Smalliebigs Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 I am waiting on my wife but, we are about to begin our annual journey. We stay at a friends place on the Black River that is out of this world and use it as a starting place. My boy Mosmallies and I will be floating from Lesterville to K on the Black a couple times depending on the fishing.We wade Stouts and Marble one day and throw in the tail water end of Crane Pond creek. We also will hit Big Creek and Ottery one day and finish that day with a quick hit of the East Fork @ Johnson Shut ins. We will also hike the East Fork of the Black down from the darn @ Taum Sauk to Lenny's, if we not dead by the end of that day we finish with a quick hit @ Brushy Creek where our friends have a honey hole ahalf mile long with pet smallies that are huge but, it seems like cheating over there. All in all we will collect some very sweet images and video clips as well as burn some memories into my brain....can't wait to post some.......time to put a beat down on that Coosa.............see ya after the fourth
ozark trout fisher Posted June 25, 2011 Posted June 25, 2011 Sounds like a great trip.Ten days straight fishing for smallies..I'm envious. Looking forward to the report.
Mitch f Posted June 26, 2011 Posted June 26, 2011 Sounds like a great trip.Ten days straight fishing for smallies..I'm envious. Looking forward to the report. Remember, be safe first, have fun with the family second, don't impart much action on the lures......dead sticking is in Have fun my friend! "Honor is a man's gift to himself" Rob Roy McGregor
Smalliebigs Posted July 7, 2011 Author Posted July 7, 2011 All right, sorry about the delay in getting pics and reports back it was one hell of a journey with a wife an 18 month old and three kayaks and a canoe in tow First let me say this I have heard a lot of bad things in the past about the Black River and all I can say is I disagree.....I love the Black River. My adopted son MOsmallies was there he can attest the Black River is full of quality smallies and the water is crystal clear....I mean gin clear. We snorkled a few rootwads in some of the deep holes and it will blow you away what size of smallies you see up under those logs, absolute pigs!!!! I am not exagerating I saw fish that are pushing the five pound mark. Ah but, they will not hit any lure, they are way to wise for that. I had a friend actually drop a live crawdad tied to some mono on to the nose of one monster the smallie did nothing while the crawdad crawled up it's face....now that's a tight lipped fish!!!! All I can say to anyone on this forum is get out on the rivers and streams the smallies are hitting ferociously. Big Creek: the water levels above Sam Baker were good and the fish were not hard to catch at all it just requires a lot of hiking in between holes, for a freak like me it's no big deal....some might not care for that though.The biggest we caught there was only 16 inches but, the numbers for 5 hours of fishing were stupid. Stouts Creek: the water level in this creek was very good as well, they must have been getting more rain down there that I was thinking??? We fished above Lake Kilarney and below to the St.Francis River. The fishing was better above the lake and as always the scenery on this creek is something to behold.One note of caution to anyone fishing this creek the landowners surrounding it are viligant and the rock formations of slick granite are dangerous***very slick*** Ottery Creek: was really the only place that was a bust in my book we only caught a few and all were small but, the scenery and isolation are magical.From Bell Mountain to Johnson Shut ins it's something to behold, we are all truly lucky to have such beautiful natural areas available to the people of Missouri. East Fork of the Black River: I fished this with my wife on our date night away from the baby.We visited Taum Sauk Res and as always there was not a soul there.....what a beautiful spot.We headed over to the darn and waded down from there and once again the water levels were higher than anticipated. We did okay but nothing to right home about or brag on OAF. Now for the BLACK, the river has had MO conservation tag fish in there and it didn't let us down. I think the running total of people I was with caught $425 worth of tagged fish. We met the conservation agents that shocked the Castor and the Black, very nice guys.They texted me some of the images of there tagging on the Black and now it's time for you see them.I appologize for the quality of some of the images it was out of my control.When you think of this tagging thing the MOcon dept is doing realize they tagged fish on the Black in March and the river level was up dramaticly allowing a ton of catfish to migrate up from the lower sections of the river and Clearwater Lake.That beeing said the agent told us they tagged 1800 fish and 60% of those were catfish and alot of the catfish tags for the bigger cats are $125.....not bad.Can I shut up and post some pics!!!!!! no...because the scrutiny on this forum is pathetic!!!
eric1978 Posted July 7, 2011 Posted July 7, 2011 Great report, Scott. Looks like a hell of a trip. Ten days...wow! I wonder if Phil knows he has the filter set up to change the word "d-a-m" to "darn." Last I heard, a "d-a-m" was a big concrete thing that turns a river into a lake...didn't know it was a word to avoid around grandma.
Mitch f Posted July 8, 2011 Posted July 8, 2011 Niiiiiiiiice!! "Honor is a man's gift to himself" Rob Roy McGregor
Chief Grey Bear Posted July 8, 2011 Posted July 8, 2011 Great looking trip!!! I wasn't able to get all the pics you sent me the other day. The last two were too big. Chief Grey Bear Living is dangerous to your health Owner Ozark Fishing Expeditions Co-Owner, Chief Executive Product Development Team Jerm Werm Executive Pro Staff Team Agnew Executive Pro Staff Paul Dallas Productions Executive Pro Staff Team Heddon, River Division Chief Primary Consultant Missouri Smallmouth Alliance Executive Vice President Ronnie Moore Outdoors
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