Niangua River 7/25/13

[dennis boatman]

My third trip to the Niangua this week. Earlier in the week while kayaking I had what looked like a pretty good brown flash at a small spinner...it bugged me...so today I kayaked 2.5 miles UPSTREAM just to give it a go...it worked. Caught this brown, probably13 or 14 inches right where I had seen him a few days ago...you can run, but you cant hide...also caught at least 12 nice rainbows...great day on the river and very few floaters.

[Smalliebigs]

I love the attitude Dennis!!!!! very nice three times in a week??? your living the dream...kudos....Do you think it was the brown that flashed from earlier in the week??? or same size???

[dennis boatman]

I'm thinking it was the same one...here's another rainbow from today...

[mic]

Can you descibe the spoon spinner?

[delopez]

I've been after a brown on that river for a while. I still haven't had the luxury of hooking up with one. Thanks for the motivation, Dennis.

[dennis boatman]

I'd guess I catch about 20 rainbows for every brown...and my average catch rate is about one per hour...so a brown every 20 hours of fishing...this brown hit a soft hackle type fly (homemade) while it was swinging...and he exploded on it...like a smallmouth...most of the browns I've caught have hit like that on the Niangua...this has been my best year to date on trout in the river...after the last 2 years of low water flow, these, as you can see, are very healthy fish...nice and fat with full tails and lots of color...

[delopez]

I usually swing size 8/10 beadhead/conehead woolys in brown/olive colors. I've been hearing that there are lots of browns holding from barclay to oldhams takeout and even farther. However, I have not yet floated that section this year. I'm ready to, for sure. Here in the next month, or so, I'm planning to come down and float it. I'm always looking for partners (someone who knows more than me ), if you're interested!

[Wayne SW/MO]

We were going to do a 2 day float,, but backed out because of uncertain weather. The river looks good, but all the love around 64 is filling it in fast in the first 3 or 4 miles it seems..

I knew of of an old fellow who lived around the river all his life and he did well on browns, he fished late and deep.

[delopez]

there are some golden spots down in that area. I landed a smallie there that took my 5x tippet for a run. My helios 6wt liked to break off anything less than 4x... I got rid of it after that. However, I thought it was a brown... (smallie is shown in my profile pic, just so none of you think this is some "fish story" )

[Wayne SW/MO]

When I concentrate on smallie in the Niangua I always catch a few trout, even on top sometimes.