ozark trout fisher

Of course not. If you pay attention to my posts, you'd know that there probably isn't anyone on here who believes more firmly in the right of the public to use navigable streams. I'm not talking about legality here. I'm talking about ethics, common courtesy. Even if it's legal, and even if it should be legal to party and yell and scream on a gravel bar adjacent to someone's property, that doesn't mean that it's okay. Rudeness and stupidity is not, and shouldn't be illegal. But it's still wrong, and it's still what causes a lot of our problems with landowners along rivers.

I agree with you, but it would do much to diffuse this situation if a whole lot less people used gravel bars as their own personal party space. I can see where the landowners are coming from, and JD is right about standing in their shoes. I mean, how would you like to have strangers yelling and screaming, littering and getting drunk on a gravel bar on your property? Legally, they are in the right, but if more people would be respectful and responsible, this maybe wouldn't be so much of a problem. There will still be crazy landowners that will cause trouble no matter what, but still I think a little respect would go a long way.

JD, when it comes to what you normally think of as trespassing, hunting, etc on someone's land without permission, I couldn't agree more with you. But when it comes to floating and wading navigable streams, getting out on gravel bars, etc, that is a completely separate issue in my mind, legally, but much more important ethically. And since you are talking about this more from an ethical than legal standpoint, I'll go more in that direction. It just doesn't wash in my mind that anyone can own a river or its streambed, something that begins somewhere else, and flows through the properties of so many different different people. And if I'm fishing or floating a navigable river, you sure bet that if I'm told to leave I am going to stand up for my rights, albeit politely. You mentioned that landowners don't like having their rights trampled on by trespassers; I don't like having my rights trampled on by landowners who are almost certainly in the legal (and in my opinion) ethical wrong. I don't think I cause much trouble when I am floating or wading a river. I don't litter, I don't get drunk and scream and yell like some idiots do. I always respect the rights of landowners. So as long as I stay below the high water mark, I expect to have my rights respected also. It is worth noting that I have personally have had very little trouble from landowners in this state, and I am very appreciative of that. So it's not like I have something against the people who own land along our streams. Most all of the ones I've met have been very polite, and I can't say I've ever had a major confrontation, and just a very few minor ones.

I'm not a lawyer, but if my understanding of this is correct, it seems that the prosecutor is willing to drop the charges. If the charges are dropped, then I really don't see how any particular law or legal precedent could end up getting set by that. In my rudimentary legal understanding, I believe that legal precedents can be made by someone getting convicted of a crime, or someone getting acquitted of a crime. But if the charges are dropped without a trial? I don't see how that is going to affect any sort of legal interpretation about how that stretch of stream can be used. Could be wrong though. As I said, I don't exactly know a great deal about this.

Chief, we all appreciate your efforts fighting the good fight. If you do decide to take this to court, you can certainly pencil me in for a donation. If not, then you've already done a lot to bring this issue to the public's attention, and either way I thank you.

Sockeye salmon in the Eleven Point...Sounds good to me! Better bring a 7 weight and lots of egg patterns the next time I'm down there.

#16 and #18 scuds will certainly work on the Current, often pretty well. Tie them up for sure. They are a great little pattern to use in a dry dropper rig. But if you're new to fly fishing that river, I'd really have to highly recommend bringing along a good supply of bead-head egg patterns (or glo-bugs as some call them)-particularly in the spring. These are, at least in my experience, far and away the most consistent patterns for both Montauk Park and the Blue Ribbon section, at least as far as numbers go. I use the smallest variety they sell in the Montauk Park store, peach, tri-color, and orange. Fish them near the bottom under a stick-on indicator and the rainbows will generally take care of the rest. Although fish will be fish, and sometimes of course you'll need to experiment. It's surprisingly rare though. Enough on that. Egg patterns aren't the only way to go at it, and OK is certainly right. The dry fly fishing can be very good in the spring. Caddis are the big hatch mid-to late spring, but earlier on you'll see plenty of olives and other mayflies around. Last April was weird though at least when I was down there, not many caddis and all the fish wanted were egg patterns. Any way, just sitting here jawing about this has me looking forward to the April fishing down there. Caddis or no caddis, it can some of the most special fishing you'll ever have. Sure is beautiful on the Current that time of year. Sorry for the rambling, pretty much entirely off-topic post.

Mic, I haven't had any trouble with you in the past, but I still think you ought to be banned for this offensive and profanity-laden post:) And if you so much as mention Oklahoma State, I will report you to the authorities...

I don't know of any figures(although I believe the MDC sampled the river in September after most of this was over with, and maybe someone knows the results?) But I think it's probably fair to say that a considerable percentage of the 15" plus browns in the upper part of the Blue Ribbon area were lost. It almost certainly had some effect on the rainbow trout population in the Blue Ribbon area as well, because they would have the same need to move to cooler water. But the rainbows are a bit easier replaced, with the more or less constant stream of them coming down from Montauk Park. In my recent trips down to the Blue Ribbon stretch, it's all been rainbows and little 8 and 10 inch browns. I'm not usually catching the really big ones anyway, but most of the time I'll at least hook into a couple of 16" plus browns in a decent trip. Not so lately. I know there are still good browns in there, but there sure doesn't seem to be as many of them as I've come to expect. But there are more big rainbows than usual it seems, which makes up for it at least a little bit.

With the hot weather of late summer, many brown trout were seeking cooler water in order to survive, and moved from the protected Blue Ribbon water into the bait section of Montauk Park. There they were pretty well slaughtered by bait and jig fisherman, and a few fly fishers who were apparently allowed to keep 4 brown trout in one day, even though the fish were from the Blue Ribbon area where the regulations are much more restrictive.

It's always interesting to hear all the different methods people use to fish for wild trout. I've always been of the "light tippet and small fly" school when fishing for wild rainbows around here. I rarely use tippet larger than 6x or any sort of nymph bigger than a #16, usual #18 and occasionally even smaller. I almost always catch a lot of fish that way, but an unusually large percentage of them are fingerlings, maybe only 30-35% at best are 7" or larger. Usually in a decent full day of fishing I can count on hooking one or two fish that at least approach a the 12-14" range, but anything much larger than that is a rarity. I don't mind that, my objective when fishing these streams has little to do with fish size, but then again I wouldn't mind catching a few bigger ones either. I may have to try using some larger flies the next time I hit a wild trout creek and maybe I'll start catching a few better sized fish than I usually do.

I certainly agree, but it probably wouldn't be feasible. I think something like a statewide, 18" minimum, one fish state-wide limit would be possible to implement, and would do the job well enough. I had thought (I guess mistakenly?) that there was a statewide limit of two browns, and a 15" minimum, and that this also applied to the parks. Though certainly not the kind of protection I'd like to see, even that would have gone some part of the way towards stemming the damage that occurred last summer on the Current. But I guess even those rules don't apply in the park, or the MDC isn't sure whether they apply, or some variable of the two. Honestly I'm a bit confused as to the matter. If these rules did apply it sure wasn't being enforced very well, there were plenty of folks in the park stringing up 3 and 4 browns in one day. STL, I really like your idea about switching the zones, so that the browns are running up into the fly area instead of the bait section. That might just be worth an email to the MDC. I do like the water in the fly area a lot (once you get to the riffles and holes about the mill-pond) but I'd be willing to give that up to give the browns a better chance. I think that might be workable too. Bait fisherman would get the mill pool, and a whole bunch of other really good bait water, while fly fishers would have the riffles and pocket water further down.

Well okay. I'm done banging my head against the wall. I really have been trying to stay out of these sort of things lately, but I felt it was quite necessary in this case. I believe there is no further purpose to this argument though. Plus the the Mizzou game is coming on here in a few, which is infinitely more important than this...

I'm not kneeling before anyone. I'm just calling out people who chose to berate and belittle people who are contributing to the forum.If I posted a link to some of my work on here, know I wouldn't be happy to get this sort of response. To my mind it would then be wrong not to say something.

Why are you devoting so much attention to bashing an OAF member who is contributing more interesting and useful content than most of the rest of us are? I mean, here's the way I figure it. Quite a few of us, maybe even most of the regular contributors on here, based on our love for fishing, the outdoors, etc, are putting up some kind of creative content online, whether it's podcasts, photos, videos, writing, or something else. Most of us aren't doing this because it makes a lot of money, but just because we enjoy doing it, or because we feel that it can be helpful in some way, like getting the word out on some conservation issue or some other thing along those lines. And some of us use OAF to help get the word out about these things. I do, as I mentioned, with my signature, and a few other times when I have directly linked to some article from one of the outdoor websites that I help run. As long as it's not something blatantly commercial, and as long as a moderator doesn't say otherwise, I don't see anything wrong with this.

I'm truly sorry that you have nothing better to do. Live2FlyFish, I hope you don't listen to these people. Keep posting. I enjoy your podcasts.

Well the link to my blog has come up on every one of my posts that I've made for the last two or so years. I guess that makes me an incessant spammer also? If you really don't like someone's posts, then it's easy to put them on ignore or just not read them.

I'll just say that we have different definitions of spam, and leave it at that. Posting a thread with a link to a podcast about didymo on a fishing forum hardly qualifies in my opinion. It's no more spam than me having a link to my blog in my signature.

Relax Drew. This site is exactly the sort of place where these types of conservation issue should be discussed. Just because you don't agree with Live2Flyfish's point of view on this doesn't make it spam.

Maybe everyone is being a bit hard on the OP. I mean, you'd have to admit that this method seems at best questionable.In truth I didn't, and don't plan to sign the petition, mainly because I don't personally care very much about rules for tournament fishing, and I don't know enough about the site that it is on, what agenda it might have etc. If the petition was coming from some source that I knew and trusted I'd be much more likely to sign. But I think CS is probably just trying to do a good thing, bringing to light a questionable method that may cause harm to fish populations, and maybe that's worth thinking about before folks continue to berate him. Until moderators say otherwise it's his right to post the petition.

Sounds good. I have always heard good things about Roaring River. I'll freely admit that is the only park I've never spent much time fishing...It's unfortunately located in the opposite corner of the state from me. But I'll have to get down there sometime soon.

I enjoyed your (slightly illegal) report. During the winter hatches, if you're not sure what bug is hatching (and I usually am not either) a tiny Adams (think a #18 or even down to #22 or 24 if you enjoy a good headache) is usually a pretty good pattern to start with. Generally you're talking about either midges or little olives hatching this time of year. Occasionally you'll get a good afternoon caddis hatch but that's the exception to the rule. Glad you had a good time, it's sure nice down there in the winter isn't it? As for where you fished, yes, it's illegal to fish there during the winter, but an understandable mistake that would be easy for anyone to make. The signage is very poor ( I believe there is one sign in that stretch of stream saying that it's closed to fishing), and when I went down to that part of the creek to look around last weekend it was down, pretty well out of sight unless you were specifically looking for it. The MDC really ought to either get rid of the rule or get better signage up.

I somehow doubt Kayser is either a pregnant woman or nursing:) Sorry, couldn't resist that one.

Very nice. To catch your first few wild trout on your first trip to Blue Springs is worth getting excited about. It can be a very tough little creek to fish.

Thanks, that's sort of what I was looking to do.