Headed Down This Weekend

[Andrew324]

Headed to the river for my first time this weekend. Pretty stoked. Going to try to float Hammond to Dawt over Saturday and Sunday morning. Bringing an arsenal of pheasant tails and hare's ears, bead headed, sizes 12 thru 16. Also have some glo balls and wooly buggers for good measure. Anyone suggest anything else? Thanks

[HighPlainsFlyFisher]

Psycho Princes and pats Rubber Legs were my two top producers a few weeks ago. Lots of young fish ,last years I would guess , were taking egg patterns as well. The water was low as I've ever seen it at that time but the snow melt may have raised it some. Caught most of our fish in the riffles or at the head of pools. Good luck and enjoy it , one of Missouri's finest for sure.

Jeff

http://highplainsflyfisher.blogspot.com/

[Chris Gates]

Myself and a couple buddies will be down there tonight through Sunday at Sunburst. If you are camping at Sunburst come by our campsite and have a beer. We'll hook you up with some good bugs. Look for the blue tacoma pick up with the yakima rack

[2sheds]

Hi Andrew,

You will love this river. But, I don't mind telling you that I got skunked my first time through. What I learned:

Hammond to Dawdt is 18 miles. That's a piece of cake for a overnight float trip. And it will give you a great overview of an incredible river. But I'm thinking that most of the serious trout fishermen would encourage you to reserve most of your "quality fishing time" for the 8-mile stretch between Kelly Ford (just downstream of Rainbow Springs) and Althea Spring (or the 1st island downstream of the Patrick Bridge). Its my hunch that some would spend an entire day of trout fishing just working the 3 mile span between Blair Bridge and Patrick Bridge. So budget your fishing time to get out of the boat and work some of the sweet spots in these zones.

The wild rainbows (primarily between Rainbow Springs and Patrick Bridge) are plenty savy - you need to target the riffles and you won't have success with sloppy presentations. Your choice of flies sounds fine for this zone. But the brown trout that range from Blair Bridge downstream are meat eaters. A weighted rubber legs is a good choice. I like Don's Crawdad.

There is nothing like experience. It would be well worth your while to hook up with the guys at Sunburst before you hit the water. There is lots of great stuff posted in this forum, but I always learn best face-toface. In fact, Sunburst would be a most logical spot for your overnight camp (10 miles down from Hammond, 8 miles on to Dawt), so you could camp there, shuttle up to Hammond, float Day 1 back to Sunburst, and then float Day 2 down to Dawt. Sunburst is smack in the middle of the best trout waters, so it would make a great spot to fish from the campsite area.

If you've got the coin, a session with a guide can make an incredible difference to your NFOW TIQ (trout intelligence quotient). Justin at Sunburst, Brian at RiverOfLife, Kyle, and others are really, really good. So if you're planning to make this a frequent float (and I'll bet it hooks you), then you might want to find a way to rent their expertise for a half-day or day guided session.

[Andrew324]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am going with a few other people, so I will have to balance my fishing time a little, but it is mainly a small group float. I knew I would need to do something like this before I could come back and really work it. I appreciate the word of advice on where to concentrate, and the beer offers. I may take you up on that Chris! I will be bringing some type of canned goodness, I'll be the guy with a cute blonde in the front of the canoe.

I do run into Kyle Kosovich here at Missouri State quite often. Great guy. He was going to do some guiding for Outdoor Adventures, but his graduate position disqualified him. (Dang university red tape).

I'm used to getting skunked (I fish Crane). I'm just glad I get to fish some new water, and get outside. Sounds like we will still do Hammond to Dawt, and I will focus on the spots 2sheds recommends.

Don't know if we will be at Sunburst for camping. Waiting to hear back from my friends.

[Andrew324]

Had an up and down weekend. A buddy named Jake from Willow Springs had to cancel camping plans on Saturday night, as his grandfather is very close to passing. He needed to return home to get canoes and see him, planned on meeting at Hammond in the morning before noon. Hammond Campground was closed (gated), so we decided to just find a point in Mark Twain to just camp for the night. Wish we would have went to Sunburst. Woke up early and drove to Hammond, thought about fishing a bit but are there trout up there?

Met Jake at Hammond in the morning, decided to float between Blair and Dawt, shorter and more fishing time. Got on the river around 1 and met a guy from Kansas City, he loaned me a stonefly nymph, and I strung up three rods for Jake, his girlfriend, and my girl, who was sick and not feeling well at all. We fished the riffles and runs from Blair to Patrick. Fish seemed to really hit anything with a bead head. Had several different nymph patterns which all produced. I was the only one who caught a fish that day, just a 6-7 inch guy, no paw marks.

We camped at Patrick Bridge. Other than having to carry everything up those stairs we had to put up with several people from Mountain Grove, etc. being very loud, playing music till 3am, shooting fireworks. They didn't even camp there. They just came down to get drunk. My girlfriend, trying to get a good nights sleep after basically being sick to death, cussing in the tent, and I wondered how they could be so rude. There were other folks camping there as well. Wish we would have camped at Sunburst.

Today, Sunday, was better. We woke around 9 and had coffee and breakfast. Fished directly below Patrick Bridge today. Caught several small guys there. Fished each good riffle from there and had luck getting Jake with a fish on the line. He had never really done much fly fishing, but when I explained my probably imperfect way of nymphing, he seem to catch on. And boy did he land the fish of the weekend, hell maybe the fish of his life. A really colorful rainbow, i don't know maybe 14-16 inches. Pictures will follow once I get them from him. He had a big smile on his face. He told me there was an egg pattern stuck in the fish's mouth, (because that's what I tied on for his the previous day), but it actually turned out to be a strike indicator and some tippet that appeared to be caught in the mouth & gills. We were able to remove it all and get a quick couple pictures o before being released.

We took out at Dawt and I caught a few small bows. Maybe bringing my weekend total to maybe 10. Will definitely be back, awesome river.

[Justin Spencer]

Glad you had a good trip. Patrick is a nice campground, but unfortunately no one patrols it and the local wildlife always seems to be a problem there. To answer your question there are really no trout at Hammond. Probably a few around in the winter that have moved up, and a few get stranded at blue spring as the water warms, but not worth the effort. The upper outlet of rainbow spring is where the trout really get going about 4 miles below Hammond. Fishing seemed to be pretty steady this weekend from what I heard. Some of our regulars floated here to James one day and before pulling anchor at our boatramp they caught a 22" brown, and then a smallmouth and an 18" brown before passing our house. The river really gets good once we get a little water in it, this is as low as I have seen it.

[Trout Commander]

Had an up and down weekend. A buddy named Jake from Willow Springs had to cancel camping plans on Saturday night, as his grandfather is very close to passing. He needed to return home to get canoes and see him, planned on meeting at Hammond in the morning before noon. Hammond Campground was closed (gated), so we decided to just find a point in Mark Twain to just camp for the night. Wish we would have went to Sunburst. Woke up early and drove to Hammond, thought about fishing a bit but are there trout up there?

Met Jake at Hammond in the morning, decided to float between Blair and Dawt, shorter and more fishing time. Got on the river around 1 and met a guy from Kansas City, he loaned me a stonefly nymph, and I strung up three rods for Jake, his girlfriend, and my girl, who was sick and not feeling well at all. We fished the riffles and runs from Blair to Patrick. Fish seemed to really hit anything with a bead head. Had several different nymph patterns which all produced. I was the only one who caught a fish that day, just a 6-7 inch guy, no paw marks.

We camped at Patrick Bridge. Other than having to carry everything up those stairs we had to put up with several people from Mountain Grove, etc. being very loud, playing music till 3am, shooting fireworks. They didn't even camp there. They just came down to get drunk. My girlfriend, trying to get a good nights sleep after basically being sick to death, cussing in the tent, and I wondered how they could be so rude. There were other folks camping there as well. Wish we would have camped at Sunburst.

Today, Sunday, was better. We woke around 9 and had coffee and breakfast. Fished directly below Patrick Bridge today. Caught several small guys there. Fished each good riffle from there and had luck getting Jake with a fish on the line. He had never really done much fly fishing, but when I explained my probably imperfect way of nymphing, he seem to catch on. And boy did he land the fish of the weekend, hell maybe the fish of his life. A really colorful rainbow, i don't know maybe 14-16 inches. Pictures will follow once I get them from him. He had a big smile on his face. He told me there was an egg pattern stuck in the fish's mouth, (because that's what I tied on for his the previous day), but it actually turned out to be a strike indicator and some tippet that appeared to be caught in the mouth & gills. We were able to remove it all and get a quick couple pictures o before being released.

We took out at Dawt and I caught a few small bows. Maybe bringing my weekend total to maybe 10. Will definitely be back, awesome river.

Good report.

Leave it to some Grovers to ruin a good night LOL. You must be from the area (Please hold back the comments, but I am from Cabool ) ? Did your buddy Jake happen to play baseball?

Thanks for sharing, and can't wait for those pics!

[Justin Spencer]

Don't lie Jason you know you don't LOL a Grover. If you look at the history up there, all the Grovers just follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, a spirited people. All of the outfitters (as well as water patrol) report about 90% of the problems have ties to Mountain Grove. As a side note we do have a few Grover groups that are great, just an exception not the rule. Sorry Mtn. Grove chamber of commerce.

[Trout Commander]

HAHA I have some good friends and family in Grove (just don't tell anyone) and played baseball with a great group of guys from coach pitch up until high school because Cabool's program was worthless. But I literally lol'd at this line: "If you look at the history up there, all the Grovers just follow in the footsteps of their ancestors, a spirited people."

On a side note, did you find the 5 $1's at the top of your stairs weekend before last? I was too lazy to message you to see if you did.... If you did find it, it was mine. If you didn't find it this is just crazy talk and I was never there