BrianK

Good to get back out for a little wading. Only fished til about noon yesterday. Smaller more marginal water so the fish were in the fewer stretches of 'deep' water (4 ft). Good mix of smallies and lgmouth (4:1)and decent numbers. Lots of good action on topwater. In shallow water it's always a thrill to watch a big wake make a bee-line to your lure, minnows scurrying out of the way, you know it's coming.... then WHAM! good stuff. Caught em on the usual stuff - spinnerbait early, small soft plastic craws, tiny torpedo, few on a fluke. bk

very cool! awesome pics. I'll have to check it out sometime...the boat i mean. Bryant looks like a nice stream. b

Thanks Phil.

NICE!

c'mon man, hurry up with the pics! I had to back out of my trip this year which would have been last week. Just got off the phone with my buddy who went in my place. He didn't have the success you did. Great trip. I'm always shooting for 'next year'. b i'm sure it's on here. someone point me to the link or thread with the ALASKA info / rates/ etc. My friend in Talkeetna may be disappointed when i visit the Johnsons instead of him next year!!!!

so was the spring branch all the way up into the hatchery pools??? sounds like quite a mess.. Looking forward to getting back on the Niangua in the next month or so. I wonder if there will be more trout in the upper Niangua now?? Hey Al- yeah, it's hard to believe until you see all the water for yourself. Good thing it wasn't a day earlier. I can only imagine being on some remote stretch of Current, Jacks or Eleven Pt and having that happen at 2am!!!Kind of everyone's worst nitemare when camped on the river. Grab what you can and leave the rest of your gear to wash away then spend a cold wet nite in the middle of nowhere. sounds like a memorable trip. I'm sure it's happened to someone on here?????? bk

....in the new boat I presume???? take some pics and catch some fish. Never can break away from the NFk but always intend to get over to the Bryant.

yeah, after i posted above i checked the usgs gauges on some of the other streams in that area. a couple showed flash floods of 20-25 feet today! Tiny little streams (Turnback Ck and Little Sac) that went from 3 feet to 26 ft in just a couple hrs. crazy. All that water will again pour into the Osage basin- Stockton, Truman, LOZ....

Hey Phil & Michael- I finally made it to the SWP website and found the magical generation charts you speak of! (woulda been nice last wk) Do the guys hiding up in the dam with binoculars usually follow the schedule pretty closely? or just wait until Terry is down there to run water? Looks like water will be off all day tomorrow except for 3-8pm. Hmmmmm...maybe for shocking? Just curious and trying to figure out this crazy lake / river... bk

Hope no one was out on the river today. She came up (and still rising this afternoon) 10 feet in just a few hrs according to the Windyville gauge! Should be good to keep flows up thru the rest of the summer. I'm sure a few folks have witnessed a flash flood. I hadn't until a few yrs ago when a buddy and I went to fish Warm Fk of Spring river near Koshkonong, MO. We new it was rising and as we stood at a low water slab, we watched the water come up about 5-6 feet in 15 minutes. Went from clear to muddy torrent. It wasn't a 'wall of water' but pretty darn fast. I happened to get it on video. Scary to think of camping when that happens. Anyone ever have to really scramble to high ground in the middle of the night? I've heard to tie a rope to you and the other end to a life vest and leave it near the river. If the water comes up, it'll pull and wake you up. Never have had to do it. I'm sure there are some horror stories out there...... bk

Here are some colors on the NF from Oct 05.

Rodney- That sounds like a pretty respectable wknd with hot weather, clear water, moss and floaters galore.... Just curious, what stretch did you fish? did you wade around ROLF or float? My last 2 visits down have been less than stellar fishing but the NF is always a great river to be on. Thanks for the report. bk

nice. looks awesome. Is the first lucky client booked already? I want to see pics of it frolicking in The Falls on the maiden voyage. b

interesting. I bet those toothy critters can put away some wild rainbow fingerlings. Seems strange that after 20 yrs you just now catch em. Maybe coming up from the James for the colder water? Introduced by someone? Been there all along? I'll bet the Crane MDC Biologist would know from shocking surveys. by the way, how are the rainbows doing? how's the water? been about 10 yrs since i've been to Crane. need to get back. b

sounds great. What a difference a night makes. I figured with 'cooler' weather coming, I'd miss the shutoff by a night or two. Looking forward to October. Haven't fished Taney yet in the fall. Michael, i'll need a new rod for big browns, smallies and Alaska next year! b

Good work. Sign me up! We'll have to get together this fall. Heading to China for our adoption in 3 wks so my fishing will probably be on hold for a while.....then watch out...we'll have a little family invasion back down on the river. b

I hope you guys are right. I was down on the 2 of the hottest days of the year and back home today. Fished last pm from 1030 to 2am on 1 generator and got shut out....wasn't for not trying though. fished from below outlet 1 down to just above rebar. you'll try some crazy stuff at 130 in the morning, by yourself, not catching fish.... ps- i need to get some of those graphs and charts and stuff. just listened and she's shut down already!! Go get em. bk

Hey Michael - Will pray for fast recovery. Gotta get better for the september trip North. Wish i coulda hung around a while the other day but my family woulda left me. I'm hanging out down here at Big Cedar for a little family R&R. May venture over to Taney tonite about midnite if anyone wants to join me. i'm not a big fan of fishing 1 or 2 units but i'm too close not to at least go thrash around for an hour or so......heading home tomorrow just in time for cooler weather and lesser generation. For you guys who live close...is it normal to wake up every hour to check the recording in the off chance that they shut off the water??? ok, maybe not. in perspiration, bk

here are a couple pics from 2 nites ago. That water is pretty scary looking and i definitely wouldn't anchor out there. The water is up in the trees and lots of current sucking back up into the dam. Looked over the rail and also saw some HUGE shadows come up from the depths...those fish alone can eat your boat which is another reason not to anchor up. Not kidding. looked like some 4+ foot long catfish down there. Catch em if you can!!! Brian

Yeah, I was just saying on the Bagnell Tailwater discussion.... Imagine if Truman Dam wasn't there....LOZ really would have been devastated this spring. I may try to get down to Bagnell tonite to see what is going on down there. They'll be running 11 or 12 gates for a while it looks like. bk

As Shawncat mentioned, lots of good info from previous threads. Check the 'General Bass Fishing Discussion' threads. Some good Big River / Big smallies info there. I wonder if anyone has mentioned possibly giving Big River it's own category.....(i'd have to look again but don't think it's there) Phil, any thoughts?? B

good question. Imagine if Truman wasn't there this spring to hold back the 20 or 30 (or more?) feet of water that came into the watershed. LOZ probably would have been in big trouble. I wonder if Bagnell would have been able to let out enough water fast enough to avoid major disaster on LOZ.....

I just looked at the USGS gauge and still running wide open. No change in the past 3+ wks. I need to go down there and take a look. One of my coworkers told me just this am that there are some giant catfish down below the dam coming to the surface feeding.....hmmm Other than the USGS.gov gauges, i don't have any good contact info. Could try the Ameren site??? As long at they are dumping Truman, Bagnell will have to keep up. Flooding all the million+ $ homes on LOZ probably wouldn't go over too well. bk

Got down to the river / lake/ whatever it is about 1145....just in time for them to shut the generators off. er....they didn't. left one on all nite. ok, things are definitely going downhill for me lately at nite. 1st visit a month ago- lots of fish. last week - only about 6-8 fish. last nite - struggled to catch ONE. on a big pink egg bounced on the bottom. I threw the whole shebang at em. Not a good nite to take my neighbor and introduce him to the nite thing. Mr. Leonard was there in Outlet 1 and i didnn't feel as bad since even he didn't exactly hammer em. Sorry Leonard we had to bug out on you last nite. Had to make the hard choice of sleep vs catching no fish....How did you do down by Outlet 2??? bk

I've been following this thread and can't believe it's really being discussed. Look at all the other threads on the Current R, Eleven Point and the Spring R in Arkansas. Everyone was posting how we wished law enforcement would patrol the rivers more intensely and take them back so that we can take our kids out on a Saturday. The Niangua is becoming the worst party river in the state. From reading those previous threads, I think the vast majority of folks on this forum support measures to make our rivers safer and more enjoyable and that takes checkpoints or some type of law enforcement. I say good job to the MDC for cracking down. The underlying issue is whether that enforcement is done fairly or is corrupt. As someone mentioned earlier, there are bad apples in every organization and someone will always have a bad experience with one of them. No one wants that.