Niangua 10/3 - 10-/5

[fishinwrench]

The river is really in good condition, about perfect by my standards. We camped at Riverfront and I fished the area up from there on Friday afternoon. The Smallies were tight to the rootwads and required a "flippin" approach, didn't catch anything over 14" but numbers were real good and the bite was dependable when I dropped the jig softly in the right kinda spots. I was tossing a 1/8oz. Strike King mini-jig with a Zoom critter craw trailer and concentrating on thick wood cover with current running through it. The boulder banks and eddys didn't produce well for me at all, and I kept picking up the 7wt. with hoppers, poppers, and sneaky Pete's but never did catch a smallie on top.

Saturday we drifted down to Sand Spring island, fished for Smallies on the way down and then switched to trout mode. I didn't do so well on the smallmouth on that stretch, only a few dinks under 12 in. but caught 2 really nice rainbows and a buttload of stockers fishing around the island, my best producing flys were a #12 beadhead crackleback, and a #10 olive mohair leech. All the best bites were on the swing, it seemed like they really were in a mood to chase their food down that day.

Sunday was a different story, it was dead-drift or forget it. Racked up some good numbers of stocker sized fish in the Sand Spring to Riverwood stretch, and caught one really nice rainbow that had really good coloring and extremely dark spots down by the second island. I had him basically landed and was leading him around waiting for my daughter to fetch the camera from the toon....I gave him some slack at the wrong time and he shook off.

I gotta throw in a positive note on a couple of guys I watched gig up by Riverfront Saturday night, I didn't see them stick any fish but it was all I could do to keep from applauding them as they gigged up numerous bits of trash from the bottom and threw it into their boat. (a couple of stream team bags on the bottom of a deep hole, and some black netting that was tangled up in a rootwad that I noticed earlier that day and could have gotten...but didn't because I was in a hurry to get back to camp and eat) Nice job fellas!!! My "attitude" about giggers finally got a much needed reset. Noticed this sign at the access too, and I hope they post them everywhere along the Gasconade as well.

[DoveTail]

Nice report. That's great to hear someone picking up trash. It's a shame that everyone just can't pack out what they pack in.