First Crooked Creek Float, Water Level

[Plastic_worm]

It's almost 7 miles and took us 12 hours but we fished slow and hard. We waded every shoal and stopped to fish all the deep holes. If you paddle more you can be done much sooner. So the short answer is it's really up to you.

[npierceuark]

Alright so I made it back safe and sound and had one heck of a trip. My dad and I made the float from pyatt to snow in just under 9 hours. fished hard and heavy but not as hard as plastic must have haha. Fair amount of dragging but nothing unbearable in my book, I do agree the sound does spook some fish but our typical strategy is to fish the top of a shoal from the boat, then park and walk to the tail end and fish back up to the boat. I feel I catch more fish casting upstream than down and they haven't seen the boat yet so relatively sneaky approach. Caught between 50-60 fish with the nicest being just shy of 18". Didn't get a picture of that one since we were about 300 yards from the boat and didn't want to stress the fish. Fishing did start off slow and peaked around 10am, caught fish primarily on shaky head worms, tubes, and a few on a spinnerbait. My dad caught a lot of fish on the rebel craw but they were mostly real dandy sunfish. Every nice fish we pulled in was coughing up crawdads so that was definitely the bait of choice. Enjoy the pics and I thoroughly enjoyed the river, thanks for the help guys.

[npierceuark]

I would like to add, I have fished rivers and streams all over the ozarks and I don't think I've ever seen one with more quality habitat than what I saw this last weekend. It was almost overwhelming, usually I fish a hole or a bank and then paddle a few minutes to the next one and repeat. This river was foot after foot of quality structure, I couldn't keep my line out of the water because I felt I was missing spots.

[Plastic_worm]

From the pictures it seems you did have a great trip. Parking and walking down and back is my strategy also, however on this trip we were in kayaks and leap froged each other all afternoon. So while I was fly fishing he would somehow end up at the end of the run before I arrived. Next time I'll stick to my commie tackle. I agree the habitat is outstanding, I could have stayed out their all night. Might head back next week and do it all over again.

[npierceuark]

I'm debating going back soon as well, anyone ever try it on a full moon?

[Plastic_worm]

I haven't but my next trip will be an overnighter or 2.

[Guest]

full moons are awesome, all the bait in the river system will be spawning including the crawdads.

Smallmouth are about to get fat & happy.

Remember, the key time frames of a full moon are dawn/dusk noon & midnight. (on the actual day of the full moon)

[joeD]

Crooked Creek abides.

Pay less attention to gauges (unless it's flooded, surely you would know) and to other people.

Knowlege and confidence will follow. Good trip.

[npierceuark]

Well I headed back down last weekend to try it again on a different stretch. Went George's to Kelly's and the river was a totally different animal. Swift current in all but maybe 5% of the river. Couple small eddies and the long pool before the take out were the only calm spots. Weekend before the fish were keyed in on eddies directly off of the tail ends of rapids. That condition was almost no where to be found and if it existed good luck being able to cast to it more than once or have your lure sit for more than 2 seconds before being ripped out by the current.

The most productive technique was swimming a tube with a jerky motion through 2-4 fow. Caught fish on a little of everything but it was not as productive as the weekend before. Small shad cranks did alright as well. Hope to get out there again and I'll keep you posted.

[Plastic_worm]

Thanks for the follow-up report. That's actually my favorite float. I like the faster current, however I have not been on that end this yr, so I'm not sure if it's like it was last yr. In the faster current I usually keep a fluke on and it works really well. I fish a craw or tube in slower water. This weekend I decided to drive to SELA and catch redfish and I had a blast doing it. I'm watching the weather/gauges and might try to sneak up there later this week or next.