The Clearest Streams In Missouri

[Feathers and Fins]

Wayne you bring up Tablerock, though I never saw it in its glory clear days I have heard about I can releate to clarity. My home waters of southern Cali were crystal clear, Growing up I could see bedded fish in 15 feet of water and even fish in 30ft of water. My last trip out there I could see maybe 10ft and that was still clouded to a degree. The problem as I see it is abuse by users, there were beer bottles coke cans all kinds of trash, even had a diaper float past me.

In my youth that same time of year the lake was as i first described it. Today its trashed and the water quality nowhere near what was. Population and user are the culprit. My Dad tells me all the time how bad the lakes getting as well. I beleive as our area grows we will se this same problem in our lakes , rivers and streams. I do not know if there is a solution and it troubles me. I see these beautiful prestine waters and hope it never happens here.

[ozark trout fisher]

Yeah, who cares, they're all pretty. When you get to streams like the Huzzah, Meramec headwaters, and upper Current they're all so clear and so pretty that it just doesn't matter. I've not spent too much time on the Black but I may have to get down there soon.

[LittleRedFisherman]

Yeah, who cares, they're all pretty. When you get to streams like the Huzzah, Meramec headwaters, and upper Current they're all so clear and so pretty that it just doesn't matter. I've not spent too much time on the Black but I may have to get down there soon.

This is true, I've never seen a bad Ozark stream yet!!

Talking about water clarity reminds me of a lake we have a small place on near Hardy Arkansas, Lake Mirandy. It was once one of the clearest lakes in that area, including the Cherokee Village lakes. However, it was full of hydrilla, which you had to clean out around the dock all summer for swimming, but the fishing was fabulous in that lake. As a young kid, i could catch a mess of crappie, and 4 pound bass all day long, and blugill bigger than you hand. Mirandy had limited cover, but all the weeds made great fish cover, the POA decided to stock grass carp to get rid of the weeds,. Now the lake is clean of the weeds, and the water has a "healthy green color" as they say, but with limited cover, the fishing has went downhill. It's full of 10 to 12 inch bass, no big ones anymore, and the bluegill are thinned out, and the crappie nonexistent. When you do catch a decent sized bass, it's got a big head, and a skinny body. Now it's being addressed, but the only answer the Game and Fish has gave us, is to start keeping those bass we catch for a few years. I never was in favor of the grass carp, I prefered the clear water and all the weed cover, and the faboulous fising. I'm trying to get involved with the city council, that has now taken the lake over, to address the problem, like a christmas tree dropoff and such. Last year, I volunteered to construct homeade fish attractors and safe havens, only help I got doing that was my Dad. Sorry for the tangent, guess I was venting. Bret

[ollie]

Big Sugar. Guys around here in SWMO will agree on that one and Buffalo and I'm not talking the one in Arky land.

[ness]

The clearest creek in MO is the middle McKenzie, above the paper plant, in Kiowa county. No doubt.

[Al Agnew]

For you guys who say "who cares", it's just a subject to discuss. I make no claim that I like the clearest streams the best. I haven't spent any time on Elk and Big Sugar, so I don't know about them. I have spent time during the summer, which was my original parameter, on Beaver, Swan, NFOW, upper and lower Current River, Niangua below Bennett, upper Big Piney...and all them in stable water conditions. I don't think any of them compare to the upper Black and its forks.

The clearest fresh water I've ever seen during warm weather was the St. Lawrence River. The zebra mussels have made it incredibly clear by filter feeding everything that could possibly cloud the water. It was actually pretty spooky to be over a registered 45 feet on the depth finder and be able to see the bottom easily--it was like you were floating on air.

As for fishing clear water, I grew up fishing Big River, which is far from one of the clearest streams. It usually had good color; visibility of 3-4 feet. When I'd venture to one of the really clear streams like Huzzah or Current, I'd be very intimidated. I was convinced that I had to use small lures on ultralight tackle, so that's what I'd use, mostly stuff like marabou jigs and small soft plastics. I caught some fish that way, but nothing like what I always caught on Big River with my regular stuff. Then one day I was going to be floating Huzzah with my wife, and decided to just take my normal tackle, figuring I wasn't going to be doing all that much fishing anyway. Well, I found out that SOME of my normal stuff worked very well...caught more and bigger fish that day than I'd ever caught before on really clear streams.

What I've learned since then by fishing these clear streams a lot, is that smallmouth bass are smallmouth bass no matter what stream they are on. If they are active, they are going to be aggressive and competitive. The problem you have with clear streams is that smallies are also usually alert and attuned to their environment, and in clear water they tend to be extra alert to dangers because they are more exposed. So you have to be stealthy. But as long as they don't feel threatened by your presence (meaning that they probably don't know you're there) they will go after a lot of the same things they will on murky water rivers. Here are my clear water tactics:

Longer casts

Don't land the lure on top of their heads. That scares them. So don't cast TO the cover where you think they'll be, cast so the lure lands well past it, or well off to the side, at least 4-5 feet away. They'll see it, and they'll go after it.

Use stuff you can fish fast. Fast and splashy is really good. The key is to not give them a good look at it. Start it moving the second it hits the water and keep it moving. I love buzzbaits in clear water, I love walk the dog topwaters that you fish with a very fast cadence, and I love my homemade twin spin, fished very fast and bulging the surface. I also use Superflukes, also fished fast.

The colors of all these lures should be very light. Chartreuse or fluorescent yellow is usually the BEST color, with white or pearl a very close second, in clear water. It might seem really weird to use a super bright color like chartreuse, because it's so visible, but it's visible to the ANGLER, NOT TO THE FISH, when it's fished near the surface. Remember that the fish will be looking UP at it, and seeing it against a bright sky, sunlight filtering through green leaves, etc. Bright against bright, bright greenish yellow against bright greenish yellow. Chartreuse is always my default color for clear water with buzzbaits and my twin spin. In topwaters, I like translucent colors. I used to use clear Tiny Torpedoes in ultra clear water with good results. Now I use various translucent, almost transparent color patterns in the walk the dog topwaters I often use.

[Chief Grey Bear]

For you guys who say "who cares", it's just a subject to discuss. I make no claim that I like the clearest streams the best.

I didn't mean it in a sarcastic way. The Ozarks are well known to have among the clearest waterways in the world. I just thought it a little silly to claim you have the clearest in the state. I use the term "you" in a generic form, not you personally.

I haven't spent any time on Elk and Big Sugar, so I don't know about them.

We need to change that this year.

Longer casts

Don't land the lure on top of their heads. That scares them. So don't cast TO the cover where you think they'll be, cast so the lure lands well past it, or well off to the side, at least 4-5 feet away. They'll see it, and they'll go after it.

Very sound advice. And to expand on it, on really clear streams, pull over at the begining of the pool and walk the bank if you can. Try to stay out of the water as much as possible but if you have to be in the water, walk slowy making long cast. That will increase your odds tremendously for catching a larger fish.

[Justin Spencer]

I agree with others who have said that clear water for fishing can be a curse. It is rare to have much color in the NFoW so you will hear us all get excited when we get "some color" here, unfortunately it always accompanies a decent rise on the river. Only times I have done really well on smallmouth and goggle-eye in this lower section is when the water has been murky, when it's normal you would swear they aren't there.

Clear water is great for tourists though, they love it!

[OzarksRiverman]

Beaver Creek is a dirty mess filled with old tires and cattle runoff...Don't bother.

[Al Agnew]

I agree with others who have said that clear water for fishing can be a curse. It is rare to have much color in the NFoW so you will hear us all get excited when we get "some color" here, unfortunately it always accompanies a decent rise on the river. Only times I have done really well on smallmouth and goggle-eye in this lower section is when the water has been murky, when it's normal you would swear they aren't there.

Clear water is great for tourists though, they love it!

You're right about that, but I wouldn't call clear water a curse anymore, because that puts me in the wrong psychological frame of mind to begin with. You CAN catch plenty of fish out of very clear water if you approach it right. But I know what you mean...some of my best days for bigger fish especially have come on streams that are usually very clear but have gotten a small rise and some color. If I get to the river expecting to have 8 feet of visibility and instead it's 2-3 feet (and not too high to float) I get really excited.

I haven't been there since the failure of Ameren's upper reservoir that sent a whole mountain of rock and dirt into it, but the East Fork of Black River in Johnson's Shut-ins used to be almost but not quite as clear as the other forks. There was a pool below one of the rapids areas in the shut-ins that was about 25 feet deep. One time when I was a kid, I decided to see if I could dive down to the bottom in the deepest part. This was about the only place on that stream where you actually could not see the bottom. As I went deeper and deeper, the water color changed from the light blue-green of some of Ron Kruger's photos, to a darker and darker green, until I reached the part where most of the light no longer penetrated and then everything was very dark green. It freaked me out so much that I didn't try to get any deeper but shot back toward the surface. I don't know how close I came to the bottom, but I have remembered that experience ever since.