Bridge Hopping.

[jdmidwest]

Since the weather was predicting our first hot humid day of the year, it seemed only fitting to do a little creek fishing.  I had planned an outing on the boat for a bluegill fest to stock up the freezer with fillets.  But it was too hot to sit on a boat.  Waist deep in cool waters was a better idea.

We hopped from bridge to bridge on a local river and its tributary I have fished since college.  Over the years, the stream bed has wore down to slick bedrock and most of the stream is now hard to wade.  First stop only produced a few little ones.

The next two bridges were barren.  We navigated around a few slick runs to some that I thought were going to be productive and nothing happened.  What used to be good has dwindled away to nothing.  Just 10 years ago I was posting on float trips thru this area.  Now, even with a wet spring, you could not poke a yak thru it  because it is so shallow.

Next 2 stops were duds.  One had about 25 ATVS on a gravel bar and several wading fisherman.  The next had swimmers, tents, and many, many people.

Finally on the last stop, we found a good hole.  But it was only one hole, above it was slick rock beds.  We managed to pull a few nice smallies out of it.  One was 15 and the other 14.  Several under the 12 inch mark.

I really don't know what has happened to this stream.  I am thinking otters, but did not see tracks or sign.  All fish of any size were gone.  Crayfish were not seen.  No snakes or frogs either.  Then there is the wearing down of the streambed to shelf rock.  Alot has changed since 1982.

[Al Agnew]

I've run across more than one creek in the last few years that was good 20 or 30 years ago but is almost barren these days.  Some are filled with gravel, others still look good but just don't seem to hold many fish.  Yet others, even if the habitat has suffered, still produce a lot of fish.  Otters?  Maybe.  Maybe it's something else.  I don't know.

Interesting that you mention the creek has been scoured to bedrock.  Sometimes a healthy amount of gravel is a very good thing. The gravel actually forms dams at the riffles to make the pools above deeper.  Could it be that land use practices on your creek have improved in the last few decades and there is less gravel getting into the creek?  Old records show that many Ozark streams had long stretches of shallow bedrock bottoms back in the days before the big logging booms.  And there are stretches of my home river that were mined for gravel 50 years or more ago, where all the gravel was removed down to bedrock for long stretches, and they've never yet formed deep pools again, just shallow pools over the bedrock.

[MOPanfisher]

Those little criks I used to fish here when I was a kid have mostly filled with gravel and mud.  There used to be some slick rock sections that were a 3 stooges act when wading them.  Floods, agricultural uses, cattle, no riparian protection have combined to ruin a lot of those skinny waters around home.

[grizwilson]

Might add many more septic systems and a well drilled on every 5 acre in my area.  The other thing I am noticing is siltation being heavy.  I blame it on the round up ready corn and soybeans folks are no tilling crops in places that should be left in grass and trees the ground cover is killed and the topsoil deposited in the creek, the rock will follow as it did with logging.  Just a shame, Mother Earth has a terrible human infestation.... 

[jdmidwest]

Not silt, clean and clear streambed. Land use is about the same, maybe less timber. 

I just write it off to natural process. The channel has stayed the same. It has cut to the bedrock and washed out the gravel to make the stream wider and shallower. Willows and sycamores stabilize the gravel bars now.

[ozark trout fisher]

Every once in awhile you run across a creek in the Ozarks that, by all appearances, should be great, and has nice looking habitat, but just doesn't produce worth a darn. I always tend to think I did something wrong the first time, and come back because I think there must be potential there. Sometimes there is, but other times, there are just stretches of creek that are basically barren and it's hard to pinpoint exactly why.

Although other times its pretty obvious. The Little Piney is one of my favorite streams, both in the lower sections for smallmouth bass, and up above Vida Slab for trout. But in between there are some pretty long stretches of water that, for a fisherman's purposes might as well not even exist. Wide, shallow, exposed, nothing that would even suggest it's worth a cast in passing. The reason there (and many,  many other creeks like it) is pretty obviously cattle destroying the banks and instream habitat, but I don't know if that applies on your creek.

[Fish24/7]

 could be a##holes with spear guns. They can ruin a great creek fishing hole overnight.

 I used to have awesome creek fishing close to my home. One night somebody shot almost all the fish. Fishing there has never been the same since

[jdmidwest]

This one used to support alot of fish.  And it was deeper with a gravel bottom.  Back in the early 80 s, it was the subject of a grad school project I helped out on.  We did stream surveys with electrofishing for an entire year.  I have stayed in touch with all of the years since.

Gar have moved upstream to it upper reaches.  That has happened in the last 15 years.  They were not there in our surveys.  They were only in the lower, slower regions.  Now we find them in the upper reaches that have a higher gradient and gravel bottoms.  At first I thought they were there only to spawn, but I see them year round.

We used to catch more largemouth and spotted bass than smallmouth.  Now the primary bass seems to be smallies.  Longear sunfish are really thinned out, we only found a few bedding areas yesterday, the largest only had about 8 beds.  I did find a few bedding goggle eyes but they were only about 4-5 inches long.

No snakes of any type yesterday.  Small frogs.  No tadpoles.  Did not notice any crayfish. Still minnows and chubs.  I did catch several nice chubs.  I did not see any invasive carp.

With as much rain and everything, my other concern was that there was hardly any water in the runs that would allow even a kayak thru.  Something  must be happening to the water table around there too dewatering the area.  10 years ago, I would have put a kayak in this time of year and floated the entire length with minimal pulling over.  I would not attempt it now.

[MOsmallies]

I am really hoping you aren't talk about the stream I think you are... but I'm pretty sure I know which one you are referring to. Makes me sad... I started fishing it in college and had some very memorable trips on it. Even the last 3 summers were pretty good. Only hit it about once a year.

[MOsmallies]

On 6/11/2016 at 10:27 PM, Al Agnew said:

Otters?  Maybe.  Maybe it's something else.  I don't know.

I have seen otters on this particular stream multiple times. Not sure if that's the issue but it's definitely a possibility