns AND rainbows in that river. We saw them and caught a few of them... The stream is no secret. Just gonna have to accept it and go on. I love this river...

We fished it Saturday after the rain and it wasnt up all that much, seen it a lot bigger and still fishable. I bet by Friday it would be very fishable, if not a little low than what u would really want. Tim would be the best person to ask, he drives by it everyday. Lucky dog...

Everyone was using something different as a dry. I was using an Elk Hair Caddis just because it's easy to see but the fish seemed to like it as I caught several on it. I highly doubt they were keying in on the dries, more of just them feeding opportunistically on a big bug floating by. I would rather fish that way than stare at an indicator all day. Gives me a headache after a while, lol!

No stripers. Still too early I would think and cold. Won't be long though. We r all ready for it to start. I scouted out some new holes to try on the LIR once they do start. If we keep getting some warm weather, I bet they will start doing their thing on the Arkansas real soon. So much fishing to do. We will be chasing trout till the middle of April, then stripers till June, and then smallie fishin' kicks off! Man, can't wait!

Hey now...take it easy on the Frabill net, I'm too jewish to buy a Brodin

Fished the creek this past saturday in hopes the lil' creek had came up after the rain. Called it right as the creek had came up and looked awesome. We did the normal hike downstream and then did the "Crane Creep" back upstream. Had a great day, caught lots of fish. Everything from 6" - 15" came to the net. Lots of fun on the 3wt. No huge fish were landed. My buddy hooked 2 really NICE McClouds but lost both of them, each of them were easily over 18". The little creek is in great shape and I love fishing here more and more everytime I get to go. Cant wait to get back!

The crew and I fished the LIR this past sunday in hopes of catching some ol' trout. We had an awesome day, probably the best day we have had as a group. I started the morning off throwing wooly buggers and slumpbusters with great succcess, caught a bunch and missed/broke off a ton more till I finally just switched to 2X! LOVE fishing streamers just for the anticipation of the "tug". The guys were having great success on various nymphs below an indicator. Around 10 am, the river came alive with a massive midge hatch and every fish in the river was looking up. We switched up our rigs and went to a dry/dropper rig using various dries as the lead fly and then dropping off a midge emerger, zebra midge, or pheasant tail below it. This worked great while the fish were feeding. Probably caught 3 fish on the dropper to every 1 fish on the dry so it was worth to keep the dry on instead of fishing an indicator. We all caught a ton of fish. Weather turned out great. Had the section of river we were fishing all to ourselves, only seen 1 other angler. Cant beat it... On a side note, we caught 3 tiny browns, all of them being around 6" long. Anybody know if the wildlife dept stocked some brown fingerlings?

Hey fellas... I have been away from fishing and this forum for the past few months due to several reasons. I had another baby girl in Sept, duck season kicked off in full swing shortly after that, and the holidays were crazy this year. But the crew and I have been back out on the water with the fly rods so we should have some reports and blog posts coming on a more consistent basis! Anyways...I know a few of you used to read/follow my blog and it totally went by the wayside the past few months. We have recently started fishing again and have updated the blog a few times with some good posts. I just posted our White River trip report from last weekend, it should make for a nice read along with a few decent pics. Good to see nothing has changed around here... Here is a link to my blog http://okietroutbum.blogspot.com/ Or there is a link in my signature...

I just checked the stream gauge for the Current...its rolling @ about 160cfs. I have fished it as high as 185cfs before and it fished awesome at those flows. I think it fishes better at those flows as the current is stronger/faster so the fish dont have near the time to make the decision to eat or not. Also, the water doesnt muddy up...it just turns that deep blue color. We were fishing 4X and 5X on the higher flows with no problems, caught plenty of fish. It was the end of March 2010 when we fished it at these flows. We caught all our fish on caddis pupae and caddis emergers for the most part, while targetting specific rising fish with a CDC Elk Hair Caddis with great success. We will be heading back up to the Current in April for a big spring time trip in hopes of hitting the caddis hatch just right.

The crew and I recently returned from a weekend trip to the White River. They didnt generate all weekend so we had low-water wading conditions at its best. Tons of fish in the river. We covered a ton of water and caught some fish. It was a great trip. No big browns brought to hand this time but we will be back to the White very soon. For a more detail report...check out the report on my blog. There is a link below in my signature.

Topic moved...

Shoot me a message when u think will be heading down to the LIR. I will show u around the river if Zach can't help you out. Not a whole lot to this river, pretty easy fishing. It's not Taney, Norfork, or the White...but it's great for a daytrip to fish, especially when I'm only an hour and a half away. Look me up on Facebook as well, Chance Maxville, got lots of pictures from the LIR. Check my blog out too.

You never really know when the stripers will start up. Like Zach said, too many variables. 2 years ago, they were in the river by April and were mostly gone by July. We had a good year and caught some good fish. Last year, they didn't start showing up in good numbers till the end May it seemed and they stayed till August. The fishing sucked though. Caught lots of small fish but never could hook into a big fish. What really drive us nuts is you would spend all morning chasing them with no luck, then put away the big rods for our trout gear and you would have them swim right by you. It was frustrating. We caught all our big stripers out of the Arkansas River this year. I can't wait for the run to start again this year, they are fun to chase. I like to call them our version of steelhead, or "Oklahoma Chrome"

We have had a great year. We hunt all private watershed ponds and a couple of bean fields we have access to. I also have some friends in western Oklahoma that have some large government ponds (almost like small lakes) that really pull some ducks. I think we might be on the tail end of the flight, we had a terrible couple of hunts this past weekend. I think we SAW 10 ducks combined on sat and sun. Going to give it another shot this weekend and see what happens. Can't complain though, like I said, we have had an excellent year. I just checked my hunting journal, we have shot 336 ducks/geese this year. I will agree, I'm ready to dig out the long rods and do some fishing!!

Haven't been reading the forums much lately with duck season going on, would of liked to participate in the event. Some of my crew was down there fishing but avoided the crowd up by the dam. Might try to make it next year. Duck season is almost over and it will be time to dig out my long rods again!

Glad to see there was a good OAF turnout. I fished right next to you guys in the hole just above the bridge in Zone 1 but it didn't click who it was till I seen Buzz and Chief shortly afterwards. Sorry I didnt come say Hi to you guys, Dan and Terry. I was going to come down for the biscuits and gravy but didnt get to the park till 7:45. I was let down by the lack of true "lunkers" in the river like the rest of us. I hooked 3 rainbows that mighta been in the 4lb range but broke 1 off and the others were LDRs. Caught a ton of fish but no BIG fish, just a couple of the 1-2 lb "footballs".

I agree with BMan, mondays rule. The schedule I had with my previous job was Tues-Sat, got off work @ 3 on Sat. Worked perfect for driving down to Branson that evening Usually did have to fight the crowd sunday during the day but it wasn't too bad. What was really awesome....sunday night fishing, I'd have the whole trophy section to myself most times. It was almost creepy down there by yourself but man the fishing was awesome. Monday mornings were also splendid...always a few people but you could basically fish where you wanted to. Trips like that are why I still love Taney...although I haven't got to fish it at all this year