Fishing Downstream (And Upstream) Of Hazelgreen

[MissouriFisherman]

Hey all,

I've never fished the Gasconade, but I've been rolling the idea around lately.

Anybody know how the water level is from Hazelgreen down towards 133? We always fish out of a canoe, and don't mind some dragging, but as low as the river has been, I'm curious is to how navigable that part of it is at this juncture. The gage in that area is reading about 1'. I'm not sure what's normal.

I'm looking that far upstream cause I'm kind of hoping to stay in the smaller water and away from motor boat traffic, but I don't know if it's possible. Is there any good smally fishing water upstream of there? I assume there is, but like I said, I've never been on it, and I've only really taken a good look at the Osage fork.

Thanks in advance.

[MissouriFisherman]

Also, after reading some other topics on the boards, I see some other anglers referring to that stretch below Hazelgreen as frog water. Is there a lot of moss in that stretch? And at what point does it taper off?

[Al Agnew]

Okay, gonna say this again...we need to put it somewhere where it can be read by everybody...

You won't learn anything by looking at the gauge height in feet, but you WILL learn pretty much what you need to know by looking at the flow in cubic feet per second on the gauges. Right now, the Gasconade at Hazelgreen is flowing 106 cfs. Here's the rule of thumb for figuring out what kind of water you'll run into as far as river levels go:

On any Ozark stream, 100 cfs will give you enough water to float most riffles without doing a whole lot of scraping bottom, though you will scrape a bit in wider riffles and split channels. Anything under 100 cfs and you'll do more scraping. Anything under 75 cfs and you'll probably be doing a lot of scraping bottom and you'll have to walk some riffles. Anthing under 50 cfs and it will be a lot of work.

Going the other way, anything between 100-200 cfs and it will be fairly easy floating except for split channels. Anything over 200 cfs and you'll be floating without any scraping.

One caveat is that if it's a wide river like, for instance, the lower Buffalo, you will be doing more scraping bottom at 100 cfs than you will on a smaller, narrow river like the upper Jacks Fork. But still, 100 cfs is about the cut-off point between lots of scraping and being able to float the majority of riffles cleanly. Easy round figure to remember.

As far as that section of the Gasconade, I kinda like it. Yes, there are some LONG, dead pools, but there is also some pretty decent fishing water. I prefer doing the float from Gasconade Hills upstream from Hazelgreen down to 133, and paddling through the long, dead pools. Really quick and easy shuttle from Gasconade Hills to 133, too.

[laker67]

Passed over the hwy 7 bridge on monday. it is as low as I can recall ever seeing it. It actually looked more fishable with the low water in that location.

[MissouriFisherman]

Thanks for the info, Al. Usually when I refer to a gauge, I just use it as a reference point. For instance, I float the St. Francis on a yearly basis and I know that when the gauge reads a certain level, I can expect certain conditions (because height and cfs are relative, right?). Having never fished the Gasconade before, you're correct in that the height information is useless to me. That cfs information definitely helps.

Thank you both for the suggestions on a stretch of the river. It'll definitely take some exploration.

[Al Agnew]

Thanks for the info, Al. Usually when I refer to a gauge, I just use it as a reference point. For instance, I float the St. Francis on a yearly basis and I know that when the gauge reads a certain level, I can expect certain conditions (because height and cfs are relative, right?). Having never fished the Gasconade before, you're correct in that the height information is useless to me. That cfs information definitely helps.

Thank you both for the suggestions on a stretch of the river. It'll definitely take some exploration.

Cfs isn't relative, that's the beauty of it. 100 cfs on one river is the same amount of water going down the river as 100 cfs on another river. As I said, the only difference is in how wide the riffles are, since the same amount of water flowing over a wider riffle will be shallower than over a narrow riffle.