1st Trip To Crane, What A Gem!

[OKFlyFisher44]

After much debate friday night, I finally decided to load up my gear and leave for Missouri after work to fish Crane on sunday. Made base-camp at Roaring River with plans to fish that evening but after setting up camp, I just kind of walked around in Zone 2 and watched people fish. Water was high and flowing pretty good, but was fishable. My buddy Joey from Arkansas pulled into camp later and we went into Cassville to eat dinner. Anyways, went to bed later that night with the truck thermo saying 34 degrees...freaking great camping weather!

We got over to Crane the next morning a little after 8:00. We started at the lower access and began to work our way downstream. I'd never fished Crane before but it really is a gem. The un-touched wildness of the place really makes you think you're somewhere else besides Missouri. The creek was up still a bit and just a touch off-color, not muddy by no means though. The vegation was all laid down from the flood waters which made moving from section to section very easy, which was nice.

Joey pulled 2 nice McClouds out of one of the 1st holes we hit, one of the fish being in the 18" range...just a toad of a fish for a McCloud! We got excited thinking that was a sign of things to come. We fished the rest of the primo water of the lower section till we got to where the creek widens and gets very deep....without catching another fish. We were stumped to say the least. The holes all looked really good even with the higher flows. Joey had come through this section the day before with his dad and caught several fish. We decided to pack it up for lunch.

After a quick bite from the local gas station, we formatted a new game plan and headed to the upper access. It was amazing how different the stream is in the upper section. Lots of skinny water and many places where you could just jump across the creek even with the high flows. It was going to provide a whole new set of challenges for us. Stealth was going to be key to any success with such small water.

We headed down the hiking trail just a bit and then put in just below a couple small holes that looked really fishy. Joey pulled out a lil' 8" McCloud on his 2nd drift, the fish was FULL of color. Absolutely beautiful fish. Very cool to see. I crouched down next to a tree and flipped a cast next to a lil' undercut bank and on the 1st drift, bam! Pulled out an awesome looking little McCloud, basically the same size as Joeys. Fish was full of color with the par marks, white tipped fins, etc. I was glad to have gotten the skunk off my back finally.

We kept moving upstream the rest of the afternoon and, I must say, it seemed like the water just kept getting better and better the further we went. This little stream really has some character. It would go from skinny little pocket water where you'd only pull out 1 fish and then it'd widen back out a bit into a fairly deep run. On 2 different runs, we pulled out 4 fish, each fish in the 8"-12" range. We stumbled upon a log jam later on that resulted into a deep little hole just in front of it. We stood there for a bit and just watched till we spotted a few trout stacked up just in front of the log jam, 1 of the fish was in the 16"-18" range. After adding another split shot to the setup and switching to a tungsten bead san juan....I was able to get the fly deep enough to the fish. On the 4th drift I hooked up with the big fish...to only lose him a few seconds later with a broken off tippet. Either broke off at the split shot or just above it. A huge bummer but at the same time it was cool to hook into a nice fish.

We continued upstream and caught fish here and there. It was a fantastic afteroon to say the least. It was an epic day in my book...1 of the best trips I've had fly fishing. Crane is definitely on the top of my list, just such a cool place to fish. I went into the day with an open mind, knowing there was a good chance that we could get skunked with the reputation that this lil' stream has. It really looked like that was going to be the story of the day but then everything turned out great in the afternoon. I could not be happier with my 1st trip to Crane.

[OKFlyFisher44]

[Flysmallie]

Nice report and pictures.

[DaddyO]

Nice report, Chance. Looks like you guys had a good time.

[RSBreth]

Looks like you guys have the "creek sneak" down - crouching low and staying out of sight will always help when fishing Crane.

Great report.

[OKFlyFisher44]

More pictures

[et84]

Those are some nice fish, guys. I was down there last Saturday, and every time I see someone else's pics it just makes me want to leave everything and head to Crane. It is definitely one of the most beautiful places to fish around here. Here are some pics I took at the lower access when it was foggy, right at sunrise last March:

(My Brother)

I actually use these (and a few more I took that day) as desktop backgrounds spread across 3 monitors on my home CPU- kinda makes me feel like I'm there.

[Nortrad]

Great job guys! I've yet to be successful there. My fishing bud hit the Crane two weeks ago and caught a lot of 7-10" 'bows, who, hopefully, will grow up. It's great to see that there are some fish of size in the creek.

[OKFlyFisher44]

Crane is an awesome little stream. Its definitely on the top of my list as a favorite place to fish. It was tough going early on but we finally got 'em in the afternoon. I think the abnormal rainfall we've had the last couple of years have done these fish a lot of good. All the fish were really fat and healthy. There are plenty of fish for generations to come as long as they don't get killed by a drought or something in the coming summers.

[MoJohn]

Fished the upper access today after I got off work. Got there around 9am, caught alot of small fish but did catch to in the 10-12" range, growing up in California fishing for Brook and Golden I thought these were nice size. Saw a few larger ones but couldn't get them to bite.

Didn't take fly fishing gear since I had never been there before and my skills are limited in tight areas. Used a ultralite rig with 4lb.Trilene. Best 2 lures of the day Mepps Algia plain size#0 and a Rooster Tail 1/16 oz in Rainbow. Didn't have much luck at first but when I started fishing across the current on a slightly downstrem retrieve I couldn't keep the off the hook.