stlfisher Posted October 10, 2011 Posted October 10, 2011 Took a trip to the Little Piney yesterday with a buddy of mine. First time for me fishing for these wild trout in MO. The stream was bigger than I expected and the habitat seemed pretty good to me. Spooked a giant deer around Lane Spring taking an early morning drink. We caught lot's of fish in 8-10 inch range and there were plenty of fish in the stream. I rolled a few bigger ones, and missed a bunch, but landed about 20 for the day. The wild fish sure are colorful and scrappy little rascals. Small nymph's worked well as the bright sun had them hugging bottom...and you had to be on the bottom or no takes. Kinda surpised the fish don't grow larger overall, but there are a few bigger ones to be had. We worked our way pretty far downtream and found a couple of really nice deep holes, that looked to be quite deep and one section we had leave the water and climb a few trees. Looking down we saw a ton of trout and a nice smallie hanging below, but impossible to get a fly near them. I was impressed and will be back for sure. We were the only people on the stream all day. We took a break around 2 for some lunch and decided to give the Roubidoux red ribbon area a shot. What an odd place for trout and I am not sure if we were in the white ribbon or red ribbon area. We may have missed the signs, and the stream is easy to find, but would have been nice to know which section we are in. Maybe we just parked in the wrong spot. Anway, we worked away from the bridge at the end of the city park and on downstream. Looked like dead water, but sure enough there were a few trout milling about and suprisingly some nice ones. I decided to fish a streamer and cover a lot of water and that worked well enough. I didn't get a lot of fish, but I managed 4 that were 15-17 inches and several other failed hookups. About the time we walked downstream to what appeared to be more isolated and trouty looking areas, the sun was setting and we had to walk back. Would have liked to explore downstream a bit. I don't think I will fish Roubidoux again unless I am in the area, but everyone was friendly and we had a good enough time. Need to clean out the tires and the toilet seats in the stream though...not real pleasant to fish with that stuff looking at you. With a little cleanup and habitat improvement it could be a nice stream. First observations is it probably does hold some large fish on occasion, but not a lot of moving water. Overall, it was a fun day exploring two new waters. Lane Spring was nice and we had a nice conversation with the campround host. It would be a good place to camp and relax if fishing wasn't your game.
MaxDrown Posted October 10, 2011 Posted October 10, 2011 "Kinda surpised the fish don't grow larger overall." Me, too! Any ideas? -- Max Drown
stlfisher Posted October 10, 2011 Author Posted October 10, 2011 My guess would be habitat and available food. Although, I did envison the stream being smaller than it was, it might be just a bit to small grow them big. I do think there are big fish to be had and it could just be I am not good enough to catch them.
ollie Posted October 12, 2011 Posted October 12, 2011 Well, don't know what you saw on the Roubi, but I personally have seen the biggest smallie in my life on that little creek! Came out and took a look at my jig before one that was 15" took it. Although I didn't catch the pigbeast I estimate it would have gone 22-24". It dwarfed the 15" I caught. Also have seen my boys uncle pull out a nice 19" bow on a rooster tail closer up by the spring. Have to agree with the trash comment as well. Although when you have easy access to masses of people you are going to have that problem. We have it here down on Hickory Creek as well. "you can always beat the keeper, but you can never beat the post" There are only three things in life that are certain : death, taxes, and the wind blowing at Capps Creek!
Gavin Posted October 12, 2011 Posted October 12, 2011 Think you were in the White Ribbon area...City Park upstream by the spring with the 44 business route bridge at the end of the park...the Red Ribbon is downstream of the other park behind the school down closer to the Gasconade...I havent fished it in a couple years...but it can produce good numbers of smallmouth and a bonus brown trout or two at times.
stlfisher Posted October 12, 2011 Author Posted October 12, 2011 Yeah, we didn't make it too far downtream from the City park. Ollie, I would agree there are some nice fish in that creek. I'd like to get a hold of a smallie that size.
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