ozark trout fisher

Thanks for the advice Al, it's much appreciated. That sounds a little tough-we know may go ahead and get reservations at Montauk, because I know that water well and some easy places to set up. I'll feel bad for him, the guy I'm taking used to be one of the most passionate smallmouth fisherman I've every known (if he wasn't at home you could bet money he was up at Meramec State Park) ,but he really can't do that anymore. He hasn't fished in a couple years, so hopefully we'll get into some fish wherever we end up.

An elderly relative of mine called me and asked me if I could take him fishing somewhere next week. He's not in the best of health, and honestly, we need to go somewhere there is easy road access to a place we can set up a couple of lawn chairs and soak bait-he can't wade, walk long distances, or sit in a boat. We also need a place where we can rent a cabin a few days, because he can't camp. We are thinking Montauk, but I see that Washington State Park along the Big River also has cabins. He was always more of a warmwater guy, so I thought that might be worth looking into. Is there easy road access to the river there, preferably near a deep hole where we'll have a shot and catching bluegill, goggle-eye, catfish, or anything else for that matter? Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well. I know this is a tough question, but he doesn't get to fish often, and I'd really like to make it a nice weekend for him.

That is really sad. It really hurts deep down when I hear something like that-I don't know that stream, but still, that kind of thing really gets me down. I hope the bastards that dumped the chemicals get charged and punished appropriately.

Sounds like a great trip.

Thanks, I checked that out. That should be helpful for future trips if I'm not sure what the waters doing. It looks like it was really rolling on Friday-it was still pretty high on Saturday when we got there, but nothing like that.

You could camp on the Yampa at the state park near Hayden-those are my old stomping grounds. I don't know what it's like now, but as of a few years ago it was pretty good for rainbows and pike, with an occasional smallmouth thrown in. I know you could bait fish back then (regular old worms worked pretty well for the trout) but I can't promise you the regs (or the fishing) haven't changed. The river isn't real well known down there. It's nothing all that special, just a pretty high plains river with a decent trout population that doesn't get fished too much. Over by Craig, there is Freedman Reservoir-a high mountain lake up in the National Forest that is stocked heavily with cutthroat. Once again, it was open to live bait when I was last there, but you might check up on that just in case. There is a nice campground up there. Both of these places I'm telling you about are in Northwest Colorado, which is about the furthest corner of the state, because that's the area I know well. It's further than most folks go, but it's also more quiet and secluded-something you won't find on the famous rivers like the Fryingpan and Roaring Fork.

I think some beliefs are odd, but that's subjective, and they also may or may not be incorrect even though I happen to think they are. The one thing I do know is that I've had my share of arguments on OAF and don't care to get in another.

Look, I agree with you about gigging, but why do you keep banging your head against the wall on this? It just doesn't work... People get pretty set in their beliefs, no matter how odd and incorrect they may be. There is no point in saying the same thing 10 or 15 times. The same people will continue to agree with you and the same folks will continue to argue. There is no point whatsoever in starting yet another fight about the same thing we've already covered multiple times (with the same train wreck resulting every time).

You guys think I derailed this thread. I find that pretty funny, since it went from a fishing report, to an argument about fishing for spawning bass, to an argument about gigging. Do you guys ever get tired of posting the same thing over and over again?

It was certainly a good time. Good luck on your float.

Look, there's an oil spill going on in the Gulf of Mexico that is threatening to destroy one of the greatest sport fisheries in the world, not to mention the birds, turtles, and anything else that may live in the sea. And yet we are talking about the relative impact of gigging on large Ozark Smallmouth streams. Kinda small potatoes compared to some things that are going on right now. I'm perfectly willing to engage in these kind of things when there are no more important conservation issues to talk about, but not now. You guys know how I feel about poachers and gigging in general, but seriously?

I got down to Montauk around 1 PM on Saturday- campground was full, so I had to spend the first hour or so finding a place down in the Riverways to set up camp. I saw on the way down there things looked pretty tough- the river was muddy, not just off color. I finally finished setting up camp and then headed down to Baptist Camp. As I said, the water was muddy, but after looking at it closely, I saw there was about 1 foot of visibility and the wading wasn't all that difficult. I rigged up with an orange glo-bug and a strike indicator about 6 feet up. I noticed that I was the only one fishing. I fished long and hard, but it was pretty slow. Just as I was about to bag it though, I managed to get a pretty 14" bow, which is more than I had honestly expected given the water conditions. After the slow fishing yesterday, I decided to head up to the park this morning. So I woke up for the buzzer and headed for the fly area above the old mill dam. The water was still quite off-color, but noticeably more clear than the day before-that may have been due to location of the river dropping overnight-probably a combination of both. I once again tied on an orange egg pattern under and indicator, and managed to catch and release five rainbows before noon. It was very slow by trout park standards, but you're happy with anything you get when the water is flowing like that. Finally, it just got too hot to be standing there in waders, so I headed back. In all, not a bad weekend at all-the fishing was slow, but that'll happen.

Well, I'm headed down to Montauk even though the water level doesn't look great (378 CFS), leaving in about 10 minutes. Expect a report and pictures when I get back in a couple days.

I'm gonna head down there. At this point, "less than ideal" still sounds pretty okay to me. I'm on plan C and don't have any other back up plans. It may be dumb, and it may not be, but I know I'm still going to do it. I will hold off fishing until late afternoon however, just to give the water a few more hours to drop. Then I'll fish hard on Sunday.

Yeah, that's a bummer. But it's dropping quickly, and now it looks like we are really through with the rain. It is dropping about 100 CFS per hour up at Montauk, and it should be good by Saturday afternoon. I'm still going. That rain last night was the final nail in the coffin as far as floating goes though.

Well, since there are so many arguments lately on OAF, I guess someone should start a more lighthearted topic... I'll make it really simple and really general. Tell your favorite fishing story. Big fish caught, big fish lost, some rare animal or bird alongside the stream,funny mishaps. Anything. I'll tell mine, which definitely fits into the embarrassing mishaps category. Although it wasn't at all a pleasant experience at the time, now I can and often do laugh about it. I was wading a beautiful little trout creek in Western Montana a few years back. I saw a huge cutthroat rolling around, but there was a big boulder that I had to wade out on to get a good cast at it. I didn't take notice of the fact that the creek had just recently come down from spring run-off, and the top of the boulder was still very wet. Needless to say, when I stepped on the boulder, I fell backwards and hit my lower back so hard that I momentarily blacked out. I didn't feel too good for a couple of days, but no permanent damage was done to anything but my pride, and I was back to fishing within a couple hours. You should have heard me scream every curse word ever invented though-I was just glad to be out of earshot of any other folks.

Sounds like you hit it perfect. I was planning on floating that area Saturday and Sunday, but the river had other plans. I'm really glad you got on there when you did and got some fish.

Thanks 3wt. I'm pretty optimistic now-even wade fishing at Montauk is a heck of a lot better than nothing. We'll probably just mess around and look at sights Saturday, giving the water a chance to drop, and get to the park and fish hard from buzzer to buzzer on Sunday. If we can float instead, we will, but just fishing will be good enough for all of the group I'm headed down there with. We're officially on plan C now, but any weekend spent in the Ozarks can't be all bad.

Will do. It's still around 800 CFS at Montauk, but it is beginning to drop quickly, so the hope is definitely there. I was hoping to float, but a day or two at Montauk would be just fine. Tonight, there is a chance of rain for a couple hours, but it doesn't look too significant.

This is a good one, even by OAF standards. All the rivers are unfishable, so this might be just the reading material I need.

Yeah, the trips off. I just went through the water level chart, and there is not a single Ozark stream that looks like it will be fishable this weekend. I'm trying to be philosophical about it, but I'm still working on that... I'm still holding out for a possible trip to Montauk on Sunday. It drops fast, so at least the catch and release creek might be kind of fishable by then since the rain is supposed to stop tonight... maybe

We were planning on floating the Big Piney this weekend, but the water isn't even close to being floatable there with the rain, so our back up plan is the Current, but even it is starting to look bad... What is the highest level at Akers Ferry that we can float safely at? Our tentative plan is to do a two day float from Baptist to Akers. Do you think after today's heavy rain it will drop down enough by Saturday? Thanks.

I could be totally off-base on this, but I know I rarely use anything heavier than 6x for trout in Missouri. But I'm not at all sure that's a necessity, because to be honest I've rarely tried anything else. I guess I don't totally buy into the whole light tippett idea, but I use it anyway because it doesn't usually hurt anything, and it might help. I've also had the best luck where the riffles dump into the pools. But there are also some areas that aren't that obvious that can be good. For example, there is one riffle I know of that is mostly under 10" deep and pretty barren of everything but chubs, but there a little shelf on one side of the stream where it drops off to about 2 feet. That spot, and others like, generally hold some feeding fish that most people overlook, and for that reason they are often pretty easy to catch. The really pretty deep pools can be very dissapointing.

I agree that this thread is a bit of a train wreck, but what else do you expect to happen to a thread about targeting spawning bass on a forum with a lot of conservation minded fisherman? It's an ethical issue, so I don't think there is anything wrong with people discussing that.

Thanks.