ozark trout fisher

I would love to go, but there's no way I can make it down there two weekends in a row. Last weekend it was very good. Small peach and tri-color egg patterns were the key, and the riffles and pools upstream from the mill dam were red-hot. I expect it should be similar this weekend, but who knows for sure. Good luck.

Like many trout fisherman in Missouri, I tend to avoid the trout parks most of the year. From March 1st to October 31st, fishing at Montauk, Maramec, Bennett, and Roaring River State Park can be an exercise in frustration for those of us who like a little bit of quiet and solitude on the stream. But during the winter season, from the second week of November to the second week of February, it is a different matter entirely. It is often possible to be able to have long stretches of water to yourself in areas where you would be dealing with combat fishing conditions most of the year. And best of all, the trout during the wintertime are stocked a bit less frequently, which means that fly anglers can often have better success with traditional fly fishing methods, often including dry flies. The first thing that must be talked about is the regulations you'll need to follow. During the winter, fishing is catch and release, fly fishing only. Before I go on, it's necessary to define what a a "fly" actually is in Missouri. Essentially any single hooked artificial lure, with any kind of fur or feather on it is okay to use. This means marabou jigs, egg patterns, and most types single hooked spinners are legal to use, and it's not necessary to use a fly rod. However, anything with treble hooks, soft-plastics, or anything scented is illegal. If you have any questions about what is and what isn't okay to use, be sure to ask someone at the park store of whichever state park you are fishing. Unlike during the regular season, you won't need a daily tag. You will need a valid fishing license and a trout stamp. The parks are open to fishing Friday-Monday, from 8 AM-4PM. The exception is Maramec Spring Park, which is open every day. The fishing itself is usually considerably less complicated than the regulations. The trout during the winter season don't see nearly as much pressure as they do the rest of the year, and the trout numbers also tend to be very high. If you're fly fishing, generally the first fly you should try is an egg pattern. Whether an egg pattern is actually a fly or not is an argument for another day, but the small jig-head egg patterns sold at most of the park stores work very well. Peach, tri-color, and orange are usually the best colors, but white, pink, and other colors can often work very well. Usually the best way to fish an egg pattern is to suspend it under a small strike indicator. I like to use the small stick-on variety, because they are very sensitive to the light strikes that are so common during the winter. Set your indicator about as deep, or in some cases slightly deeper than the water you are fishing. Usually the trout are feeding near the bottom, so it is best to start this way. Other times however (especially in slow water) the fish will be suspended, so if this isn't working it's always a good idea to adjust the depth a bit before changing flies. While egg patterns are usually the most effective way to catch winter fish in the parks, many other fly patterns work very well. Soft hackle wet flies are often very good, and fishing them on the swing can be very exciting, often resulting in vicious strikes just as the fly swings directly downstream of you. Woolly buggers also work very well fished in a similar matter, and various nymphs under an indicator are often the ticket. Among the best are Hare's Ears, Pheasant Tails, Princes, and Scud patterns, in #14-18. Warm winter days can provide some of the most exciting fly fishing in the trout parks. Often on the afternoons of days that are well above freezing, various midges, mayflies, and caddis flies can hatch. This can often lead to excellent dry fly fishing. It's never a good idea to go to any of the trout parks in winter without a good selection of Adams, Elk Hair Caddis, Griffith's Gnats, and other dry flies in various sizes ranging from #14-24. Sometimes even when bugs aren't hatching, trout can be brought up to various attractor dries, like Royal Wulffs, Ausable Wulffs, Cracklebacks, and Renegades. There are few things more exciting than watching a large, brilliantly colored winter rainbow rise up and take a big dry fly. Spin-fisherman can often do just as well as fly fishers during the winter season. Although legal spin-fishing options are just a bit more limited than those of the fly fisher, that doesn't mean that anglers wanting to use jigs and spinners can't have a great day on the water. Far and away the best option for spin-fisherman is to toss tiny, 1/32 or 1/64 ounce marabou jigs. White, pink, black, yellow, and olive all work, just depending on the day. Some fisherman prefer to dead drift them under small bobbers or indicators, while others choose to go with a more active presentation, retrieving and "twitching" them in. Spin-fisherman can also make use of egg patterns and other flies fished under small floats. Small single hooked spinners, especially Rooster Tails, are very popular. Spinners work best on warmer days when trout are more active and inclined to chase down a fast moving lure. Although your choice of a fly or lure is important, I would argue that it is not the most important factor for success. The water tends to be very clear during the winter season, so it is imperative to use light line or tippet. 6x tippet or two pound test is perfect. While I find light line to be important, a long leader, especially when fishing a nymph-indicator rig, is not necessary and actually more of a hindrance than a help. For subsurface fishing, 9 to 9 1/2 feet is plenty, and makes casting a lot easier than trying to juggle a 12 or 14 leader. If you're fly fishing, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to mend well, and to get drag-free drifts. Often short casts are better than long ones for this reason, because when you're casting across the whole river, chances are your line is lying across several speeds of current. This doesn't allow for any kind of a natural drift without constant mending. Short, precise casts allow for good drifts, easier hook-sets, and generally a lot less headaches. While the generally low and clear water can make the fish a bit spooky, it also allows for excellent sight fishing, and often the most successful method is to target a specific pod of fish and focus on getting as many good drifts past them as possible. Once you find a good spot, instead of trying to cover a lot of water, stay put and figure out what fly and what kind of drift the fish in your area prefer. Your patience will usually be rewarded. This covers most of the basics about fishing our trout parks during the winter. This isn't intended to talk about the more complicated aspects of winter fishing, such as the necessary techniques to catch the larger, 4-5 pound trout. Why? because in all honestly I don't know a great deal about trophy fishing, though it is something I'm trying to learn. But I hope that this is helpful to those who haven't done much winter trout fishing and are looking to try something new.

Sounds good! The winter lakes are a great place to hone your fly fishing skills.

It is that.

I realize I'm very late on this, but I promised to post pictures and then realized I never did. Like I said, just scenery, river pics, and not even a lot of those. I tend to get distracted from taking pictures when the fishing is good! Anyway, here's a few...

I've long since given up trying to figure out why certain flies catch trout and others don't. For one thing it's really impossible to know for sure, and for another, I just don't care all that much. For example, the fact that trout in the blue ribbon stretch of the Current are more than happy to eat egg patterns in the middle of July doesn't make sense on any level, but they do, so I fish with them and pretty much don't care why it works.

I haven't fished the Current as long as some of the folks on here, but I still feel that I can give a good basic list. 1. Egg patterns!!!- I can't emphasize enough how important they are. They are the one fly to have on the Current. I use the smallest ones that they sell in the park store, bead-headed. Peach, tri-color, and orange all work well. I use egg patterns about 90% of the time when I am fishing the Blue Ribbon stretch of the Current. There are times when they don't work, but they are few and far between. 2. Bead-head Hare's Ear Nymphs #14-18- Good imitators of the many lighter colored mayfly nymphs in the river, and also a passable scud imitation. 3. Pheasant Tail Nymph #14-18- A good imitation of the darker colored mayfly nymphs. Probably the second most consistent fly on the Current. 4. Adams #12-22- A good imitation of the various mayflies that hatch on the river. 5. Elk Hair Caddis #12-18- A must have for the many caddis hatches that occur year round on the Current 6. Griffith's Gnat #18-24- Necessary for the tiny midges and trico hatches that constantly drive me nuts 7. Dave's Hopper #4-12- For late summer hopper fishing and use as an indicator in a dry-dropper rig 8. Ant Patterns-also for summer and fall terrestrial fishing 9. Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle #14-18- A good all around wet-fly, especially good when caddis are emerging. 10. Beadhead Woolly Bugger #4-12, olive and black- An excellent streamer for big browns in the larger sizes, and the smaller sizes are good for stocker sized rainbows when swung or drifted under an indicator. Unless I'm forgetting something I think that about covers it. Good luck.

I agree with Thom, don't I wouldn't pay too much mind to the people who are getting all upset about this. Small potatoes. I'd probably take more fish pictures if I could just start catching a few that are big enough to be worth the trouble:)

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. I do have some pictures, though admittedly just scenery pics (I didn't find any of the trout to be large enough to warrant a picture). I will post them as soon as I get a chance.

After having not been down there for so long that I really don't want to talk about it, I spent this weekend camping and fishing along the Current. It was a great time, the weather a perfect mix of frigid cold (Sunday morning when I started fishing the temperature was 17) to today, when I was fishing in 70 degree weather. The fishing was simply lights out for the most part, as I've come to expect down there during the winter, although there were a few times when they made you work for them. Saturday I got down to Baptist about 3 PM and started working my way down right away. I tied on a tri-color egg pattern and immediately started getting into fish, mostly small rainbows. The fish were really concentrated in the riffles and pocket water, and they weren't difficult to catch at all. What these fish lacked in size, they made up for it in their coloration, another really wonderful thing I've come to look for in winter fishing down there. Right at dark I hooked into a very large rainbow,but after a short fight it managed to straighten out the hook. The next morning I decided to try something a bit different. I have spent a great deal of time fishing downstream from Baptist, but I haven't fished the stretch between it and Tan Vat very much. So I decided to head over to Baptist again, and fish the whole stretch from Baptist to Tan Vat and back down again. The fishing started off very slow in the cold weather, and things weren't helped by the usual problems one encounters fly fishing in cold weather, primarily frozen rod guides. But when the temperature got up into the 30s (and eventually the 40s) the river really came to life. Through the afternoon a variety of bugs were hatching and I managed to get a few on dries, the best being a #16 Adams. When they weren't rising, there were always fish willing to go for egg patterns, as well as soft hackles about any other kind of nymph you wanted to throw at them. This morning I decided to head up to the park (something I rarely do anymore) to see how the crowds were. There were only 3 cars in the parking lot by the mill-dam, so I decided to head up to the fly fishing only area to see what I could scare up. All the fisherman were in the mill-dam hole, so I had all the nice riffles and pools above there for myself, which is quite a novel thing at Montauk Park. The fishing was as good as you would expect it to be on a warm winter day with no other fisherman around, and the trout seemed to be a bit bigger than average too, though no lunkers. I caught fish on just about every fly in my box, egg patterns, woolly buggers, hare's ears, and even a couple on an elk hair caddis. It was a great day to end a very nice weekend on the river.

Whether or not you have a point about the ethics of taking pictures of wild trout like that, there is a right way and a wrong way to say things sometimes. And this is definitely the wrong way. Nice fish by the way.

In my decidedly unprofessional opinion, I tend to agree with you that there is probably a small breeding population of mountain lions in Missouri. But what in your opinion would be the proper way to "deal with them?"

I see what you're saying and I can respect that, but when you get down to the actual likelihood of a mountain lion attack, well maybe compared to some of the other dangers we all face in our lives it's just not worth worrying about. Even in Colorado or Montana or California or any other area where there are heavy mountain lion populations, the chances of getting attacked are so small as to negligible. Yes, it happens occasionally, but better to spend our time worrying about car accidents or drowning or getting struck by lightning or any of the other things that are infinitely more likely to cause us any real trouble. Of course that doesn't mean that as mountain lions (and bears for that matter) become more common in our state that we shouldn't take some basic precautions, but I don't think it's anything to lose any sleep over. And mountain lions that are shown to be causing trouble with humans of course need to be dealt with, but the rest I really think we ought to leave alone.

I would second the Baptist to Cedar float. I like that water a lot better than below Cedar, though it's all good. I usually do pretty well on beadhead egg patterns this time of year on the Current, although I'll confess to not having been down there in a bit.

The owners will try to run you off...But legally, it probably isn't trespassing.

Not too awful bad I guess... I got into a whole bunch of stocking size rainbows, not much else though.

I enjoyed that report a great deal. I too haven't been on the Current as much as I'd like, your report reminds me how badly I need to get down there.

Very nice, that's a very pretty brown. I had meant to be get down there yesterday,but ended up on the Meramec instead.

No browns, not a single one. If there were any disappointments today (and there weren't really) that would be it. The only fish of any size I even saw was a pig rainbow right at the confluence, though I didn't stop to try to catch the thing.

Nice fish!

Thanks, it was a good time. The Red Ribbon section is the water from the Highway 8 Bridge to the Scotts Ford Bridge...But primarily the good trout water is from Maramec Spring down 3-4 miles. Today I was just fishing the first mile or so below Maramec Spring, down to a little ways past where the dry fork dumps in.

Well, I went down to the trout section of the Meramec River today, and here follows the most boring fishing report in the history of the world The Red Ribbon stretch of the Meramec River is maybe the most inconsistent trout stream I've ever fished. Often the fish are sulking to the point that they can make you think that there aren't any trout in the river. Other days the fishing is just silly. This was one of those times. The fish were easy to find in the usual places, and they were much less finicky than I've come to expect, responding very well to egg patterns as well as various other nymphs. There is really only so much one can really write about such a day; the fish were stacked up like cordwood in the good holes, they were hungry, and I caught fish until I began to feel it was pointless. No real skill was necessary, all it took was keeping the fly in the water and the trout would pretty much take care of the rest. Just one of those days. The Meramec so rarely fishes well anymore that I was more than a little surprised. Number wise, it was far and away the best day I've had on the Red Ribbon section, but that isn't saying a lot as I tend to get skunked at least half of the time I fish there. I didn't catch any big fish, just a bunch of stocker sized rainbows, 10-15 inches, though the coloration of a few indicated they had been in the river for awhile. The only real difficulties came in the wading (due to the high water, which caused a few adventurous moments) and casting (because of the wind, which made fishing next to impossible at times.) It was a good day for sure, just not too much to write about.

If you happen to have a few hours extra time on your hands to go a bit out of the way,]you might consider heading up to Maramec Spring...That's definitely where the easiest fishing along the Meramec is during the winter, as trout don't slow down nearly so much in the cold weather as bass and other warm-water fish do. Little 1/32 ounce Marabou jigs (white especially, but pink, black, and yellow also work), small single hooked spinners, and beadheaded egg patterns fishing under a little bobber or strike indicator. An added bonus is that it will be a lot better for bank fishing. It's usually not all that complicated, and quite a bit easier than trying to catch bass off the bank this time of year on the lower part of the river. Although with this warm weather we're having the river bass fishing may be a little better than it would usually be in late December.

Will do.

Thanks all...I'm definitely looking forward to getting down there. Been tying flies like a fiend.