Fishing The Drop

[ozark trout fisher]

Before Hurricane Isaac blew through here over the weekend, my options for fishing here in central Missouri were getting downright limited. There were a few larger streams that had enough flow in the last few miles before they dumped into the big muddy, but most were very thin and a few were darned near dry. So needless to say the 2 inches that we got here wasn't enough, but was nonetheless very welcome. Our ground was so dry that it never even properly "blew out" most of the streams, but it gave them a nice rise and some good, solid flow.

So I headed over today to a stream that before was running a bit too low to fish, thinking that the rise might have done it some good. And it sure enough had. The water wasn't even what you could call high, but it had steady current and some color to it. This is a slow stream, one that has already dropped well into the Missouri River valley, so there aren't a lot of riffles...but there is one quick, rocky shoal that would do justice to an Ozark stream. Fish often congregate in the well oxygenated water below it, so that's where I started fishing.

The water was fairly muddy, with just less than a foot of visibility. So something flashy and visible seemed to be the logical answer. I started with a Panther Martin spinner, and went through a few other things with the end result being a single bluegill. Finally I switched over to a Heddon Tiny Torpedo (even though topwater didn't seem to make much sense in the bright sun) and that was what ended up working. This creek has three species of bass, largemouth, spotted, and whites, and they were active and looking up. I don't fish topwater enough but it was certainly working today, even though the conditions just didn't seem to be right.

There's not much else to say really, but it's just so good to see streams like this doing better after the rain blew through-a stretch of stream I was mildly worried about going dry a few days ago now has good flow and excellent fishing. I can say we need a lot more rain to keep these increased flows sustained. If that happens we might actually have some decent fishing this fall... but for now I'm just very thankful of the effects of the weather we've had the past few days.

[Al Agnew]

You've just learned that the low light, early and late topwater thing is mostly a myth when it comes to smaller streams. Any fish in these streams that is more or less active enough to be caught is always in water shallow enough that they don't have far to go to reach a surface lure, and they are always opportunistic, and if it looks like food it doesn't matter whether it's on the surface or on the bottom or somewhere in between. As I've said here before, I fish topwater all day no matter how bright it is, and it usually catches a bunch of fish.

On lakes and on some of the larger, more heavily pressured rivers, the fish are a little less likely to hit topwater in the middle of bright days, but even on the larger rivers there are plenty of times when they will.

The other thing to do when the water is somewhat muddy is, don't think flash so much as vibration and water displacement. The fish use their other senses in muddy water, and they can hear and feel bigger lures and those that make a lot more noise and vibration. They were probably first locating your Tiny Torpedo by the sound of the prop.