Little Piney Report: 11/07/2009

[MaxDrown]

We fished the Little Piney from sunrise to 1pm upstream from Vida Slab and then upstream from the Hwy 63 bridge. We caught about 15 fish all less than 10". Most were dinks. We tried pheasant tails, hare's ears, glow bugs in various colors. There were some real good looking run that that I was surprised held no fish or at least none that were taking our offerings. This is our first trip to little piney. There's a lot of walking between ripples. I was exhausted at the end of the day.

My day ended when I filled my waders by stepping to close to fast water trying to save a fly caught on a branch.

[ChadO]

I saw Max go for the ride. Since he was OK I can say that it was pretty funny. Too bad, because the water there looked beautiful.

The fish were small, but plenty of them. Gorgeous day of fishing, and the trip was a blast. I wish there was a bit more size to the, but for a 75 degree day of fishing in November you can't complain about too much.

ChadO

[ozark trout fisher]

We fished the Little Piney from sunrise to 1pm upstream from Vida Slab and then upstream from the Hwy 63 bridge. We caught about 15 fish all less than 10". Most were dinks. We tried pheasant tails, hare's ears, glow bugs in various colors. There were some real good looking run that that I was surprised held no fish or at least none that were taking our offerings. This is our first trip to little piney. There's a lot of walking between ripples. I was exhausted at the end of the day.

My day ended when I filled my waders by stepping to close to fast water trying to save a fly caught on a branch.

Sounds like you had pretty similar results to what I had further up river. It does look like the water is much higher and more off color down there. You're right that it's a lot of walking, but that's just life on a small stream.

Man that water looks kinda rough down there. Where I was fish, the river was up and kinda blue-green but it didn't look anything like that. Corn Creek must have been pumping out a bunch of water.

Deep nymphs were also the ticket for me though.

[ClayIsom]

We fished the Little Piney from sunrise to 1pm upstream from Vida Slab and then upstream from the Hwy 63 bridge. We caught about 15 fish all less than 10". Most were dinks. We tried pheasant tails, hare's ears, glow bugs in various colors. There were some real good looking run that that I was surprised held no fish or at least none that were taking our offerings. This is our first trip to little piney. There's a lot of walking between ripples. I was exhausted at the end of the day.

My day ended when I filled my waders by stepping to close to fast water trying to save a fly caught on a branch.

just my 2 cents' worth...

Max, Chad and I fished the Little Piney on 11/7/09 as they described above. Beautiful day: T-shirt and waders!

was my first time on the little piney, but i suspect that the water was higher than average for the first week of november. don't know if that had anything to do with our apparent problem getting into anything bigger than 9 inches? or maybe that we were fishing so late into the season? i'd be interested to hear what you all with more experience thought about that.

anyway, just for future reference, I felt like the "fly of the day" was a grey Tungsten beadhead Hare's ear (thanks, Chad!) with rubber legs. Also got some pretty good play on orange and pink beadhead (or not!) glo balls. anyway, everything was nymphs fished fairly deep; little to no top-water action. Had a great time; pulled out probably 8-10 trout, but most were only around 7-8 inches. still had a blast, though. Great trip.

[Gavin]

The water looks like its up a foot or so from normal but it sounds like you did pretty well for fishing near Vida Slab...The better habitat is on the upper end of the Lane to Vida stretch..And the first mile or two down from Vida is pretty ugly. Lots of channelized stretches, and eroded mud banks like the ones in you picture...fish dont usually like those areas.......Find some good habitat...tree lined banks, some depths, and some chunk rock, youll find fish on that creek, but its often a long way between spots like that. Thanks for the report. Cheers.

[MaxDrown]

What size fish do the good habitats hold? What size can we expect to catch?

[ozark trout fisher]

What size fish do the good habitats hold? What size can we expect to catch?

Not big generally. I actually think the fish get larger as you go downstream, but that's just my humble opinion. I was fishing around Lane Spring, and my fish only averaged about 5" with a few running nearly up to 10". My biggest so far came about 1/2 mile below Vida Slab, 18 1/2 inches. That was the only fish I caught that day.

I have to respectfully disagree with Gavin about the habitat above Vida slab. I do think once you get up to the riffles, fish habitat get's pretty good, I probably catch just as many fish there as up around Lane Spring/Highway 63. Below the slab, it seems like there aren't nearly as many fish until you get to the White Ribbon area, but the trout seem to average quite a bit larger, although still pretty small by big river standards.

By the way, the fish seemed to be crowding downed trees, strainers, etc. Kind of odd. I generally find that fish usually prefer more permanent cover, but not last weekend.

[MaxDrown]

Are there any rivers nearish Rolla that hold bigger fish?

[ozark trout fisher]

Are there any rivers nearish Rolla that hold bigger fish?

Most definitely. The Meramec is pretty decent for big fish, with fish averaging 12" to 15", and plenty of fish too. This time of year, there's not much pressure, although good luck trying to find an empty spot in June or July. Besides the average stockers, I've caught and seem some truly nice fish there. It's been too high to fish most of this year, but when it's down below 500 CFS, and it's not crowded, it's the place to be.

There's good fishing on the Meramec right below the spring park, or down at Cardiac/Suicide hill. I prefer the first mile below the park, because it seems the rainbows are always thick there. Some folks prefer Cardiac. No little dinks like on Little Piney, the smallest fish I've ever caught there have been in 9" range. The only time you'll really run into a lot of small fish there is around the May brown trout stocking time, when they release a whole bunch of naive 9 to 10 trout.

I won't lie though, there are folks who can tell you a heck of a lot more about the Meramec than I know. I fish it quite a bit, but there are others who have fished it for longer, and more often.

[2manyhobbys]

I actually live about 2 to 3 miles from Lane Spring. Moved out of Rolla city limits to a very smallish farm. One of the draws was the closeness to Lane Spring and Little Piney in general.

Meramec will definitely have bigger fish, but it is also a bigger river (than the little p). I like fishing the smaller streams and therefore you end with smaller trout. From the 63 bridge area isn't my favorite section. It is okay but I don't think it seems to hold very many trout. Which reminds me of what an old fisherman told me, "you catch fish on the fly you fish the most." which is in effect to say that the section right below and above 63 bridge is not my favorite so I don't fish it much so I don't catch many trout out of there. I like to fish down from Lane Spring. If you catch a 11 inch plus fish you are doing well (above Vida Slab).

I'm not a biologist but just from observation, in the Wild trout areas of the Little Piney it aways seems like fish come in 2 inch spreads. They are 2, 4, 6, 8 inches in one season of the year say spring for example and then they are 3, 5, 7, 9 in the fall season of the year for example. Which suggest that they are growing about 2 inches a year on the Little Piney at Lane Spring area from Wild stream reproduced trout. (no stocking in years at Lane Spring). if a fish is 2 inches it is a year, 4 inches 2 years, 6 inches 3 years etc. A 12 inch fish on the little piney is about 6 years old. An 18 inch fish would be 9 years old!!!

If you go down to the area of little piney below Vida Slab where they stock out of the hatchery, some of those fish grew 5 to 8 or more inches in a year on fish pellets! Which brings me to the point, if you are looking for bigger fish then down stream, up from Newburg at the River Access where they stock there are much bigger fish as they came from a hatchery. I've seen some good sized ones caught out of there. I don't fish there much anymore...