Current River - July 18th & 19

[Flysmallie]

We floated the Current River this year for our annual float. This is our 8^th year floating together and we have had 4 really good trips out of those 8. This year was not one of the good ones.

In these 8 years we have floated 4 different rivers. The Current, Buffalo, Eleven Point and Gasconade. Each time we return to a river it is never as good as the first trip. The first problem is the fishing is never even close to what it was the first time. But we have also had many other problems.

Massive thunderstorms on the Buffalo and a couple of overturned canoes on the Eleven Point and loosing a lot of gear on day one of a two day float. I guess the only real problem on the second trip to the Gasconade was the size of the fish. The first year we caught some nice fish. The second year we caught some really nice goggle eye but the smallmouth were almost no existent. Plus our campsite sucked. Yeah I know that was our fault.

This year we were hoping to put this second year curse behind us. We floated from Round Spring to Two Rivers. The first time we floated the Current it was very busy but the fishing was great. Little did we know that this trip was really going to try to push us over the edge. Without getting too lengthy I will just give you a few of the highlights.

• First the fishing sucked. Could not find a fish anywhere. We ended up catching somewhere around 25 fish. That's four guys fishing two days. This didn't really bother us too much. The river was beautiful and was flowing nicely. We were very comfortable just letting the rods rest and floating lazily downstream.
  
  
  
  • River traffic was very light. We maybe ran into 6 other groups of floaters the whole weekend and most were very quiet and courteous. The jet boats were way down but did pick up as we neared jerktail landing. A lone guy floating down river in a jet boat did hit one of our canoes. His boat was drifting downstream sideways and his motor was about to bang into the rocks. So he jumped to the drivers seat and started the motor to nudge it out away from the bank and didn't see the canoe right in front of him. I think maybe the canoe could have gave him a little difference but I think there was alcohol involved on both parts on this one. It could have been a bad deal but it worked out okay.
    
    
    

    • If you ever need to take Imodium AD while at camp, your life officially sucks. Especially when it gets dark. But that's all I'm going to say about that.
      

    [*]On the way home we had a blowout on the trailer. This is the same trailer that we do not own a spare for. It's 9pm on a Sunday night in Mountain Grove, shouldn't be any problem finding a new tire and getting it mounted right?? Yeah, good luck. A couple of hours and $250 later we roll on. Just a little last minute message to us to never try to float the same stream twice.

    We are looking for options for next year but we can assure you that it won't be on the Current, Buffalo, Eleven Point or Gasconade.

    Here are some pics from the trip.

    

    This box of Krispy Kremes would come into play later when we were raided by a platoon of raccoons. It was actually quite entertaining.

    

    

    Toothpick and his trolling motor.

    

    

    My buddy Russ with his catch of the day. He is also the biggest redneck that I know.

    

    Shortt just enjoying the flow. He gets stuck about 5 minutes after this and gets really cranky. He's pretty much always in a bad mood but that's why we love him.

    

    

[smallmouthjoe]

Looks like even though the fishing sucked you guys still had a chance to enjoy some beautiful scenery. I think I may camp at Two Rivers in August. Thanks for the report.

[KCRIVERRAT]

Looks like even though the fishing sucked you guys still had a chance to enjoy some beautiful scenery. I think I may camp at Two Rivers in August. Thanks for the report.

Hey Joe... saw you're report about a late summer trip. Two Rivers is a great choice, plenty of water to keep ya floating, not draggin'. Just my two cents, but, if you camp at Two Rivers, just have them put you in at Shawnee Creek. It's only a three mile float to where the JF meets the Current. Take ALL DAY and fish those three miles hard! You'll be rewarded. Take's me about 10 hours to do that trip.

Tell Anita at Two Rivers (red headed gal) that Jerry in KC said hello!

She'll take good care of you Joe...

KC

[smallmouthjoe]

I've pretty much decided that is where I'm going to go. Thanks for the tip and if I see Anita I'll hollar at her for you. Thanks again.