Weekend Report

[ozark trout fisher]

After having not been down there for so long that I really don't want to talk about it, I spent this weekend camping and fishing along the Current. It was a great time, the weather a perfect mix of frigid cold (Sunday morning when I started fishing the temperature was 17) to today, when I was fishing in 70 degree weather. The fishing was simply lights out for the most part, as I've come to expect down there during the winter, although there were a few times when they made you work for them.

Saturday I got down to Baptist about 3 PM and started working my way down right away. I tied on a tri-color egg pattern and immediately started getting into fish, mostly small rainbows. The fish were really concentrated in the riffles and pocket water, and they weren't difficult to catch at all. What these fish lacked in size, they made up for it in their coloration, another really wonderful thing I've come to look for in winter fishing down there. Right at dark I hooked into a very large rainbow,but after a short fight it managed to straighten out the hook.

The next morning I decided to try something a bit different. I have spent a great deal of time fishing downstream from Baptist, but I haven't fished the stretch between it and Tan Vat very much. So I decided to head over to Baptist again, and fish the whole stretch from Baptist to Tan Vat and back down again. The fishing started off very slow in the cold weather, and things weren't helped by the usual problems one encounters fly fishing in cold weather, primarily frozen rod guides. But when the temperature got up into the 30s (and eventually the 40s) the river really came to life. Through the afternoon a variety of bugs were hatching and I managed to get a few on dries, the best being a #16 Adams. When they weren't rising, there were always fish willing to go for egg patterns, as well as soft hackles about any other kind of nymph you wanted to throw at them.

This morning I decided to head up to the park (something I rarely do anymore) to see how the crowds were. There were only 3 cars in the parking lot by the mill-dam, so I decided to head up to the fly fishing only area to see what I could scare up. All the fisherman were in the mill-dam hole, so I had all the nice riffles and pools above there for myself, which is quite a novel thing at Montauk Park. The fishing was as good as you would expect it to be on a warm winter day with no other fisherman around, and the trout seemed to be a bit bigger than average too, though no lunkers. I caught fish on just about every fly in my box, egg patterns, woolly buggers, hare's ears, and even a couple on an elk hair caddis. It was a great day to end a very nice weekend on the river.

[Phil Lilley]

Great report! After working on the Current River maps and reading your report, I feel like I've been there.

Any pictures?

[ozark trout fisher]

Great report! After working on the Current River maps and reading your report, I feel like I've been there.

Any pictures?

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

I do have some pictures, though admittedly just scenery pics (I didn't find any of the trout to be large enough to warrant a picture). I will post them as soon as I get a chance.

[ozark trout fisher]

I realize I'm very late on this, but I promised to post pictures and then realized I never did. Like I said, just scenery, river pics, and not even a lot of those. I tend to get distracted from taking pictures when the fishing is good!

Anyway, here's a few...

[Nortrad]

That's a primo hole in the upper left pic...

[ozark trout fisher]

That's a primo hole in the upper left pic...

It is that.