smallmouth wade fishing opportunities in the spring

[Terrierman]

May is for sure better than March if you can swing that.

[basska]

Fishmonger - I was about to post a near identical thread. Very cool.

Like yourself, this spring (appears to be it will be May), I am planning on exploring some scenic wadeable Smallmouth streams within a 3 hour radius of where I live in KC. I believe this leaves me with two river basins to explore: The Niangua and The Elk. If I could find a way to get my hands on a reasonably priced copy of 200 Missouri Smallmouth Streams, I think that would benefit us both greatly. 

My question to you - What neck of the woods are you in and how long have you been fishing/how old are y'all? If you ever want to explore some tribs once it warms up, I'd be game.

My question to the more veteran members of the group - While I know the smaller wading creeks that hold excellent fisheries are too delicate to be named explicitly, do you all have any recommendations/preferences towards exploring the tribs of the Niangua and Elk?

[Devan S.]

On 1/14/2025 at 10:42 AM, Quillback said:

Welcome to the forum!

Beaver lake on the dam end has a lot of wadeable/bank fishing for smallmouth.  But only if the water level is down to where it is now at 1120.  You could still get around pretty well if it is at a couple of feet above 1120.

You can access the lake at Indian Creek COE park, and the both the Lost Bridge Parks.  The banks can be a little steep in places with chunky rocks to walk on, but there are literally miles of bank to fish if you're willing to expend some shoe leather.

If the water gets up to over 1125 the banks get tough to negotiate.

I bank fish that area a few times a year, usually I'm in my boat, but every once in a while I like to keep it simple, one rod and a few lures and go fish the bank.  I rarely get skunked from the bank, you work at it, you'll catch some fish.  If you're really lucky in timing and get there when the shad are spawning, you might get some top water bites to include stripers.  Most likely you're going to catch smallmouth.

Table Rock has some bank fishing, around Big M COE park, Eagle Rock park.  What limits it there are bluffs.  There are a couple of neighborhood ramps at Viney cove that have some access.  I've caught fish from the bank at all those places.  The big gotcha there is there's just not a lot of bank you can get too.  

Send me a PM when it gets close to when you'll be here if you want to know what bank conditions are like at the spots I mentioned on Beaver.

Just noticed you said you'll be there in March, too early for the shad spawn.

I'd add there's several miles at any water level of productive water at dam site through the scuba park. 

[Gavin]

OnX hunt is allot more useful than 200 Missouri Smallmouth Adventures. You can do plenty of wading on the Niangua, just hit the road crossings upstream from Bennett. Other places, you will have to look. Moon Valley to Bennet isn't a bad weekday float and you can wade in front of Riverfront or HVO if you are staying there.

 

[Al Agnew]

On 1/15/2025 at 8:14 PM, basska said:

Fishmonger - I was about to post a near identical thread. Very cool.

Like yourself, this spring (appears to be it will be May), I am planning on exploring some scenic wadeable Smallmouth streams within a 3 hour radius of where I live in KC. I believe this leaves me with two river basins to explore: The Niangua and The Elk. If I could find a way to get my hands on a reasonably priced copy of 200 Missouri Smallmouth Streams, I think that would benefit us both greatly. 

My question to you - What neck of the woods are you in and how long have you been fishing/how old are y'all? If you ever want to explore some tribs once it warms up, I'd be game.

My question to the more veteran members of the group - While I know the smaller wading creeks that hold excellent fisheries are too delicate to be named explicitly, do you all have any recommendations/preferences towards exploring the tribs of the Niangua and Elk?

I don't have my copy in front of me, but I believe that the 200 MSA book didn't cover the Niangua or Elk systems.  Chuck was from the St. Louis area, and he just didn't get that far away.  Note also that quite a few of the obscure accesses he mentioned in the book are no longer viable, partly BECAUSE of his book--he brought too many people to these access points and the landowners got fed up and shut them off.  I agree with Gavin that OnX Hunt is fairly useful.  But I use Google Earth Pro and a DeLorme Atlas.  Find creeks and bridge crossings on them with the Atlas, then look at the bridge crossings and creeks on Google Earth Pro.  I use the Pro version because of its history feature, that shows previous imagery.  A lot of times, the most recent imagery might be when the creek is high or when the trees are leafed out and obscuring much of the creek and the area around the bridge crossing, but if you go back through previous imagery you can often find a winter time view with the water low and clear, and you'll see a lot more detail.  What I'm looking for is an obvious place near the bridge where people have been parking.  A lot of bridges these days are fairly new, without places to park along the road shoulder, and so you can eliminate them.  But if you see a bridge with an obvious pull off, then chances are people have been using it with no problems from landowners.  However, you won't know for sure until you check it out.  If, when you get there, there is purple paint everywhere and no trespassing signs on every tree, try somewhere else.

PLEASE...if you find a nice creek with a good access, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT IT, and don't take anybody to it that you don't trust completely to keep quiet about it.  We use these accesses because the landowners don't mind.  Bringing more people to them is not going to make the landowner happy.  And it should go without saying to treat the use of the creek as a privilege, so keep a low profile and don't do ANYTHING that might tick off a landowner.  I also think it's a good idea to not wear out your welcome.  I NEVER fish a single stretch of wading size creek more than three times a year, and most of them no more than once a year; the only ones I might fish up to three times are the ones closest to home, when I can get there in 20 minutes or less and fish for a couple hours.

[dpenrod]

If you're on Facebook, here's a link to a decent video.  Geared towards fly fishing  but am sure the info is useful for conventional gear as well:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=832633800929483.

[Fishmonger]

8 hours ago, dpenrod said:

If you're on Facebook, here's a link to a decent video.  Geared towards fly fishing  but am sure the info is useful for conventional gear as well:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=832633800929483.

that's great, this is actually my local fly shop, I had no idea they made videos. It made me want to pop in and ask them but I quickly remembered that they just closed 😕

[basska]

14 minutes ago, Fishmonger said:

that's great, this is actually my local fly shop, I had no idea they made videos. It made me want to pop in and ask them but I quickly remembered that they just closed 😕

I heard they closed! That's too bad. I was planning on checking out Indian Creek this summer. For some reason I never really considered the Little Niangua very seriously. 

[Fishmonger]

8 minutes ago, basska said:

I heard they closed! That's too bad. I was planning on checking out Indian Creek this summer. For some reason I never really considered the Little Niangua very seriously. 

Indian creek can be fun, I probably fish it more than anything else. Not really much in terms of bass or anything that most people would consider to be a super desirable gamefish (at least in the areas that I have fished, it's a pretty huge creek even though most of it is skinny) but there is pretty good carp fishing and I've found some areas with a lot of gar

[basska]

10 minutes ago, Fishmonger said:

Indian creek can be fun, I probably fish it more than anything else. Not really much in terms of bass or anything that most people would consider to be a super desirable gamefish (at least in the areas that I have fished, it's a pretty huge creek even though most of it is skinny) but there is pretty good carp fishing and I've found some areas with a lot of gar

Funny enough, there's another Indian Creek in KC that I fish quite a bit for Catfish. I have caught Gar, Carp and my only Flathead from this creek. Right at Watts Mill at 103rd and State Line. That's a pretty solid local spot if you like that type of fishing... It's pretty dirty though and definitely not what I would call scenic. I hear more upstream into Kansas, there is a decent LMB population. I haven't tried my hand at it yet.