Where's The Trout?

[fishinSWMO]

I took the boys to the creek today looking for some trout to catch. Its hard to walk the whole creek with a 6 year old, so we hit some of the easier spots to access.

We did a little looking and some fishing. We did not see any trout in the places we were at. Saw a few live minnows and some dead crawdads.

I did some fishing and I caught 2 chubs and 2 goggleye in the time we were there.

Maybe its just me, but I would think that they would want to stock this creek with some trout at all times? At least give the impression that you could catch them, if you could fool them into eating.

I gets a little disappointing when you go to a creek that should be stocked with trout for the kids to catch and there is nothing.

[tgard27]

I agree. I think that you might be witnessing two things happenning at once: people overharvesting trout and the hatcheries having a rough year. I know that the winter stocking in Kansas City has been very weird this year. The first stocking was roughly 4,000 brownies in the James A Reed ponds, the second stocking happened a few weeks ago and I don't think that there is too many left. Its been a rough year for the hatcheries and this problem will continue to happen at Hickory until people start practicing a more reasonable harvest limit. Travis