ozark trout fisher

While obviously the vast majority will be stocked in a river like the Niangua, I wouldn't rule it out that there are occasional wild trout to be found. I'm not saying with any certainty that that is what you caught, I'm just saying its a possibility. Any stream that holds trout year round is bound to have a few wild trout I would think, but maybe I'm wrong. You usually can tell whether a fish is wild or stocked, but its not a foolproof deal. I have caught fish that looked very wild right out of Montauk, and I'm guessing they weren't. But pretty generally, you can tell. Lots of times, fish that appear wild, but aren't actually, are stockies that have been in the river a long time, and they begin to appear more like wild fish. I can tell more during the fight than I can after I catch the fish, wild trout fight 2x as hard as stocky the same size.

Truman is definitely your best bet for catfish. Tons of Channel Cats, and some huge blues as well. I've done extremely well down towards the dam for eating size channel cats (along with plenty of whites, walleye, and crappie). Definitely the best lake for catfish in the state. Lower Bull Shoals is also great, I caught the biggest catfish of my life down there, a 25 pound Blue caught on a live sunfish. Table Rock definitely has plenty of channel cats for sure, I've heard the James River arm is good, but I'm sure they are spread throughout the entire lake, with the exception of the Arkansas portion of the lake at the upper end, where its mostly trout. I know there are also fair numbers of flatheads and blues in the lake, but I'm not sure to what extent, or where to find them. As for bait, for measuring size channel cats, live nightcrawlers and chicken liver are great. For blues and flatheads, live fish, especially sunnies, have worked well for me. 3 to 5 inches should be the right size.

For ten or fifteen miles, I could reccomend a couple. Scotts Ford to Fishing Spring road would be one, I think its like eleven miles. But personally, I would suggest Onondaga Cave to Blue Spring Creek Access. Thats almost exactly ten miles, and an excellent one day float for some really big smallies. Its not technically a management area, but the fishing for smallies is about the best it gets on the river. Also, you might well run into a few wild trout down near the mouth of Blue Springs Creek, although thats very inconsistant. You could also run Sand Ford to Pickle Ford access. The fishing is still pretty good, although not quite as good. You'll encounter some spotted and largemouth bass this far downstream in pretty good numbers, but smallies are still pretty abundant. Good luck, and have fun.

I think that, overall, Missouri trout stocking is fine as is. There are a few exceptions. Roubidoux is obviously a mess, but just about any put and take stream in the middle of a town would be. Stocking fingerlings here would be okay, but you would have to put a length limit, if you didn't want all the trout in the stream to be put on ice before they were 7" long. I know its hard to believe, but there are plenty of people out there that would keep a 7 or 8 inch trout. Red Ribbon stocking, I think is about perfect. Two of our three Red Ribbon streams are top quality trout streams (Meramec and NFOW). Roubidoux's Red ribbon area clearly isn't top quality. I attribute that more to warm water temperatures, because the MDC decided to put the Red Ribbon area on the lower reaches of the stream where the water gets a lot warmer in the summer. I think maybe they should make the first two miles below the spring red ribbon, and below there, put a mile or so of white ribbon. But all in all, I think the way Missouri stocks its streams is fine.

Thats exactly my way of thinking. These catch and release debates around here are actually pretty funny. It usually goes something like this............... Someone, lets say his username is CatchnFry will say this Went down to the local smallie creek. Caught a limit of smallies off there bed. Man did they taste good fried up with Andy's. Only ended up being able to eat one before they spoiled. Fed the rest to my dogs.... Then, someone, lets call them CnRGuy, comes on and says this How dare you ever keep a bass. Those things are like my pets. I can't believe people like you thinking you can kill as many bass as you well please. Then Catch n Fry will come back on to respond. It usually sounds something like this Those bass are just fish. Heck, don't they reproduce every year, its not like were gonna fish them out. Who releases bass, that went out of style years ago? I fry up every one I catch, and it is my god-given right........ And so it goes, the eternal argument. Off course this was extremely exaggeratting both sides of the argument, but you get the idea. And if anyone on this forum actually has one of the usernames I mentioned jokingly, its purely coincidental :lol:

I don't know Table Rock, but I would consider myself a halfway experienced bass fisherman in other Missouri lakes. So I guess I'll give you a little useless advice. Get plenty of 1/4 ounce yellow spinnerbaits, with willow leaf blades (actually it really doesn't matter what kind of blade it has). Get some five inch zoom curly tail worms. You can rig them Texas style, Carolina Style, or drop shot style (if you're not sure how to do one of these rigs, say so, and I or someone else can explain). Fish them slowly, and then slow down a little more. You want it to stay on the bottom. I would guess by August the bass will be on the outside areas of creeks arms, and points should be a good place to hit them. I'd confine most of my fishing in 5" to 15" feet of water. You might have to go deeper if you want walleye or white bass. You shouldn't need a depth finder. Generally, in those clear corp of engineer lakes I've found the best fishing about as far down as I can see the bottom, especially in late summer. With that said, some electronics would be a mighty good asset to you. Also, bring along some devil horses, Poprs, Black Jitterbugs, and other topwaters. They'll work well in the mornings, evenings, and the middle of the night. Actually, if you do any night fishing (which might not be a bad idea), you probably won't need anything but black Jitterbugs and black buzzbaits. Bass love black after dark, don't ask me why. Hope this helps.

We'll just say the name of this topic, was, we'll say attention grabbing :lol: :lol: :lol:

Your fine. No one is pissed off, or thinks your an idiot (at least not me, and I doubt anywhere else) :lol:

My opinion, is that anyone's opinion is fine, as long as they don't force it on anyone else.............. I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Nothing wrong with keeping one occasionally, but if you're taking a limit home every day just to fill your freezer, I'm not sure that's right. The exception would be if you really need the meat to get by. But honestly, these big corp of engineer lakes have plenty of room for both some catch and release, and catch and keep people. I don't see the need for the constant argument. Please lets not have another one of these debates. We just got done with one on the Table Rock Forum Of course we could make it so we have at least once catch and release debate on every lake's forum. Don't want to make any feel left out. I'd say Bull Shoals should be next on the least, then maybe Truman. We should make it a rotation. :lol: :lol:

What a jerk.

Fished my home lake last night (well technically today), and the big boys were hitting black walmart brand 1/2 ounce spinnerbaits. 19"largemouth, 21" largemouth, 17" largemouth, 12" crappie, 27" channel cat. Numerous (maybe 10 or so), bass under 15". I was bank fishing off one particular point the entire night. Went from 1 AM to 5 AM. All were released, and with only a cell phone to take pictures with, none came out well enough to even see the fish. This is by far my best day or night fishing this particular lake. I've been hearing similar reports that people have just been tearing the fish up lately. I wonder if it has to do with the weather, or the moon or some weird thing like that LOL

Thats impressive. Its been a long time since I've done that well on an Ozark stream. Thats a pretty incredible catch anywhere here in Missouri, let alone outside of a trout park. By the way, read some of your articles from hub. They're excellent. Especially the one about trout fishing in the Ozarks. I write a few articles for ezine (its basically the same thing as hub), but there not nearly as good. Heck, I learned more than a few things from it myself. And by the way, I have "hobo dinner" after about every float fishing trip LOL

Wow, thanks. That really helps me realize what to expect. Sounds like the rapid above Riverton is actually worse than Mary Deckar. Oh well, it might be kinda fun. Its been so long since I've been able to go on a multi day float trip on an Ozark Stream, its gonna be fun.

Wow, thanks. That really helps me realize what to expect. Sounds like the rapid above Riverton is actually worse than Mary Deckar. Oh well, it might be kinda fun.

It is more than possible that a few rainbows slip in each year, maybe as many as 100 or so a year, to make a wild guess. But considering there is about 1000 wild rainbow trout per mile in the most productive sections on the NFOW,, and about 15 miles of productive trout water, that spreads those stocked trout genes out pretty thin. . Also, stocked rainbows generally don't spawn very well in the wild until they become better adapted, so I would say we have little to worry about. Thats my .02

I'm sorry, but I have to share this. I was checking out Missouri fishing forums today, and I came across one called MO Fishing Forum. It is completely taken over by spammers, and post of them post things that I'm guessing aren't exactly G-rated. I tried to contact the forum administrator to unload my anger at them for allowing such a terrible fishing site to be on the internet, but they made you jump over about a thousand hoops to even send an email. So, I decided to forget about it. The moral of the story? We need good moderators like Phil Lilley and the rest of the administrators. You don't realize how important it is until you try going to other forums, and attempt to wade through all the spam.

Complain? I appreciate any answer I can get LOL Well, I think we got it all planned out. We're gonna do it like this.... Day 1. Cane Bluff to Greer, Day 2. Greer to Turner, Day 3. Turner to Whitten, Day 4 Whitten to Riverton We may just do a three day trip and start at Greer, if the water levels are too low. But I'd really like to see the upper river if mother nature allows. The Eleven Point sounds like just my type of stream. I'm so excited for this trip. I thought it was going to only be a two day trip, but I got it worked out where we can spend four on the river. Gonna probably check out Turner and Boze Mill Springs as well. Just have to decide now whether to camp at Greer or Turner, we decided not to actually camp along the river, a few people on our group would prefer the more developed campgrounds, although honestly I would just rather camp on a gravel bar.

One more question and I swear I'm done. A few more people decided they wanted to come, and I can't fit them all in my canoe. Only other boat I have is a 14" jon boat. Wouldn't be using a motor, just paddling. Would this be okay for the 11 Pt?

Yeah, thats the one. Looking forward to getting down there

Sounds like a nice river to float.... I assume its mostly smallies, is that correct?

NFOW is a wild trout stream in every since of the word, and still is. Those were brown trout being stocked, not rainbows. Rainbows are all wild in the North Fork (no stocking) , but the browns are stocked, as they cannot spawn successfully. Most of the wild rainbows occur upstream of Patrick Bridge, and stocked brown trout and smallmouth bass take over below. At least thats how I understand it.

I'll definitely pick up a good selection of jigs based on what I hear. Just a question for those who know. If I'm careful, and walk through the dangerous areas, is the Eleven Point generally dangerous? I've heard a few stories anglers have had on the Eleven Point on this forum (mostly involving downed trees in fast water) that kinda make me a little concerned. If its a kinda dangerous, I'll still go. But I'd like to know what I'm dealing with before I get there. You can probably tell by now I'm no whitewater expert :lol: :lol:

Just so you know, I have nothing against jet boaters. Heck, I wish I had one. I just think there are better places than the upper Bourbeuse for them. I don't even have a problem with jet boaters below Mayers or Reikers, just so long as they are responsible and watch for canoes.

I'll keep the jigs in mind... Is Mary Deckar Class 2 or 3? I can handle class 2, but I class 3 would really be pushing it for me.

Amen to that.