3 Day Float On A Missouri Stream 5/20 Thru 5/22

[Ham]

I floated with cajunangler for 3 days in my Old Town Camper down a little Missouri stream. We started fairly far up and covered 20 something miles for the three days. Most of the water was "new" to me and some was "new" to cajunangler. It's been a few years since I had done any of it and I really had almost no memory of it. We try to float so many of the area creeks and rivers that they all blend in my head sometimes.

This was my first float of the year. I had been running the roads pretty hard the day before (drove 12 hours from the gulf coast) and was a little off my game. It was nice to get back on a river though. I wanted to do the lower Buffalo, but I called BS because I thought the fishing might be off because of the higher flow rates. We caught them pretty good so I'm at the very least happy with that part of the deal.

Being that far up the stream created so issues. There must not be a lot of commercial traffic up there because we had to drag thru or portage around a lot of trees that went all the way across the river. The water is still cool enough to have a little bite. Lower 70's maybe. Water was mostly clear, but some areas had a light stain possibly due to cows in the river. Floating past cows in the river always concerns me a bit. Cows are dumb and unpredictable at times.

As usual, we had my poor old canoe loaded down. I'm sure it would handle better IF I didn't put so much in it and have lots of stuff above the gunnels. I think we needed about 7 inches of water to not drag. Lol. I pretty much only use the canoe to do these camping trips and we trade off time in front of the canoe. I am FINALLY starting to get more comfortable and confident with steering the boat thru tougher spots.

Fishing was slow the first day, but we dialed in a little bit and by the end of the three days we had caught over 300 fish altogether. Cajunangler got the best of me this trip. He had more fish and several real nice smallies on top water baits.

Cajunangler is a gravelbar gourmet. We had some wonderful Ribeye steaks the first night. He had marinated them for ~ 24 hours prior to grilling them. We had great seasoned porkchops the second night. We had sweet corn and toasted some bread both nights. We have gotten a little soft in our advancing age and have started doing toasted bread and grilled sausage for breakfast each morning. We have really nice sandwhiches of the river both days. We had plenty of water and sodas to keep us hydrated.

We saw tons of snakes of which a surprizing number were cottonmouths. We also saw Bald Eagles, turkeys, and lots of other wildlife. The weather was great. Three days with minimal stress and lots of laughs.

It's getting warmer and I've always got crap going on so likely no more camping trips until next September, but I'm looking forward to it already.

[Ham]

This guy looked a little hybridized. Ned rig of course.

[Ham]

. Upstream

[Ham]

. Downstream

[West Fork Jason]

Awesome, nice looking water

[Wayne SW/MO]

That does look like it might be a hybrid. Longear/Green, aka black perch mix?

[Ham]

I know there's Green Sunfish in there, but crossed with ???? He's not the run of the mill Green Sunfish.

[ColdWaterFshr]

very pretty water. love that undercut bluff. where is this?

[Guest]

Looks like a great time!

[Quillback]

Good deal!