ozark trout fisher

Me too....

It feels more like June than March, and for me today that only meant one thing: smallmouth fishing! I decided to get in a quick trip today before the game (turns out I should have just fished through it.) I've been fishing my favorite north of the Missouri River smallmouth stream on and off for about a month now, but the fishing up to this point has been very inconsistent...I haven't been catching very many at all, and as often as not I've been skunked. I've talked a lot lately about how this particularly stream deals with a lot of problems with pollution, and other limitations, but I don't want to go into that today, because the fishing was actually pretty good for a change. Let me see if I can describe the stream for you. If you don't look too closely, you'd think it just seems like a beautiful, pristine Ozark border stream. It's a little bit smaller than the Current River in Montauk Park, with quite a few slow, shallow flats, but also some riffles, pools and big gravel bars that would do justice to a stream in the deep Ozarks. Normally you can count on the water being a little bit stained, a greenish-tan Bourbeuse River type color. But today, the water was as gin-clear as any spring-fed stream, and I can't say I've ever seen it look more pretty. The tactics I would have to use were very obvious from the get-go. In the first flat that I walked up to, a whole pod of nice bass scattered like the wind at my approach. So it didn't take me long to figure out that a little stealth would be necessary. So I got into my "creek sneak" mode, the same type of hands-and-knees fishing I'd use for trout on a touch spring creek. The kind of fishing when you can see them out there feeding, and it's just a matter of a light touch and a delicate presentation to get them to take the fly. Very trouty stuff for bass fishing, and I was loving it. It actually took me quite awhile to bring my first fish to hand. I went through a few flies that didn't work first (woolly buggers, crayfish patterns, and marabou jigs) before finally settling on a squirrel tail nymph (fished as a streamer) that for whatever reason seemed to be the hot fly...That didn't make much sense, but I won't ask too many questions. But eventually the fish did come to hand, and it was a beautiful eleven inch smallmouth bass, really about as large as you'll get on any given day on this stream. Pretty soon after that I'm into something of a rhythm, and catching fish on a pretty regular basis. The fun thing about this stream is that you really have no idea what will take your fly. It holds your normal Ozark stream fish: smallmouth, largemouth, green sunfish, and chubs, but you'll also see big schools of carp, catfish galore, and even the occasional gar. This is a product of this stream having a bit of an identity crisis in the stretch where I like to fish it. It is just beginning to change from a clear, fast moving upland stream to a slow, winding tributary of the Missouri River. So you get a little bit of everything. Today I caught smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, green sunfish, a whole bunch of chubs, along with one channel cat. I tried to catch the carp too, but no luck on that point. I've just never seen this stream so full of life, and it was such an awesome thing to see...With all of the problems this stream faces, that it can still give you a day like this on occasion is incredible. Anyway, today was a good one, and I'll now spend my evening thinking about fishing instead of basketball:)

A tough day for sure...But important not to lose perspective. Before this season even started, it looked like it was over. Haith was rapidly losing his team. Lawrence Bowers got injured, and it looked like Phil Pressey was going to transfer. All the signs were pointing toward a complete fiasco of a season. And here we are at the end of the season, having gone 30-5, beating Notre Dame, Cal, Illinois, Baylor, and (most importantly) Kansas along the way. We won our second Big 12 Title ever, and there honestly couldn't be a more classy, upstanding college basketball team out there. It was a hell of a ride, and the results of this game don't change that one bit. But I wish it didn't have to end so soon. I feel really bad for the seniors having to go out this way, but I hope they (and Frank Haith) know that we appreciate what they've done anyway. One bad night couldn't change that. Meanwhile, to look ahead, we've got Phil Pressey, one of the best point guards in the country (who was one player who played very well to tonight), Michael Dixon, and Lawrence Bowers returning. With some of the transfers we've got, and (more importantly) Bowers, we should be a very competitive team...And we should have a little more size. Maybe we won't win 30 games, but we'll have every chance to be a solid tournament team. I'm looking forward to it already.

As I've said before, anyone who wants to get tangled as many times as you would using 4 or 5 hooks at a time should have at it, purely for the entertainment value. My only stipulation is that I reserve the right to laugh. I don't know about ya'll, but a two fly dry-dropper rig is about all I can handle...Add three or four more hooks in there and I'll never get the thing in the water.

Beautiful pics! Thanks for posting.

What Fishinwrench said pretty much... Listen, I can't stand people who fish without licenses, keep undersized fish, or do any of these things that we're talking about. But are you willing to hit someone with a felony and five years in jail, which could pretty much ruin their life, for getting caught keeping undersize fish three times? I know I'm not. I'm good with relatively short jail sentences, or really, really hefty fines, but when you are talking about 5 years that just seems way over the top. Our prisons are already over-crowded with violent criminals and drug dealers...Let's not add in all the idiots that don't buy fishing licenses.

Five years in jail? I'm all for strong enforcement of game laws, but five years and a felony for someone fishing without a license or keeping undersize fish, or breaking some other minor game law three times? No, that's way too much. It would have to be something very, very serious like poaching game for commercial reasons for that to seem right in my mind. An arbitrary three strikes and you're out system doesn't leave any room for common sense either, which is something that we need more of in these things. I do agree that the punishments need to be stiffer, but there has to be something in between what we have now and that.

I don't really care about numbers vs. size. In a decent day of float fishing on a quality smallmouth stream you'll usually get some of both anyway. I usually prefer shorter floats, because I like to spend nearly as much time wade fishing as fishing out of the canoe. Especially when I'm fly fishing for smallies, I really like to work the good runs over thoroughly, and that's just not possible if I'm trying to go 10 or 12 miles a day. For me, 5-7 miles is perfect for one day when I'm fly fishing, and 10 to at most 15 for a two day camp trip. A bit more is fine when I'm spin-fishing and can cover water faster. One of my favorite floats is actually an 11 miler on a very slow river, but that's fine because it isn't really a good fly fishing stream...I'm usually throwing crankbaits or spinnerbaits, so it's easy to cover a lot of water.

http://www.change.or...for-any-reason# Please sign this petition.

Well no surprise. Missouri got left out of a 1 seed. Completely unfair.

North Carolina loses. And now we wait to see if the selection committee is fair, or displays its usual East Coast bias. It couldn't be any more clear than it is now; if Missouri doesn't get a 1 seed it is a complete joke. A quick look at what Mizzou has going for them: 30-4 (17-4 in the Big 12), including wins over Kansas, Baylor (3), Iowa State (2), Notre Dame, Texas (3), California, and Illinois (while they were still an elite team.) 3-1 against teams ranked in the Top 10, 4-1 against the Top 15. Ended the season on a five game winning streak. Won their Big 12 Tournament games by an average of 15.7 points. No one besides Syracuse and Kentucky can top that.

Things looking up for a Mizzou 1 seed. North Carolina is in the process of going down hard to Florida State in the ACC championship...Down 16 a few minutes before halftime. If this continues, that should come close to locking it up for us. Edit: Not so fast...UNC is making a run right before halftime and has cut it to single digits. Cheer for Florida State folks!

Mizzou has done everything necessary to earn a 1 seed by getting 30 wins and dominating the Big 12 Tournament. It is now in the committees hands. I will say if I see a 6 or 7 loss team from the Big 10 (Ohio State or Michigan State) as a 1 seed and Missouri is a 2, I will be decidedly unhappy with that decision. But for now I'm just incredibly excited about what may have been Mizzou's best performance of the season. It's starting to feel like every game Missouri plays is their best of the season...They just keep improving, and that really showed in how they were in completely in control of every game throughout the Big 12 tournament. They've just got to be careful in those early games not to fall asleep and go down to an inferior team. We know they can beat elite teams.

Yes, Kim English needs to get well soon! I hope that if he's hurting Haith won't put him in tonight...Now that we won't be playing KU in the finals game, the NCAA tournament is what matters now. Of course I'd like to go out with a Big 12 title, but a national title I think is more the goal now. And if English is healthy in the tournament, I really don't think there is any reason we couldn't win it all. The mismatch problems that playing with 4 small, quick guards creates is going to be difficult for any team to deal with. Our nightmare match-up (which probably couldn't happen until the Elite 8 or Final 4) in my opinion would be Kentucky. They are very quick and athletic, and also have size. But Kansas also fits that description, who we've proved to be about dead even with both times we've met. Syracuse would obviously be another tough one, but Cincinnati showed last night that Syracuse is really vulnerable to a team that can hit threes...Like Missouri.

Yes, this is pretty much what I was thinking. The Meramec is a gem, and it would have been a tragedy to have lost it. And even if you don't care about the value of undammed, free-flowing rivers, can you imagine what a big reservoir that close to STL would be like? The whole thing would be Party Cove. Anyway the country around the part of the Meramec that would be dammed is some of the prettiest anywhere in the Ozarks, heck, anywhere in the midwest....Once again, even if you don't care about free-flowing rivers, it would be a terrible shame to see all that under water. All I can say is thank you to those that put in so much work to help defeat it.

Feathers, I haven't experienced any great problems with longevity. I've been using my $25 Shakespeare spinning rod for over four years now, and it still works great. I do have to replace the reel about once a year, but considering that's about a $15 investment I don't consider it a problem. In any average year I fish about 50-80 days- about 1/4 of that with a spinning rod, so that would mean I'm getting 15-20 trips out of it per year. So for a more expensive (say $200) set-up to be work out better for me it would have to last 10+ years, and that probably just is not going to happen. I'd shut it in a car door or fall down and break it before then. Fishing for me is about simplicity, and having to constantly worry about taking care of an expensive rod gets in the way of that. The only way I sort of breach this has been my recent thing with bamboo fly rods, but that doesn't have much to do with fishing...I just like them, and I don't buy the expensive ones anyway. I know others look at that differently, and that's great...But this is just how I look at it.

I love the Current as well. I too have spent some time casting to trout sipping olives in that very pool. Brings to mind some good memories.

I got down there last year pretty much right after the stocking, and it was fun for about the first 15 or 20 minutes and really dull afterwards. Think I'll keep to the smallmouth fishing while the spring stocking thing plays itself out on the trout streams.

Haith certainly deserved the honor, but let's be honest. If the Missouri wasn't moving for the SEC, he almost certainly would have gotten the nod for coach of the year. I think this is pretty clearly one of the Big 12's ways of giving Missouri the finger for leaving the conference. I can understand why they would do that, but still, you've got to be fair.... Next year won't be nearly as exciting for me due to the conference move, but I'll always be a Tigers fan. Even a move to the SEC can't change that. Why couldn't we have stayed? The conference would be very solid. I mean, let's take a look.... Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor, Iowa State, TCU, and West Virginia. The Big 12 will be better than ever next year, and we'll be stuck in a conference never belonged in, playing Florida and Alabama instead of Kansas and Oklahoma. How sad. Weekly anti-SEC rant over for now.

Simply ridiculous. I could have seen Haith as being tied for first with Fred Hoiberg....Hoiberg has really done an excellent job this year. But Bill Self? Come on. Nobody except John Calipari and Scott Drew has more sheer talent to work with. Of course they are good. Not to say that Self isn't an excellent coach, but I wouldn't say he proved that this year. When you have Jeff Withey, Tyshawn Taylor, and Thomas Robinson, how could you not be top 10? Meanwhile everyone had Missouri projected to finish anywhere between 4th and 6th and the conference, and look where we are now. I wish we weren't moving to the SEC, as I've said a million times, but the Big 12 should at least be fair in these sort of things.

Where does my $25 spinning rod I bought at Walmart it into this conversation? Probably not "high quality", but it worked well enough for me to catch a whole bunch of smallmouth on it today. Just my opinion, but I'd say ya'll are making this way, way too complicated.

What a game yesterday. I realize it was only Texas Tech, but 16 for 26 from three point range? That's just not supposed to happen. I really don't think any team in the country that could have survived that kind of shooting. So we finish second place at 14-4, which I think is beyond what any of us could have expected. A lot of years that would have won the conference championship. Now it just comes down to what we can do in the Big 12 Tournament. Luckily, we won't have to play Kansas State or Baylor to get the the finals game. We'll have to beat Oklahoma State/Texas Tech, and Iowa State/Texas. Any of those teams (except probably Texas Tech) could be dangerous, but I smell an epic Big 12 Championship with Kansas brewing....

Hey, when I spin-fish these days it's usually with an ultra-light, and I almost certainly have either a Rebel Teeny Craw or a Rooster Tail spinner tied on. Those lures work as well as anything. Plus they're cheap:)

Okay, but what does stupidity have to do with the felt ban? It's a solid, science-based decision to protect the ecological integrity of spring-fed river systems. I don't see the MDC coming up with complicated regulations except where absolutely necessary (such as deer hunting, where regs vary by conservation area, based on the deer population in the area.) Even those relatively complicated regs are very easy to understand if you are willing to take a little time. I don't see a problem, as long as there is a good reason for these regs, and there almost always is. This ain't California, and the MDC isn't the California Department of Fish and Game. If anything our regs are on the whole too simplistic to properly benefit a wide variety of resources.

I understand that it would be tough to get to a trout park to find that your wading boots aren't legal to use, especially for people from out of state, but if you haven't fished a place in awhile, isn't it a good idea to check the regs before going down? I would never take a trip to a river in Colorado or the Montana without seeing what the regulations are first. That should just be part of the process of planning any fishing trip. That said, if true, I find it silly that you could get a ticket for just having felt soles in your truck.