jibro

I agree one was better than nothing. And as i said it was a great afternoon whether wise to be floating. Sounds like we will be heading down again this weekend and with the prospect of no rain all week we should have a much better day of fishing. BTW we tried a multitude of baits Sat. rooster tails, small cranks, power eggs, trout worms, gulp alive minnows and obviously nothing produced better than the other.

This is the earliest in the year we have ever done this float so i was interested to see the results. Thursday's rain did us in. Got to Cedar about 7:30. It was cold and overcast. River was up 2-3 feet, the flow was really fast, and the water was cloudy. Not a good start. I figured we were gonna need to keep to deeper slower moving water. Not even 5 min. into the float i've got my line in the water, not paying attention looking for water and somethings tuggin away on my line by the time i go to set the hook whatever it was is gone. darn!! Oh well at least there is something biting i thought to myself. Boy was i wrong we took 1 bow all day that was 14 1/2. I missed 3-4 bites and watched 1 smallie chase the bait all the way back to the boat before deciding against it. We saw 3 other small groups of folks fishing and everyone else was having the same luck as us. If they were lucky they had boated 1 fish all day. By the time we had got to Welch i had given up. It did finally warm up and the sun came out that afternoon which is really when most of the hit and misses happened but overall just not a very good day of fishing and a great day of floating. Aww well can't win them all. Looks like next weekend should be really good though with the way the weather is shaping up this week. Ill be back at it then.

i have my own canoe and have never rented one on the Big River but the canoe rental im familiar with is: Big River Outfitters (636) 586-6696 14805 State Route 21 De Soto, MO 63020

i have floated the Big River the last 2 weekends and have pulled out quite a few Smallies. Merrill Horse to Browns Ford float has produced the most fish. This past Sunday was a perfect day for it. Cloudy and the water was slightly stained due the Sat. night rain started the day with a 3 inch pumpkin grub which was doing well. When i would get to the faster current in shallow water id switch to a 3 inch gulp minnow and thy would just nail it. End of the day the bite changed to cranks.

Wow the tornado did a number down there!!! I have never seen so many downed trees on the Current ever. Water was high, cloudy and moving. Had a 25 fish day so we are starting to see less fish but the size is still there. Most bows were 15" or better. Had 1 brown at 15.5" on what should be the first set of riffles but its a bit deeper now. The party floaters are starting to show up Sat. was the last float until late Sept-Oct. I just dont dig the crowds it wasn't too bad but by next weekend it will be a mess. Jockeying the cars took a while due to all the downed trees and power lines. Crews were on K clearing debris. Inexperienced floaters were having a rough time. Lots of trees downed in the river all have been cut but in the high fast water if you dont know what your doing it will push right into a tree and flip you. We saw this multiple times Sat. Course some of these clowns were drunken partyers. Most fish were caught on Gulp alive emerald shiners. We did see a few more smallies this week that were full of eggs.

I called down to Akers about an hour ago and they said the river is open and they put some floaters in today. So it sounds like the river is open and floatable from Cedar Grove on down. I have no idea about anything above Cedar Grove. They said the river had been closed throughout the week but now its back open. Thanks for the heads up though Sam it would have sucked driving down there just to find out i couldn't float/fish.

Is the whole river closed to boat traffic? I don't Cedar Grove or Akers mentioned in the list of downed tree's, powerlines so are these put-ins still accessible? Can we float this section? Was thinking about coming down tomorrow and floating that stretch. Any info is appreciated.

Nice fish what stretch of river did you catch it? Was out last Sat. from Mammoth to Merrill and only caught 1 smallie. She was droppin eggs everywhere. River was way up and muddy as hell.

Brian, depending on how much rain we get this week a friend and i may come down this weekend. I see you suggesting Cane to Greer for Smallies. I was under the impression the better smallie float would be from Thomasville to Cane. Which of these floats would you suggest for smallies?

Camped at Cedar Grove bridge Fri night nice night for camping really warm quite a few more people this weekend which was surprising considering the prospect of rain. One group of drunken butt frat kids i thought it was pretty early in the year for them. Put in Sat about 9am. It drizzled from 3 am till about 8am very cloudy river was exact same level and clarity as last weekend. Had another 40+ fish day which is just amazing. First fish caught was a 12" brown out of the first set of riffles. We had a few more fish coming out of faster moving water this week. The size of the fish went down a little not much still caught a good amount of fish between the 14"-16" range. Had some dinks though a few 9". Only saw 3 smallies everything else we caught was trout. 2 brownies and a mess of bows. It rained off and on most of the day mostly just mist and good 10-15 minutes of good rain. Never seemed to stop the fish from biting. Bite probably turned off about 2-2:30. Only fish we saw from Welch to Akers were the smallies. Most of the fish were coming from deeper pools with steady current but again we did see more fish this weekend coming from the faster moving waters. They took a few diffrent baits some small creature baits in white and green but again most of the fish we caught we on Gulp Alive emerald shiners. They really love those things.

i have never floated this river but i have done quite a bit of studying the USGS river levels and by the looks of this one the normal height of the river for this time of year is between 3.0 and 3.5.

Hey everyone first time poster here. First let me say I float this section every Easter and I never see to much info posted about it here. Camped at the Cedar Grove bridge Fri night great camping weather that night with a fire but the morning was darn cold and really foggy river was up a bit but not bad at all a little cloudy but still fairly clear. Put in at 9 first spot we stopped at the the first few riffles only 1 fish landed 14" bow. Nothing on the next set of riffles. Hit the first 90 degree bend with a huge boulder coming up pulled out 4 bows between 14-16. One 14" smallie and couple bluegill. The rest of the day we caught more fish then we could even count anymore i think by the end of the day it was around 40+ fish mostly trout in the 14-16" range a handful of goggle eye and the occasional smallie. Normally when we float this section this time of year the avg. size of the trout are 12-14" so the first difference we noticed right away that these fish were a good 2-3" bigger and normal and really fat. Almost all the fish we caught were out of deeper water with steady current. When we hit a hole it we were pullin out 4-5 fish per hole. The bite lasted until about 3:30 then everything shut down not 1 fish from Welch to Akers and that was fine we just had the best day of fishing possible. Every fish we caught was on Gulp alive emerald shiners. We tried multiple baits throughout the day rooster tails, trout worms, small cranks, grubs then only thing they wanted were those darn rubber minnows. Now everyone you ask down there will tell you the best fishing is from Welch to Akers and i have NEVER found this to be true. If you only fish from Welch to Akers you have wasted your day. Now the fishing from Welch to Akers maybe good in the morning but if your floating that really not an option and from what i have seen this year there are PLENTY of really nice size fish to be caught about Welch.