A Quiet Day on the Niangua

[WestCentralFisher]

Floated today from a couple miles below Bennett to a couple miles below Barclay. It was lovely. Great weather, virtually empty river. There was one couple I ran into twice, otherwise I had the river to myself.

Fishing was spotty. In this case, that's not a nice way of saying it stunk, it was just really hit and miss. There would be a mile or two that would go by that you'd swear only had chubs and bluegill, then a random school of fat goggle-eye, then a big pocket of rainbows. I felt like I was struggling in the catching department (the fishing was great all day) more often than not, and yet the good bits were really good, so numbers wise it ended up being a much better than it felt like at times.

Outside of chubs (and my gracious, this river has no shortage) rainbows made up the bread and butter, but where the goggle-eye schooled up, they were easy pickings. I also caught one 9 inch brown, and one little smallmouth. I was trying to target smallies with increasingly larger crankbaits to scare off the trout as the day went in, because I kept seeing them. But I just kept catching more trout instead. Very tough stuff, I know.

The scenery was mostly nice, except above and around Barclay, where it is excellent. Floating was very easy. There was one spot where I kinda sorta had to paddle hard to avoid running into some dead fall, but it was extremely straightforward. Never had to get out and drag, but the river is pretty darned low.

Anyway, beautiful, quiet day on the river. Can never have too many of those. 

[Flysmallie]

I don’t think the good smallie water starts until a little past Barclay. 

[WestCentralFisher]

Yeah, I saw just enough of them that it piqued my interest, but they didn't seem very widespread or abundant. It just looks like great smallmouth water honestly much more than it resembles a trout stream, so it was hard to get out of that mindset. 

But yeah, most of my successful smallmouth fishing has been above Bennett or around Leadmine. 

[WestCentralFisher]

Got back on the river, this time wading at a couple accesses sites. Both trout water and smallie water. Trout fishing was a little slower than usual, but still caught enough to be happy. Maybe 6-8 in an hour and half. Smallie fishing upriver was slower yet, but got one pretty nice one. Got a picture, but it didn't do it any justice. Caught lots of goggle-eye in both sections. 

Another good day on the river.

[basska]

Fun stuff. I'm thinking about going up way up river to target Smallmouth next weekend. Probably will wade around Charity and Big John. Hico doesn't look like a great place to park a car.... If the water is too skinny, I have a full day planned exploring the Osage Fork.

[WestCentralFisher]

Good luck! Water is very low up there and very clear. A lot of the water seemed pretty dead, but good spots were full of fish...just not always easy to catch in those conditions.

Weeds were a major problem up there, so anything higher in the water column is likely to make for an easier time. 

 

[basska]

11 minutes ago, WestCentralFisher said:

Good luck! Water is very low up there and very clear. A lot of the water seemed pretty dead, but good spots were full of fish...just not always easy to catch in those conditions.

Weeds were a major problem up there, so anything higher in the water column is likely to make for an easier time. 

 

Thanks so much! Was planning on trying to really tune in to a Fluke bite, but you never know.