ozark trout fisher

I think I take simplifying to an extreme, when spin-fishing.. On a smallie stream in the summer time, I usually have a whole bunch of rebel craws (often the only thing I'll use all day) some plastic worms, a couple spinners, and a few poppers/tiny torpedos/jitterbugs. To me, anything else is just clutter that there is a 99% chance I won't touch if I'm on the water for 3 straight days. And if I would feel the need to try anything else it's probably because the fishing is so terrible that it's not going to matter anyway. That's not too often. Let's be honest, summer bass fishing in the Ozarks isn't usually the most difficult thing in the world. When fly fishing for trout, I have a bit more variety, but not all that much, honestly. I generally have Hare's Ear and Pheasant Tail nymphs, #14-18, woolly buggers in all sizes and colors, egg patterns, elk hair caddis, tiny griffith's and black gnats for midges/tricos,and adams/parachute adams in #12-22 that can be a rough imitation of most mayfly hatches . Plus a few hoppers and other terrestrials in late summer, and usually a few attractor dry flies that don't imitate much of anything but get "curiousity strikes" fairly often. That's usually it.

Well, every national news story is a "local event" in the sense that it happens somewhere, usually not right in my backyard. But that doesn't mean it isn't important. Sure, I like to know what's going on within a relatively short radius of where I live, it's important if there are tornados touching down 30 miles west of my home. But significant events that happen to occur in California or New York or anywhere else are also something that I feel the need to know about, as long as they are within the United States. I can't just live in my own state or region and pretend like everything else doesn't exist. We're long past being able to do that. Many news events that occur elsewhere in the country have the capability of effecting me. Or things of the same nature could in the future. I think it's important to know about them then.

Of course there are cases of irresponsible journalism. You could name a million of them, just like you could for doctors, lawyers, mechanics, any other job or profession. The "get the story first ethic" is troubling. But those of us who watch the news demand stories as they happen. The market supplies that, sometimes at the cost of accuracy. It's more of a societal problem than anything if you ask me. Maybe we should demand high quality, highly accurate news, instead of really fast, sometimes accurate news. But we want it to be both really fast and totally accurate-and that's impossible. We'll get one or the other. I know I'd choose accurate over fast in almost all cases. But that's simply not the majority opinion. I'm not a journalist, so I in no way claim to be an expert on this. It's just my observation.

Reporters are human. Not every mistake is some kind of conspiracy. The only time mistakes really bother me is when A, it's a total disregard for even trying to confirm what a source said is true, or B, the person in question won't admit to their mistake and keeps trying to rationalize it. Those two things happen from time to time, but from what I can tell, most of the mistakes that make news outlets "eat crow" are simply the results of humans being humans and messing up a proportionate amount. You can see more into if you like, but if you expect perfection from them you're never going to get it. Now I'm talking about real news outlets here. Not talk shows or other outlets that are openly partisan either to the left or right.

Won't engage in the global warming side of this. But as for the other peripheral discussion.....fishing for smallmouth in really warm water is just like fishing for trout in water that is 70+....namely, you probably shouldn't. For some reason this hasn't caught on to nearly the same extent in smallmouth fishing circles as it does for a lot of trout fisherman. This is probably for no other reason, than it takes a pretty exceptional level of heat for quite a long time for this problem to develop seriously for smallmouth most places but it doesn't take nearly as much for trout so it happens more often. It did get there for me eventually last year, for first trout and then towards the end, smallies. I eventually quit fishing for them except in the more spring-fed streams where the temps stayed okay.

That's kind of why high rivers around here tend to freak me out. All of the water tends to look smooth and rather innocuous, but the strainers are what worry me. I've seen (and felt) the power with which a river can pin a 14 foot canoe against one of those. It's enough to give you a healthy respect.

Yep, I hear you when it comes to the Meramec. It's a weird river. At normal levels in might be the most friendly, easy going stream in existence-but at high water it can be legitimately spooky. That's true for all rivers, but it's a lot more pronounced on the Meramec. I've never encountered trouble of any sort, but I've heard enough horror stories to keep me off when it's really rolling after a rain.

Yeah, I'm bummed about that too. They make that horrible, piercing noise for half the spring/summer but it's well worth it. I've never seen a "hatch" that drove the bass and bluegill more crazy...Just about any popping bug or foam beetle in existence would keep you in business.

Fishing was great in the streams I fished too, for smallies. But especially towards the end when the drought was at it's worst, well, it just felt ridiculous, and somehow wrong catching fish out of streams that had a tiny fraction of their flow. It got to the point for me where it felt so sad seeing the rivers that I love in that state that it just was less fun than depressing. I'm glad that it appears this sort of thing will be at least delayed for a good long while this year. I'll happily take high, muddy rivers for another month if that's what it takes to avoid another drought like that!

I actually kind of know what you're saying. Too many times I've gotten advice (not necessarily on here, but just in general) that a river is definitely not fishable and gone there anyway to find out that apparently my definition of "fishable" is a lot wider than whoever told me that. Some people are of the opinion that a river isn't fishable if there isn't 2 or 3 feet of visibilty, which is pretty ridiculous. By that definiton, some of the rivers I like to fish (like the Bourbeuse) are basically never fishable. So to me, if it's just a question about whether a river is too high to be good fishing, I usually go for it. Worst case scenario you get skunked fishing a muddy river, no harm done. Where the advice does come in handy is when you're talking about river levels that could actually be dangerous. And that's where this site, and others comes in handy. Though I will say, as much as I trust what most people say on here, I'm never making that final determination based on what someone told me on a fishing forum. I'm taking a look for myself. Usually it's pretty obvious when a river isn't safe to float.

Yes, worth it. The Gasconade is basically a less used and less urbanized Meramec River with bigger, more plentiful fish. It's only about 45 minutes down the road from me but I'd be willing to drive much further to fish it. At least on the reaches where I like to fish it, the jet-boats are the only real annoyance. But if you're catching a bunch of nice fish you'll tend to want to look past that. I wouldn't speak in such glowing terms about a river I really like (for fear of crowding it) but the Gasconade has a couple of hundred miles of fishable water so yeah....there's some room to spread out.

Good choice, I think. It can be a bit frustrating to drive halfway across the continent to find muddy, unfishable water. I think given the conditions most of us wish we were headed up to Montana, not the other way around Another torrential downpour today at least here in mid-Missouri. Looking at the water gauges nothing really looks fishable now, except a couple spring brances, and the upper sections of a few streams with really high gradients that rise and fall extremely quickly. But I don't think we're done with the rain, so I'd expect that pendulum of rising and falling water in those places to keep going. Off topic, but when I spent some time in Montana a few years ago, while I mostly fished for trout, I enjoyed some pretty great warmwater fishing up there too. I spent most of my time in the northwest corner of the state....some of those lakes up in the Clark Fork basin are really good for bass, perch, and pike. It was a pretty huge surprise when I found good sized largemouth in the same lakes where I was catching trout and whitefish. Not what you expect to see in a lake from which you can see 9 and 10,000 foot peaks in all different directions.

Glad you were able to figure something out. You're right, this weather makes the fishing tough now, but mid to early summer should be great. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting down there quite a lot in the month of June.

Wouldn't risk a trip that long, unless you can be happy hiking up in the hills and doing other non-fishing, non-floating things (or if you're willing to switch over to lake fishing.) I'm not saying that you couldn't find a few headwater streams that would be fishable but it's not looking good. Best of luck if you do go, and maybe you'll find something if the streams drop extra quick and the rain in the forecast doesn't amount to much. And who knows what things will look like in 10-12 days. But I would recommend against driving all the way from Montana at this point, unless it's for the spring scenery. Sorry.

Whitefish are fine to eat....I admit that I don't have the most sensitive taste buds (I can eat nearly anything after I've been fishing all day) but they've always tasted just fine to me. When you get down to it they're very closely related to trout. I practically subsisted on the things during a summer spent in Montana largely to avoid keeping trout. They're plentiful enough on most trout streams out west that you don't have to worry in the least about eating your share of them. The perfect combination really. So many people hate whitefish. Never understood that. Just as much a part of those rivers as cutthroat trout. I think they're a lot of fun.

It's been a lot of pond fishing for me. The creeks around here had about a 2 day window of being fishable just now-but that's sure to be done now. Oh well, that should lead to better things in the summer with a bit of luck.

I don't think this snow will have much of an effect on the fishing. It's supposed to warm up really quickly so it should become a non-issue within a couple days. But still really weird for May.

Looks like a smallie to me....Nice fish. I can't stand hybrids. If I'm fishing, say, on the Bourbeuse River, I know to keep spotted bass and release smallies....but I have no idea what to do with the hybrids. I just end up releasing them but I have no clue whether that's the right thing to do. Obviously irrelevant this time of year.

That's kind of what I've been thinking this whole time.....

Don't worry about it. As rants go this isn't too bad! I agree that the conditions that the first settlers/explores saw in the Ozarks and elsewhere isn't necessarily indicative of the way things have always been. After all, Native Americans lived here too for forever essentially, and had their own effects on the land, however insignificant compared to what's going on now. And who's to say accounts from 200+ years ago are terribly reliable? But it's also the best reference point we have. Really it's the only reference we have, even if it's imperfect. So I think it's logical and understandable that we'd base some management decisions on what the land looked like then.

I any case, I'm just trying to add something to the discussion. I've spent a lot of time in Peck Ranch over the past 10 years, so I can't help but feel a little bit involved in what goes on there. And "I think" elk will fit into the ecosystem perfectly there.

Not sure what post you were reading. I reread it. I said "I think" exactly once, but whatever.

I think your points would be really valid....if the MDC was planning to eventually grow the elk population to 5 or 10,000. But they will never reach 1/10 of that number before hunting seasons are opened to reduce the heard back to the desired size. And a population of a few hundred elk would have to be considered one of the smallest threats in existence to native Ozark species. Elk, by their very nature, are always going to be a species that we can manage very easily. They're big and obvious, and their population is going to grow a lot slower than say, river otters. If the population grows large enough to cause any kind of significant problems we can reduce it back to the intended size very easily. Just send in a few of those people from the area that I know are itching to bring home some elk meat even now. And one final thought.....I agree that most of the Ozark region is radically different from what it was when elk originally lived here. But if there is one area that is probably not all that different, it's Peck Ranch. I love the way it's managed. They clear-cut and burn frequently and intelligently to simulate what i was like when wildfires were allowed to burn unchecked. It makes it hell to hike through in many areas (SO MANY THORNS) but you know at the end of the day that it allows there to be additional food and cover for wildlife. Because of that (in addition to the much less natural and visually attractive food-plots) there is so much more habitat available for all species. A small elk population isn't going to drastically throw that off.

I think there would have been a surprising amount of open land/grasslands, if for no reason other than fire. I think we get to see that on a small scale in places like Peck where they do a good job with controlled burns. There are plenty of glades and small areas of savannah especially near the mountaintops, and I imagine that's how it was before humans became involved. But it's just a guess. What I wouldn't pay to see what the Ozarks used to look like.

I think a lot of the concerns about elk in Peck Ranch could be fairly easily alleviated if those with the concerns visited the area. It's not like Peck is just a normal tract of Ozark woodland. Well, much of it is, but that's far, far from the whole story. It's been specially managed for quite awhile. Much of the "habitat" where the Elk reside is actually in the planted food-plots which make up a large portion of several of the valleys in Peck. And on top of that there are significant areas of natural grassland/savannah remaining on quite a few of the mountainous slopes. There is much, much more available forage there for elk and other species than you'd expect for a typical 20,000 acre section of the deep Ozarks. It's a big part of why it's been the reintroduction site of seemingly half of the extirpated or nearly extirpated species in Missouri.