5/25/13 Boiling Spring To Mason Report

[jibro]

First time floating the Big Piney. Put in at 6:45 little chilly and overcast. Started out using a topwater pop-r and caught a blugill and a 7 inch smallie right away could still see the put in. Threw that for about an hour catching very little. Once the sun came up started throwing a shad crank and a brown grub. Crank caught zilch and had a few small fish on the grub mostly goggle eye. The first 2 miles of this strectch has very little fishable water. Either good current and extremely shallow or deep and stagnet as all hell. Once i did find i nice section 1 cast in a finally had a decent bite. However something didn't seem quite right. This fish wasn't fighting like a small mouth. I could see it in the water mouth wide open, pulling back its head and shaking. I thought this is looking and fighting like a trout. Sure enough it was a trout, 12 inch rainbow. I thought well thats odd i have never heard anything about trout in this river, as far as i know there are no regulations on trout. I knew the Little Piney flowed into the Big which is where the fish had to come from but i really had no idea where it dumped in at. It was caught from where a spring was running into the river. I figured probably not as rare of occurence as im thinking. The rest of the day held much of the same not much fishable water producing very small fish. Took out around 3:45 at Mason and talked to two people, one was the guy shuttling us back to Boiling Spring and another local who was puttting in his john boat as we were taking out. Asked both about the frequency of trout in the river. They both said they had been fishing the river between 20-25 five and had never seen or caught one. Strange. Overall it was a beautiful float, ran into a total of 4 people (2 kayaks and 2 canoes) on Memorial Day weekend which was amazing to see that few but if i was going to fish i would pick a different stretch of river

[Guest]

deleted

[Greasy B]

Excapes from a private spring and branch, probably the one down at Slab Town.

[Al Agnew]

The Little Piney actually empties into the Gasconade several miles below the Big Piney. Little chance the trout came from there. But it could have come from Stone Mill Spring inside Ft. Leonard Wood, or Spring Creek just below the fort. High, cold water like we had this spring can really make trout move around.

[riverrat]

About 15-20 years ago I worked with a guy who lived near Mason Bridge. At that time there was some kind of private hatchery or trout rearing ponds about a mile below Mason, and a high water event washed the trout into the river. My buddy had access permission from several of his neighbors and we chased trout that winter. Don't know if that place is still there or not.

[Gavin]

I've caught trout near Hazelton and Slabtown. Might be hard for a fish to migrate up from Spring Creek because of the dam on near the East Gate of Fort Leonard wood, Stone Mill would be a possible. There might be a small wild population...most of the streams in that area were stocked with trout at one time or another.