Justin Spencer

Hopefully the water will stay down and we can get a little fishing in soon! Happy birthday, and I'm sure after all those cancelled trips, ramen noodles are getting old. It was nice of the forest service to call the other day letting us know they would be sending out their bill right before Christmas, hope they skipped by you! Hope to see you soon on one of our fine rivers.

In graduate school my primary focus was aquaculture, and while hybrids are great for growing fish faster they are definately not the answer if you want natural reproduction. I am unfamiliar with hybrid trout, but to get a hybrid you would have to take 2 different species and put them together, so a hybrid would be a new kind of fish all together. Selective breeding would give us a pure species taking the faster growing fish and mating them to hopefully produce stronger, faster growing offspring. The state of Texas does this with their huge largemouth bass, and they rely on the public to bring in fish of a certain size so they can use them as broodstock. Triploids (if I remember correctly) are a "frankenfish" that are genetically engineered so that they are unable to reproduce and therefore grow faster. Unfortunately with fish such as the grass carp they can revert back to Diploids over time, and eventually reproduce, which was not wanted as their vegetation control got out of hand as they successfully reproduced. The fly fishermen I know seem to be more environmentally conscientious than the majority of the population so I hope you will agree that selective breeding is a great way to improve strains in a more natural way as opposed to going into a lab and messing with genes and such. If the only thing you are concerned with is going out and catching a huge fish then I think you are missing out on the best parts of fly fishing for trout. If you haven't read it, check out the bookZen In the Art of Fly Fishing, good fishing adventure book with a little spiritual junk added in.

If we stocked Dolphin (Mahi Mahi) instead of trout they would grow to 10# in less than 2 years. I think we could engineer them to live in our freshwater streams, if you have ever caught one of those on fly that would be fun in a river setting. Doubt we could ever have wild ones however.

According to the milages in the Paddler's guide to Missouri the Blue Ribbon area is 8.6 miles from the upper outlet of Rainbow to Patrick Bridge. That being said most people really consider the area starting at the lower outlet, and few people trout fish above Kelly Shoals which is down even further, so Brian is right in that only about 6 miles of it gets regularly fished, but for those who venture upstream of Kelly there is another mile and a half of good fishing. I hooked a dandy rainbow between the two spring outlets the other day, and after getting it close several times he pulled loose, my own fault for not being patient, I put the screws to him after 5 minutes or so and lost what would have been my biggest "WILD" rainbow ever easily 20+ inches.

What a fun thread! For those who usually fish trout parks or other heavily stocked areas you are used to seeing trout swimming around. On the NFOW right after the stocking of the browns every year it is common to see these fish lined up in odd areas, much like they were sitting in a raceway. Most times fishing the blue ribbon area you will never see a trout unless it is on the end of your line. Those you do see are in the pools resting and are usually too big to fear any predators, this seems to be another characteristic of "wild" fish. While the browns over 15" act wild, having been in the river for several years, you won't hear anyone saying we have many "wild browns". That being said I firmly believe that we had a successful brown spawn last year and have a good number of stream bred browns in the river this year. I personally have caught quite a few browns <6" and with perfect fins, striking colorization, and better body condition than I have ever seen in the normally snakey looking stockers. The NFOW will never have a self-sustaining population of brown trout, but if you pay close attention to the ones you catch you will be able to tell the difference between our normal browns and these "wild fish" (look out Patagonia).

Here is some more North Fork bias. I can't seem to catch fish this big at least not when I have a camera, but our clients do. This fish was caught by Dave B. He was down with Tom Hargrove and his group of experts the weekend before thanksgiving. This monster was caught less than 1 mile downstream of Sunburst Ranch. If you go into T. Hargroves in St. Louis I'm sure Tom or Craig would be happy to tell you what it was caught on and even teach you how to tie it. That's T. Hargroves for all your fly fishing needs.

Go Chiefs!

I have a pentax optio for stills, easy point and shoot with good zoom, have taken good pics with it underwater 6MP. (Kyle I think has one IN the North Fork) I have a sanyo Xacti video camera takes HD video in 1080 I believe, it shoots underwater with no special housing and is super simple to use, also takes stills, but only 2MP, you can however make a still from your video which is handy. It is waterproof to 10 feet and cost around $350 on Amazon, we were looking for a new video camera so we would use it for the kids, and this is the first one I've had that records to a memory card instead of a tape, and was priced as well as other non-waterproof models. I'd check these out for sure!

If you have never caught a rainbow on the NFOW I can understand why you might argue all trout are stockers in Missouri. I prefer to call them stream-bred fish as opposed to hatchery fish. To most people I think stream bred means wild, as they were eggs in the stream and survived to adulthood. Right now there are 186 rainbows under 8" per mile in the Blue Ribbon Area(according to MDC), so out of the millions of eggs that are produced very few survive, but if you have ever caught one you realize what a unique resource we have. Until you catch a stream bred rainbow you don't know what you are missing, for those who don't think they are wild, just keep catching your stockers, and leave the "wild trout" to us. You probably couldn't fool them anyways!!

I guess if we knew how and why we'd always tear em' up, just glad you figured out what they were taking!

Should be a good time for it. The water should be perfect barring any big rains, and you should have the river to yourself. Floating line is fine, that's about all I use, sink tip wears me out. Just have a 9' leader and plenty of lead and you'll get down to the fish no problem.

What part of the river were you fishing? Glad to know what is working, I've been struggling this week, catching a few on hare's ear and pheasant tails, but rubber legs have gone cold especially for the rainbows.

Max, if you wish to tent camp you might want to stay at Patrick Bridge campground (MDC), I think it is free and has non-flush toilets. Our water is now off in our campground however you could still camp here for $5 per person per night have about a mile of good riverfront fishing here. If you wish to step it up a little we have sleeper cabins which have no plumbing but do have space heaters and beds. These are $20 per person per night, or $65 for up to 6 people, whichever is cheaper for you. We'd all like to catch lots of decent sized fish, but don't come to this river for the first time with too high of expectations. If you cast and mend well with lots of weight you should do pretty good, but crystal clear water paired with sunny days can make things tough on this river. You will want to focus on floats from Kelly Shoals to Sunburst or Patrick for rainbows, and the Sunburst or Patrick to James Bridge for browns. Lately the float for browns has resulted in more fish, but sizes have been smaller. There is really no where down here to buy flies, I sell a few, and could tie you up some of my special "hot flashes" if you wish, but be sure to come down with some hare's ear nymphs, a variety of prince's, eggs, other nymphs (big stones), woolies, leeches, etc. Bring plenty of lead, and tippet from 3X to no smaller than 5X. Give me a call before you come down and I can clue you in as to what is happening and help with shuttles if I am in the area. Check out sunburstranchcanoe.com for phone and e-mail info.

The way it sounds the deer didn't run off and fall of the cliff, it sounds like it flipped or flopped as most animals do when you shoot them. This caused it to fall down into the creek, if it wasn't vitally wounded in the head I would imagine it would have got up out of the creek and run off, looking like a deer wearing something it bought at Spencer's gifts. Unfortunately deflections are part of hunting, and you can only hope that a deflection results in a quick death and not a gut shot, nothing bothers most hunters more than when an animal is wounded and not found, regardless if it is a monster buck or a little doe. Ideally all shots would be a shot through a wide open field, but often deer live in the woods where there are trees and limbs.

Sounds like a wall hanger. Congratulations!!

I may be biased because the NFOW runs through my front yard, but for a true, wild river, stream bred rainbow fishery the North Fork is hard to beat. That being said you better bring your A game if you expect to catch fish. Like all fishing this river has its good days and its bad days, but the variety of water here gives you all kinds of options to explore. From rainbow spring to roughly Sunburst Ranch you are dealing with mostly stream bred rainbows, from Sunburst to Dawt more stocker browns. The browns get off a spawn every now and then, and right now there are quite a few stream bred browns that are 5-7" and as pretty as any fish I've seen. Should be fun in a few years having a shot at quality "wild" browns. Big fish are common here, landing them is not! Expect to fish faster water than you are used to, and more weight than you are used to. If you fish a run for 15 minutes and don't catch a fish and don't lose a fly, put on more weight until you do one or the other. I still waste a lot of time fishing too little weight before I bite the bullet and put on more. Yesterday I fished for 20 minutes with a AAA (.8 g), and after no success added a BB and quickly picked up a 12" rainbow on a pheasant tail. Changing weight is just as important as changing flies on this river, do so and you can expect more success. The challenge in catching fish on the NFOW is part of its allure, hook into a 15"+ rainbow here and you'll be hooked for life. I also enjoy the 11point as it also has some "wild" trout, you definately can see and feel the difference between the stockers and the stream bred fish. The logistics of shuttles are a little more difficult on the 11point, here on the NFOW you can float right in to your vehicle or campsite and be done for the day (shameless plug for Sunburst!) sorry Sloss. The fish counts for the North Fork are the best we have seen in over 10 years with nearly 500 wild rainbows per mile in the blue ribbon section, and over 1000 fish (90%) browns in the red ribbon section. Why can't I get just 1% of the trout to bite on any given day? Hope this gets you excited about trying the North Fork if you never have, if you have I'm sure you'll be back. For sheer numbers of fish I'm sure we can't compete, but once you've caught a North Fork rainbow, or tied into one of our 25" + browns, you'll have the crystal clear water of the North Fork running through your veins. Give me a call or shoot an e-mail with any questions regarding the river or rental or shuttle information Sunburstranchcanoe.com This post is purely the opionion of a clearly biased businessman and should be taken as such, please ignore it as that leaves me more unmolested fish to toss a fly at. By the way, this time of year you probably won't wee anyone else on the river if you go fishing.

We've just been through our 6th season here, so relatively new owners. The upper part of the river is still good for smallmouth, it is best to use Twin up there. When I bass fish I usually go over to Bryant Creek, and we take trips over there with most people floating Hodgson Mill to Warren Bridge, some good fishing, no crowds, and wonderful scenery. Don't do that trip very often on weekends in the summer, too busy on this river. Check out our website at Sunburstranchcanoe.com to see what we have done with the place.

We have the water turned off now so if you stay in a sleeper cabin $65 per night you would have to rough it. Our Riverhouse is available for $150 per night (off season rate) this has kitchen/bath and sleeps up to 12 (so find some friends to help split cost). Give me a ring or shoot and e-mail to sunburstranch@earthlink.net and I'll give you the name and number of seller.

My name is Justin Spencer and I own and operate Sunburst Ranch campground and canoe rental on the North Fork of the White in southern Missouri. I am an avid fly fisherman and otter trapper trying to spend as much time as my wife will allow on the river. Our house is here at our business between Blair and Patrick Bridges in the Blue Ribbon trout area. Brian and Kyle can probably tell you more about how to catch fish here, but I'll do my best, and can offer any info you might need on the river condition and how the river is fishing. Excited to be on the forum, and am wasting too much time here already. Hope most of you are retired, if not get back to work!!

We need to remember these are introduced fish, and that other native fish need to be thought of as well. I am a huge fly fisherman that feels fortunate to have blue ribbon water of the NFOW 30 yards from my front door. This section was red ribbon when I moved here, and when it changed to blue it upset all of the local people who grew up fishing and gigging these waters. Our fly fishing clients are some of my favorite people as we share like interests, and I like to give tips whenever I can. Most of the things I have learned have been learned from talking, and fishing with you. Sometimes it seems that the fly fishermen feel like it is their river and that the trout fishing on it is somehow more important than the recreational floating, the smallmouth/google eye fishing, the gigging, the hunting etc. Many times the best section for trout is also the best section for other activities as well. We also must step back and realize that our conservation agents do as much as they can and adding more regs only makes their jobs more difficult. I think CA's realize that by writing too many tickets they will only upset the "balance" they have with the people who have grown up here, they achive better results with education. For those of you who live or have grown up in the rural Ozarks you know it is a different culture here, where people value there way of life much more than money or material things. From my point of view people live out here because they value their freedom, and they want to live their lives as much as possible without the constraints of modern day urban ideology. Right or wrong this is how things are, by limiting fishing methods we are taking away freedoms (right or wrong) from people who now must change what they have done for generations for the betterment of a single special interest group. I personally am thankful we have a blue ribbon area on the NFOW but I try to look at things from every point of view, and I think adding more limitations would do nothing to help the fishery, but would further hurt public relations with the people who if angered further might decide to go catch all the big fish with a smashed sculpin, and take them home for dinner (and believe me they know how). To look at it from the other side, how would you feel if they took all the tail waters or blue ribbon areas and made fly fishing illegal, and bait fishing the only legal method. A preposterous idea, but it would sure suck! Instead of worrying about a barbless hook, take some hemo's and use them correctly, I for one am too poor a fisherman to use barbless hooks, and I rarely have to touch a fish to release it. Just something to think about!

The guy who owns it lives out east in Virginia or somewhere. I think he had a deal worked out with someone for $650,000 but it fell through at the last minute. It is a great looking piece of property but about $300,000 to high if you ask me. Glad you had some success, I went out tonight and hooked a couple baby bows on a hare's ear, but it was slow, and I have had to learn to fish left handed which is a challenge to say the least. I may know of a place over near Bryant Creek, nice house and up to 80 acres, I can give you his name and number if interested. Probably be a $200,000 purchase or so for all of it, but he had talked about selling acreage and splitting up house and 10 acres.

How'd you do? Did you stop by here, some of my floaters said they saw you down past the first island. A 30" brown was caught down there the other day, just in front of the century 21 sign. For $700,000 you can have exclusive river access to that big fish. Look forward to hearing from you.

I was just going through some old posts that I didn't have time to see when I was busy renting canoes to those "evil floaters", and came across the one about losing water patrol. I am happy to say that thanks to everyone calling and writing their representatives the governor decided not to cut the proposed jobs but to lower the equipment budget instead. Needless to say we were relieved on the NFoW because we were set to lose our only officer to cover the NFoW, Bryant Creek, Norfork Lake, and Bull Shoals lake. If you have ever been down here you realize how isolated we are from everywhere, and having a water patrol officer is our only form of law enforcement. He is the first one we call with any type of incident here at the river, because he can concentrate on the waterways and lakes and not have other, meth lab calls to attend to. I think just the threat of having someone possibly watching you deters bad behavior, and am happy that our river has not become the problem river that many others have. The outfitters on this river are all members of the Missouri Paddlers Association, and we follow practices that do as much as possible to deter inappropriate behavior on the river. It is possible for "tourists" to come down, have a good time getting drunk and sick, and go home with little impact to the environment. As with everything there are exceptions, but I am amazed each time I float this river at the lack of trash I see. You do see some beer cans and other trash, but even the stream team clean-ups crews that periodically scour the river often comment on the lack of things to pick up. Thanks must be given to the fishermen and other off-season floaters who always pick up any trash they see, as well as those during the summer who do the same. The state provides us with trash bags that we give to each canoe, and this paired with littering fines, and glass bans, etc. have definately improved the trash situation on this river. As for our beloved water patrol officer, we are happy to still have John, and I am thrilled to see our political system work for once. When I saw the article in the Dispatch talking about the cuts, it seemed like a done deal. Who knew that calling your congressmen and representatives actually works. That was the first time for me.

We had a camper here at Sunburst say he saw a hog on the gravel bar two summers ago, I hadn't seen any damage, but had heard there were a few around Patrick, kind of dismissed it as fiction till I saw that pic. Guess we should all carry a rifle when fishing or floating, we don't need these things around.

Kyle was right, the water has come back up and gotten a little dirty, but is now on its way back down, it was looking perfect before the rain, unfortunately I used the weekend to deer hunt instead of fishing those two gorgeous days, and now it looks like another waiting game until we can wade it again. Hopefully it will come down quicker this time. Justin