Guess The Access Spot

[cnr]

duh sorry the bridge west of Leadwood off hwy 8....we got gravel there for our exposed agregate patio in Terre Du Lac....there is usually an olde dude camping on the west side of that bridge as his drunk butt wife kicks him out all the time.....you guys should have put in at Cedar creek and paddled to your put in instead of Leadwood....I mean Methwood access

Bingo, you da man. Completely agree on the Methwood (Leadwood) access, I was very concerned at the takeout. I was already looking at the next access up for a float, looks like about 6 miles. Just trying new water and doing a little exploring. Gotta love having phones with GPS to give you an idea of how far you have gone, makes the float more enjoyable to not be playing the "Where are we?" guessing game. We had to do an hour of hard paddling at the end of the day because we goofed off so much enjoying the day. You know that "holy crap" feeling when you suddenly realize you have 3-4 miles ahead and it's getting late. I never want to be at that Leadwood access after dark. Yikes!

[joeD]

Whew! I was wondering about that photo. For a second there, I thought it would show how overweight I am. Crisis averted.

[Terrierman]

Whew! I was wondering about that photo. For a second there, I thought it would show how overweight I am. Crisis averted.

Lay off the Manhattans and watch the pounds melt away.

[Al Agnew]

Just now got on and saw the photos. Since that's a section of my "home water", I knew it instantly. Both those accesses are pretty dicey at times, but I've never had anything bad happen at the Leadwood Access, and have only had one bad experience at your put-in. We call that access Mount's, since it is or was Mount's gravel operation on the other side of that bridge.

My one bad experience, my brother-in-law and I were doing a night fishing float from the next access upstream to there, and had my dad shuttle my old Blazer to the take-out. I told him I had a spare key and to lock it and leave the key under the floor mat. He locked it alright, but left the key in plain sight on the console. It was a summer Saturday night, and that's never a good time to leave a vehicle at any access around Methwood, but geez, the Blazer was old and beat up. We finished the float around 1 AM, and when we got to Mount's, there was a big party in progress, and my Blazer was nowhere in sight. I walked across the bridge, being watched by the partiers, and in the light of the moon I caught a glimpse of something shining about halfway up the road toward Highway 8. It was the chrome bumper of the Blazer, which was off in a ditch. I walked back, picked out a big scruffy looking guy sitting on the back of a big tired 4WD truck, asked him if it was his truck, and when he said it was I asked him if he'd pull my Blazer out of the ditch. He seemed happy to help. Taking inventory after he dragged it out, it was basically undamaged except for the big back window the doofuses had broken out to get into it, and my stereo was missing. Which didn't much matter, since the stereo hadn't worked for a couple of years. They somehow missed the $5 bill in the console, which was probably more than the stereo was worth, but replacing the glass window cost me a chunk of change.

The rock in the third picture is in the middle of the second pool above the take-out. I once stood atop it and watched a huge smallmouth following a snapping turtle that was crawling along the bottom when the river happened to be much clearer than normal.

If you caught spotted bass in that stretch, that's just one more bit of bad news. The low water bridge at the Leadwood Access was the last barrier that had stopped their spread up Big River, and it wasn't until last summer than I first caught a spotted bass above the bridge, and then only one.

Actually, of all the upper river, that's one of my least favorite stretches. Way too many cattle and cow manure around, and it gets very weedy in places. Some years you catch more largemouth than smallmouth, and not many big smallies. The first third of the float was dredged for gravel many years ago, and you can still see the spoil piles on the banks when the leaves are off. Just about the time you get out of the dredged area, which still suffers from questionable habitat, you reach the Terre du Lac picnic ground and some screwed up landscape again. And the stretch from the old railroad bridge tower (used to be an access there called Leadwood Beach) to Leadwood Access (used to be called Hunt's Ford) looks decent in places but seldom seems to produce many fish.

[joeD]

And here I thought we were on to something. In fact, I was quite giddy doing a new stretch of the Big. In fact, I was pleased with the "look" of the river, and attributed our lack of superbness (despite cnr's 17 incher) to the general vagaries of smallmouth fishing on Ozark streams. Here today, gone tomorrow as it were.

But Al, you hit it on the head, "looks decent in places but seldom seems to produce many fish."

I agree, but why? Until your post, I would return in a heartbeat. Now, I'm not so sure.

Terrierman: Anna? I said I was cutting back.

[ozark trout fisher]

Pretty stretch of river, regardless of how the fishing is.

A 17 incher is nothing to sneeze at from an Ozark stream. I'd take that any day.

[Al Agnew]

I floated that stretch back in early April, and caught a 17.5 incher right alongside the dug-out bottom just below the Terre du Lac picnic ground. I keep expecting the river to do something drastic where that whole bottom has been excavated...the guy sure didn't leave much of a buffer zone along the bank. I'm trying to remember big fish I've caught in that stretch...

There's a short stretch of bedrock bottom shallow water that ends in a split channel. Left channel goes off at an angle in a short riffle and then forms a little pool about the size of a big living room and about two feet deep before riffling out again in a long riffle that ends in a bigger, deeper pool where the channels come back together. About 10-15 years ago I caught a 20 incher in that tiny pool. Caught a couple of 18 inchers in the long pool just above the Highway 8 bridge in the winter, and a guy I know caught a smallie in that pool that was over five pounds...but that was close to 40 years ago. Caught a 19 incher in the deep pool above the old railroad bridge tower a couple years ago. Caught a 20 incher night fishing at the lower end of the second pool above the take-out. And that's just about it, and I've floated that stretch an average of two or three times a year for 45 years!

[cnr]

Al, you nailed the spot where I caught the 17.5" fish. About one cast below the Hwy 8 bridge on the right side. That fish absolutely crushed my crank bait and then shot about 2 feet out of the water. Awesome fighting fish. I love to see an acrobatic fish. I know they can shake free but the jumps are beautiful at times.

[mjk86]

Have fished the stretch from terre du lac to leadwood my whole life. Dont even get me started on the locals..... Not great fishing and few big fish. lots of largemouth in the grass. Just the last 5 yrs or so ive been picking up spots. Not many but 1 here and there.