Rainbow Spawn Alert!

[Brian Wise]

Just wanted to let you all know that the rainbows have moved to spawning grounds and are creating redds at a CRAZY rate. For those who don't know what a red looks like generally they are found in a part of the river that has smaller gravel, they are round and a "washed gravel" look being a lot lighter in color than the surrounding gravel. The fish will be laying eggs in these reds soon and a person wading through one could literally kill hundreds of eggs.

This is basically a plea....if you plan on fishing the North Fork of the White over the next several weeks please watch where you wade and try not to wade through the reds--all the rainbows in the river started out as an egg in one of these reds so it is really important to let them be.

Thanks guys!

Brian

[cnr]

I would add one more suggestion. If you see any redds in the area you are fishing make sure you stay on the upstream side of them. The eggs drift into and below the redd the spawning fish are using. One wrong step could kill hundreds of future fish!

[Lone Angler]

That's enough to make me stay home and catch up on my fly tying for the late winter/early spring. I'll spread the word.

[Randall]

Just to make the point, I was under the impression that some spawn in the fall and were done and others spawn in the spring and hadn't started. Definitely a good post to make sure the information is out there. I was thinking about making the NFOW a stop here in a few weeks but I may forego that experience in favor of not inadvertently making scrambled fish eggs. When will the eggs hatch?

[Brian Wise]

Randall, the double spawn is usually when stocker trout are thrown into the mix as well. You see this a lot on the tailwaters where some fish will spawn in the fall others in the spring. We don't have stocker rainbows in the mix so we just have one major spawn after the browns are done...usually well after but not this year--they are a bit early.

I really don't want to push anyone away from fishing the river or make anyone feel like I was meaning to stay away. Fishing is incredible right now and a seriously good time to be on the river...you can see the reds from a mile away.

Brian

[Bman]

Great topic to post. A friendly reminder to be aware of what you're doing.

Thanks Brian.

[cnr]

Brian

Would you say the egg fly bite has improved with the spawning going on?

[timsfly]

Must be early everywhere, the trout at crane are doing the same thing, it is usually jan before I start seeing lots of spawning

rainbows, but I bet I saw 15 trout in full spawn mode last week at crane.

[ozark trout fisher]

Must be early everywhere, the trout at crane are doing the same thing, it is usually jan before I start seeing lots of spawning

rainbows, but I bet I saw 15 trout in full spawn mode last week at crane.

Yeah, folks need to keep this in mind on all the Blue Ribbon areas... I may direct my attention to stocked streams for a little while.

[laker67]

Yeah, folks need to keep this in mind on all the Blue Ribbon areas... I may direct my attention to stocked streams for a little while.

There must be something in missouri waters that make the "wild trout" spawn in the fall and early winter, when everywhere else in the continental US wild trout spawn in the spring just prior to water temps warming enough to incubate the eggs. Are missouri's "wild trout" so retarded that they sabotage their own spawning success?