Chris Gates

Getting under McKee Bridge magic number is around 1000 CFS, depending on the weight you have. Have Fun.

March, April, May is prime but you can fish there all year long. Best trout river in Missouri in my opinion. As a smallmouth river it is avg. at best

Great Video! Kyle is a class act and the show was well done.

I was down last Thursday and the guys in my boat had a great day. We nymphed it up most of the day because of the heavy winds. Looking back we should have thrown dries more than the 10 minutes we did. I have never seen the fish key in on caddis on the NFOW like I saw that day. Every fish in the river seemed to be eating. I've probably fished the river around 100 days in my life, not near as much as some on this forum, but it was the best day I have ever seen on the North Fork, bar none.

Thanks for the report. Wrap that Pats with .35 lead from end to end and you can forget about the split shot. That's the beauty of a heavy pats, its the best split shot ever. Typically in summer my droppers are green caddis pupa, pheasant tails, and UV Brown Guide Hackles.

Streamers are great. Little woolies work well as a standard as well as bigger stuff as well. While wade fishing focus on a very slow retrieve as your fly will always go down and across and then slowly stripping it up river. When fishing from a boat I prefer to swim the fly across the stream while paying attention to the action of the fly, it is much more visual from a boat. If wading try some beadhead pine squirrel leechs in different colors, little woolies, mohair leeches, etc.

This last weekend was as bad as I have ever seen it there. Slow fishing with a lot of good anglers from Hargrove's. Thats how it goes sometimes. It's good to get your teeth kicked in once in a while!

Pat's Rubberlegs is all you need and a Red Fox Squirrel nymph in winter and early spring is nice as a dropper size 8 approx

When it is lower as it typically is in winter until Feb/Mar. rains a floating line on a 6 weight with a 4 ft leader works great. We were throwing articulated streamers on a 6 with floating last weekend and got plenty of chases & eats. Once the water gets in the 600cfs range I will move to a 250 grain on a 7. Only when it gets to around 1200 plus cfs do I go to an 8 weight with a 300 grain. Obviously retrieve speed, etc effects all of this but this gets you in the ballpark. Hope this helps. Chris

If you like to cook meth when you are camping it is a good place to hang. Also, bring your pajama pants. Everytime I float under Patrick or launch there is a pregnant teen in pajamas. I think I saw Teardrop from Winter's Bone last week when I was there.

I presume you are talking about the walkered fish! Congrats on the cabin Justin, looking forward to the lower float!

We fished for smallies earlier this week from Hammond down to the spring. Slowww smallmouth fishing. Lower river is fishing ok for stocker browns considering the low water. Our best fishing was from Blair down but it was trout not smallies.

I would fish the lower in the evening after fishing the upper. Lower is getting less pressure right now. Green Caddis pupa & Larva droppers off of a Pats possibly a smaller one such as an 8. 4X to point and 5x to the dropper should be more then adequate. You should have plenty of stocker browns eating with the chance of a nicer fish. Last time I fished the upper which was about 3 weeks ago I had 4 other drift boats on the river. The lower is often overlooked. I fished it about 10 days ago and it fished pretty well. When fishing the upper I like to walk the boat through some of the runs slowly to let the guys fishing really pick apart all the holding spots in the runs. You have to work hard for the fish when it is low and clear and sunny.

The legendary North Fork Spryte!

I love my LP but you guys have the ticket for our ozark rivers with the Headhunters. Awesome boat and perfectly suited for what we fish around here! I like seeing more and more drift boats around the Ozarks. Just a great way to fish.