ozark trout fisher

It was a good thing you did Chief. Maybe I will never float or fish Shoal Creek, but this kind of thing concerns all of us.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/article_2685cdc5-33a0-5e11-af76-254ce493ce42.html Senate Bill 300 passed unanimously, a bill which would threaten to take away the authority of the Missouri Conservation Commission to manage wildlife, putting that authority instead into the hands of politicians. I have often been critical of the MDC, but in many ways they have saved this state from ecological ruin, and we wouldn't have much to fish or hunt for if they hadn't been the primary wildlife management force in our state. This bill must not pass in the house of representatives. By all means read more and learn as much as you can about this. Then write your representative, and tell them why you think politics should not be involved in wildlife management.

That's just messed up bro. I think its stupid to live in a town located in a floodplain, especially after '93, but to actually wish for the levee to fail (which would almost inevitably cause loss of human life) is not an opinion you should voice on a public forum. Keep that to yourself if you must feel that way.

Do you have anything constructive to add? A lot of folks on here are argument prone, but most of them post fishing reports and help out with advice when the opportunity arises. If you're not going to do that then why are you on here?

I voted yes. It is an incredibly hard decision, and I'm sure glad I don't have to make it. But if you're going to have to flood land, it should be in an area that is not densely populated. And it should also be controlled, so that the flooding is expected and doesn't catch folks off guard. But I don't think development in flood plains is a good idea at all. I think of all those people that live in say, Chesterfield bottoms, and I wonder what the hell they're thinking. It's only a matter of time. Levees won't keep the river out forever.

That's pretty cool. Right now I am in the beginning stages of trying to start to become a published outdoor writer...But it's hard to find publications for what I do. The kind of writing I really enjoy is outdoor prose, more the philosophy of it than the how-to stuff, and in the grand scheme of things there isn't much market for that. But I will keep on trying, and in any case, I just enjoy writing for its own sake more than anything else (except fishing.) If I never make a penny on any of my writings it still won't be a waste.

I have to say I agree pretty strongly with that post. But really, this whether or not the murderer was an illegal immigrant is kinda beside the point. He is a bad, crazy, probably evil human being, but that doesn't anything to do his country of origin or his immigration status. There are some full-blooded Americans that are just as bad as this guy, I'm afraid to say. Mainly what happened was a tragedy. It is beyond horrible to hear of something like that happening to people that were just swimming on an Ozark creek.

My bad.

Anyone know why that thread is locked? I have now read the entire thread, and I don't see any grounds whatsoever for that. These things are important and this seems to be the right platform to discuss them. Maybe I am missing something major, who knows. Maybe it's just my computer?

I believe that if someone interferes or harrasses with a person fishing within the banks of a stream or river that has been accessed by way of a public boat launch put in by the Missouri Department of Conservation, then the harrasser/interferer should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The state of Missouri has laws in place to keep this from happening and yet it still happens all the time. The only way to stop this type of harrassment and intimidation is to punish the law breakers. This stream, Shoal Creek, has obviously been deemed navigatable by someone in the higher powers of the states government, or the MDC would not have put a public boat launch on the stream in order for the public to navigate it. I, David Mann, demand that something be done in order to correct this wrong doing and to insure that it does not happen again.

I agree with you about the zone systems at the trout parks. It bothered me at one time, but now I'm pretty sure that it is the best way for every one to have a chance at an enjoyable experience at the parks. I don't know about Bennett specifically, but I do think all the parks should have at least a short C&R section. Gold Ribbon Areas... An interesting idea. I am assuming that would mean catch and release, artificials or flies only? I can think of several areas that would benefit from that management right off the top of my head-mostly stretches of water that receive very heavy fishing pressure, where just a small percentage of folks keeping a legal fish can really hurt things. The Current between the lower boundary of Montauk and Baptist Camp would be one good candidate. That stretch of the Current is very small (its really a creek, not a river) and it gets enormous pressure. A stretch of stream like that can only produce a limited number of trophy sized fish, and I think they should stay in the river. There are more deep pools below Baptist, and there is also less concentrated fishing pressure, so I think the management there is fine as it is. Also some of the smaller wild trout streams that have very few large fish would be good candidates- Blue Springs or Mill Creek for example-no one needs to be keeping any of the few trophy fish on a creek like that. I got a little far afield on that one, didn't I?

That is a technique that I employed for many years and also rarely gut-hooked fish... I have almost entirely given up bait and spin-fishing for trout and bass in flowing water (with the exception of some smallmouth trips when I break out the Rebel Craws), but it doesn't have much to do with the deep hooking aspect-if you're doing it right fishing with a tight line and setting the hook right away you won't deal with it much. That is a point that got me into a lot of arguments in my first year or two posting on OAF when I still bait fished a lot, but it is one that I still stand by. The problem is, most people don't do it the right way. If you just let your bait sit on the bottom of a pool and wait for the line to go tight, you'll deep hook them about every time. That is the reason why bait fishing has to be banned on so many stretches of good trout water. It's a shame really. If folks were just responsible about it, it wouldn't have to be that way.

It's a wide variety for me. Led Zeppelin is my all-time favorite band, and you can't go wrong there-although listening to Jimmy Page play the guitar for two straight hours can mess up the relaxed pace of fly fishing a little. Also the Styx, Doobie Brother, Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and a million more. I also find myself listening to Johnny Cash quite often on the way to the stream. Nothing like the Fulsome Prison Blues to get you into the mood for fishing............. I am in general not that into the new stuff-with exceptions, Shinedown being a major one.

Nice report. The pond fishing sure is hot right now. I got out one about a half mile from my house last night and caught a nice mess of redears and bluegill, along with one nice bass. But I think that the bass was on its bed, as were most of the other bass in the pond in the 11" up range. I didn't mean to catch it but I let her go really quick. I was reminded how good panfish taste when they are fried up about an hour after they're caught. Nothing better. I love pond fishing... It's different from trout fishing but I like it almost as much.

The problem is fixed. Pics are up.

Pictures are up on my blog now along with a more detailed report. The link is in my signature.

The caddis were very few and far between. I was really surprised at how few bugs of any sort came off over the weekend, even in the late evening when something almost always comes off. But it may well be different in a couple days. The fish were feeding actively, it was just about all subsurface though.

Yeah, they sure are cover oriented. I honestly don't have that much experience fighting larger trout on a fly rod, but even though I didn't land the bigger fish I still feel like I learned something. I guess maybe that will come in time. Troutfiend, the Current is kind of a mess in the summer, but there are ways to get around it and still have some good fishing. Not many people put in upstream of Baptist Camp, so you won't deal with many canoes up there, although there will be plenty of wade fisherman. But if you are willing to fish early morning, or late evening, when the fishing is best anyway during the summer, you can fish anywhere you like without canoes bothering you much. Honestly, during mid-day in summer (when the canoes are thick) the fishing will be pretty slow anyway even without canoes, so it kind of works out. A typical mid-summer day on the Current for me involves getting up really early in the morning to fish, staying out until about 9:30, then going swimming, sightseeing, or otherwise killing time until about 6:30. Then I get back on the water and fish hard until after dark. Also if you can go on a weekday that will help tremendously.

Well, amid all the uncertainty of the government shutting down, closures, etc, I drove down to the Current on Friday not knowing what to expect. I didn't know if the government was going to be shut down or what, or if I'd find myself getting kicked off the river at some point. But I figured I'd go down there and fish until I was told I couldn't... I drove into my regular campsite along the banks of the lower reaches of the Blue Ribbon area about a half-hour after sunset on Friday night and set up camp. Even though it was pretty dark, I could see that the river was flowing normal (maybe even a little low for this time of year) and clear. When I woke up the next morning at about 5:30, it was stormy, rainy, and generally nasty. But as soon as dawn came the clouds departed and the sun came out. By just a few minutes after dawn, I was on the river with an egg pattern tied on, working my way down river from camp. The river was some kind of beautiful in the early morning light, with the red-buds and dogwoods blooming on the mountainsides and the flowers in full bloom on the river valley. In the riffle just below camp I almost immediately got my first hook-up, a mid-sized rainbow that got off pretty quick. The next fish was a very nice brown. I fought him for quite awhile before he got into a root-wad and broke me off. Just 15 or 20 minutes in, and 0 for 2, including one really nice fish lost...Maybe this was going to be a long day. I worked my way down the long, slow hole below the riffle. The pool averages about 3.5-4 feet deep, and is very slow moving and glassy. This particular pool looks a lot like the over-sized spring creek that the upper Current actually is. Soon I hooked up again, another good sized brown, but not as large as the one I'd just lost. I fought this one for about ten minutes, and he came near to breaking me off a couple times in a root-wad just like the other one. But this fish was brought to hand, a beauty of a brown trout in the 15 inch range and a very nice first fish for the trip. I had spooked the pool fighting the browny (I had 6X tippet, and you have to follow a fish around if it's of any size) so I worked my way down to the next deep pool, this one deeper, narrow, and faster moving. It looked about as fishy as can be. But I wasn't a able to get so much as a nibble there, so I worked my way down to the next riffle right at the mouth of one of the upper Current's largest feeder creeks (if you know the Current well this will give away where I was fishing...it's not really a big secret anyway.) Where a fallen tree created a cushion in the fast current, I caught a nice rainbow, about 14". Then I moved down to the next pool, which is even deeper and more beautiful than the one above. Probably the best looking pool I have ever seen on a trout stream anywhere-it just screamed ten pound brown trout. But I do not really have the skill level or the patience truth be told to go after the hogs, so after a few drifts with my egg pattern I moved on down to the next riffle, where I really got into the rainbows again. It went on that way until about 10:30, when it got deadly hot. It was too hot for fisherman and fish, and went back in the woods behind camp, ate lunch, read, and generally chilled out until about 5 P.M. In the evening, the fishing started off very slow (read non-existent) but the last hour before dark was great, with quite a few rainbows caught and many more lost. It was what you would expect to see on a July day, not in April. I fished again this morning from sunrise to 10 A.M., and I did fairly well with the rainbows again, including one clearly wild 7" rainbow. I was an awesome trip all said. Fly-wise... I didn't experiment on this trip. I never tied on anything but Beadhead egg patterns. Peach, Tri-color, and Orange all worked equally well. Pictures are coming on my blog by this evening.

Well last night something happened for me that hasn't happened yet this year... I caught my first bass and bluegill on dry flies for the year. I got out on the lake near my house for about an hour right before dark, and they were absolutely all over my #8 Dave's Hopper:bass and bluegill. There were all kinds of bugs on the water and the fish were going crazy on the surface. I didn't get any big ones, but it was still all kinds of fun. I know a hopper isn't a terribly logical fly to use in April, but it works. I don't know what they take it for, probably they are just feeding opportunistically. It's that time of year again-dig out the topwater bugs and get out on the ponds folks.

It has been altogether to long since I have stood in the Current River (we are talking a matter of a couple of months, which is pretty sickening...I like to try to get down there every two weeks), but I am breaking the drought this weekend. I'm headed down Friday for a camp trip, and, unless the T-storms get too intense, I may well be there till Sunday. I'll be camping at a little place that I have come to like a lot almost within sight of the stream, along the Blue Ribbon area. I hope they are hitting (a good caddis hatch or two would be most welcome), but at this point I don't care too much. Just spending a couple days and a couple nights along the river will be plenty good enough. Naturally I'll be posting a report when I get back.

I'd save the money. The biggest benefit I see with Flouro is I think it's stronger than mono. But it just isn't worth breaking the bank and after messing around with flouro for a little I've gone back to all mono.

I lived in Craig for five years so I know that area pretty well. The Yampa River running through the town of Craig is primarily smallie and pike water-but the trout are in there, mostly rainbows. It used to be very solid trout water right in town, but now you have to look a little harder for them. But they are in there and you can catch some if you are willing to work hard enough. Way up in the Steamboat area on the Yampa is where you go if you like the "Orvis experience" as I call it. Crowds, out of staters, and tailwater fishing for lots of nice trout. Not my thing but it might be yours. For a good balance, the stretch below Steamboat to Hayden still has a very solid trout fishery without the crowds, and that is not far from Craig at all, just a few miles up river. You really do not have to get very far above Craig before you start running into some stretches that have good concentrations of trout-you just have to look for the faster moving "trouty" water, as there is quite a bit of slow stuff that isn't going to be productive most of the time. Between Steamboat Springs and Craig there are some excellent floating opportunities for both trout and pike, but there are plenty of accesses to get in and wade at too. That water is lonely and beautiful as it gets as it winds through the desert-like foot-hills on the West-slope of the Rockies. It is in mind the ideal trout stream, you can find places with more fish, but in my opinion you can't find a river where the experience is better all around. But maybe I'm biased. In Routt National Forest very near town there are countless opportunities for mountain trout fishing. There are lots of good mountain lakes and creeks in the National Forest for both cutthroat and rainbows that you will have to find out about yourself. I will give you one solid tip for a lake very near town called Freedman Reservoir. It is fairly well-known and stocked pretty regularly during the summer, so I don't feel the harm of posting about it here. You'll find excellent cutthroat fishing there number-wise, honestly some of the easiest fishing in the area. And it's in some of the most beautiful mountain country you'll find in Colorado. The Flat-top Wilderness isn't far either, and there you have even better mountain fishing for native cutties-especially at Trappers Lake which has the best heritage Colorado River cutthroat fishery in the nation and is maybe the best still-water dry fly fishery in America. That lake you can drive to and as such is the most famous, but the Flat-top Wilderness is mainly a destination for hike-in fishing, and there are all kinds of awesome hike-in cutthroat lakes if you're willing to put in a hard day's work, naturally none of which I am going to tell you about. The White River flows out of the Flat-tops near the Meeker area and it is awesome for for rainbows, cutties, and browns as well-there are some big fish in that river if you know where to look. Have a good time out there and treat those places well. I love that country up there, especially the Yampa River.

Honestly, if I were you I wouldn't spend my time on the Roaring Fork or the Pan. There are lots of fish there for sure, and some hogs, but the fishing isn't really any better than some of the less crowded streams. And you will have A LOT of company if you fish on those rivers, especially the Fryingpan. Not to mention access is not the best. If you're not wanting to go to the far corners of the state , I'd reccommend some of the smaller streams in the Rocky Mountain National Park/Estes Park region... St. Vrain River (and especially its forks), Glacier Creek, and Big Thompson, along with a whole bunch more in that area. Those streams get fished too, but nothing like the Fryingpan or the Fork. The fish aren't very big, but there are plenty of them and the beautiful country makes up for the size.There are also some awesome cutthroat lakes in the mountains in the park and surrounding Forest Service land-some of the most amazing scenery in the world and beautiful native fish, you can't beat that. High summer is the time to fish in that area especially if you're wanting to fish up high. I wouldn't go much if any earlier than July 15th or later than the last week in August if you want a pretty good assurance of success. I am primarily a small stream guy, and so my advice usually goes in that direction. But if its big fish you want, then in the Denver area your best bet is probably going to be Cheesman Canyon on the South Platte. It's crowded like the Fryingpan, and the fish are super selective. I won't hide the fact that I have never really been able to figure out that stretch of water the few times I've fished and have only caught a few there. But there are certainly some really nice fish in that stretch of river. Cheesman Canyon is hike-in water and strikingly beautiful, even compared to other Colorado trout streams. It's the kind of place you really have to see to believe.

I'm not seeing anything wrong with the Current at all... As a matter of fact, I've been thinking about it pretty much every waking hour for the last week or so. I'm heading down for a camp trip down on the lower stretches of the Blue Ribbon area on Friday and Saturday, and the way I'm feeling about it right now it may as well be Montana.