Late Summer Fishfest

[Al Agnew]

So every summer we spend July and early August in Montana to escape the Missouri heat and humidity, and then sometime in August we come back to Missouri so I can get some late summer floatfishing in, and make a trip up north to probably the best smallmouth river in the country.  But this year was different.  Mary is struggling with a stress fracture in her hip, and on crutches, but she's doing a lot better than she was a week before, so she told me I should go back to Missouri by myself.  My buddy couldn't go up north when I could.  So I flew back to Missouri, intending to stay about 2 1/2 weeks and get in as much fishing as possible.  Usually, I would do at least one multi-day float on my favorite small, not hardly floatable stream.  But maybe I'm getting old.  I just wasn't too enthused about camping on the river.  So my plan was to head down to Arkansas, rent a hotel room, and spend three days fishing different sections of the Buffalo.  Driving down that Monday evening, I crossed Crooked Creek, and thought that maybe I should try it.  When I got to the hotel room (Buffalo Point Inn near Dillard's Ferry on Hwy. 14), I looked up a shuttle guy and arranged a float on Crooked the next morning.

I had never floated this particular section of Crooked Creek, but I think I'll float it again sometime.  I had four fish in the canoe before I was out of sight of the truck, including a 17.5 incher.  The fishing then slowed for a while, but gradually picked up until it became one of those days where you could predict when you'd catch a fish, and there were a LOT of places where I predicted catching a fish.  The fish were simply exploding on topwater lures, especially plopper types.  And I mean just blowing up on them AND getting hooked.  I doubt that I had more than a dozen strikes from good fish all day that I failed to boat them.  Plenty of 14-16 inchers, 7 or 8 between 17 and 17.5, and a couple 18s....and 90 smallmouth altogether.  And for some reason, those fish were HOT.  Some of the hardest fighting smallmouth I've caught in a long time.  I had one bend the split ring on the belly hook until it sprung open.  I broke a rod on another one, an 18 incher that kept trying to take me under a log.  I put pressure on it repeatedly, and finally the thing broke my rod in half.  But I ended up getting it anyway.  And I didn't see a single person all day until I was a half mile above the take-out, where I came upon a young guy fighting a nice smallmouth and talking to himself.  He landed it and was shouting, "YES, YES".  Then he saw me and was probably embarrassed, but was also proud of that fish, which looked to be about 17 inches.

Got off the river about 6 PM, ate supper in Yellville, and headed for the hotel, stopping at one of the outfitters in that area to arrange a shuttle on the Buffalo the next day.  I wanted to go from Maumee to Dillard's Ferry.  He said they hadn't put many people in a Maumee this summer because the road was so bad.  So I thought I'd better drive down it before dark to check it out.  It wasn't that bad, didn't need 4WD.  So I was set for the next morning; I was going to get on the river shortly after daylight, and leave my truck for the outfitter to move later in the day.  I got up before dawn and headed for the river.  Got all the way down into the canyon, only a quarter mile from the access...and there was a huge tree down across the road!  So I headed back, parked at the outfitter and waited for them to open at 7:30 AM.  Arranged to float Dillard's Ferry to Rush instead, and finally got on the river about 8 AM.  

The Buffalo was considerably slower fishing.  It was low, barely floatable (Crooked Creek had also been low and barely floatable), and the fish were scattered.  But I did end up catching about 45 fish, with the biggest being a couple 17.5 inchers, mostly on the plopper again.  No other anglers, one family group of splash and gigglers was all I encountered.

So instead of another day on the Buffalo, I called up the Crooked Creek shuttle guy and arranged another float on a different section for the third day.  I wanted to head the 4 plus hours to home after the trip, so I picked a shorter section.  The shuttle guy said he had put in a couple anglers that day, and they reported catching only one fish between them, so he asked if I wanted to do the section I'd done before since it had been so good.  

"Nah, I probably know more about what I'm doing than those guys."

Well, at first I was beginning to wonder.  I fished a couple pools of the kind where I'd caught fish like crazy before, and nothing.  But I guess I just needed to get a bit farther from the access, because soon I was catching fish regularly.  It was almost as fast as the first day, but because it was a shorter float I "only" caught about 50, though 7 of them were between 17 and 18 inches.  The plopper was doing well, but I started catching a bunch of fish on a bladed jig, and it seemed the bigger ones were on it.  I gotta wonder what the heck those guys the day before were doing; it seems like they'd just accidentally catch more than one fish.

I was about halfway through the float and it was about time for lunch when I heard a boat coming from behind me.  It was a solo guy, and when he saw me he stopped, apparently to eat lunch himself.  So I floated for another hour before stopping.  Then about an hour later he caught up to me again.  He was in a craft that could maybe charitably be called a solo canoe, but I'd never seen anything like it; it was kind of a cross between a canoe and a bathtub, made out of cheap fiberglass and apparently heavy.  I was able to float most of the riffles without dragging, but this guy was having to get out and walk every riffle.  He went on out of sight and I stopped to give him plenty of time to get far ahead of me.  The fishing didn't get any worse after he passed me, though he said he was doing well.  I finally caught up to him right before the take-out, and he was really pleased with what he'd caught.

I had one mishap; I stuck a hook in the end of my little finger when a fish flopped at the wrong time.  I always get hooks out with the string trick, but this was just not conducive to using it; the hook was right on the tip of the finger where there was no way to put pressure on the eye of the hook, and it was almost all the way through; the tip of the point was visible on the other side of the finger.  So I pushed it on through (remembering once more how difficult that can be and how much it hurts), clipped it off, and got it out.  Fishing with two and three treble hook lures, I'm always as careful as possible when handling hooked fish, and I started carrying a net a few years ago to net anything that didn't have a clear shot at lipping it.  But it's going to happen once in a while.

I finished the float in early afternoon of a really hot day; I'd jumped in the river several times to cool off.  My truck was where it was supposed to be, sitting in the sun, and the inside like an oven.  Loading up was the hottest I'd been all week, but the air conditioner cooled things down quickly once I was loaded.  I took a different route home, not in any huge hurry.

Friday and Saturday were restful days at home by myself.  On Sunday, a buddy and I decided to float a short section of the Bourbeuse near home.  It was a section that we'd really done well on last year about this time.  This year wasn't last year.  Between the two of us, we caught maybe a dozen fish, nothing of any size.  I've only been on the Bourbeuse twice this summer, and both times it sucked.

I was trying to decide what to do the next week when my friend Clyde called me Sunday evening.  He was headed down to stay in a motel in Eminence, and float the Jacks Fork and/or Current all week.  He said, "Why don't you come down.  There are plenty of rooms available at the motel.  We can do our own shuttles and not have to pay an outfitter." 

I told him I might be down Monday evening, but not before.  He floated the poorest section of the Jacks Fork on Monday and caught very little.  I drove down Monday evening, and we planned to float a different section of the Jacks Fork on Tuesday.

The fishing rivaled Crooked Creek the week before.  The fish were tearing up the plopper for both of us, and we caught 7 or 8 between 17 and 18.5 inches, and a total of over 110 fish between us.  It was a great day.  Not only that, but a good rain Monday night raised the river 6 inches, making it easily floatable.  And we didn't see a single person until we got to the take-out, where there was a guy fishing for something with a couple rods propped up on sticks.

The next day, Wednesday, we decided to float the upper Eleven Point.  After the day before, a 65 fish day was a disappointment, and it started out really bad.  We floated the first three hours without catching more than 6 or 7 fish, but then we passed a tributary and the fishing picked up considerably.  I ended up catching a 19 incher, my biggest of the whole trip, and we had several others around 18 inches.  Clyde was catching them on the plopper, but I was doing damage with the bladed jig.  Again, it was a day with zero people.

We planned on driving home Thursday evening, so we did a shorter Jacks Fork float Thursday.  It wasn't as good as Tuesday had been, but we caught around 50 fish, again on ploppers and the bladed jig.  One more day with nobody else on the river.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I did some yard work and chores around the house.  I was slated to fly back to Montana on Thursday (tomorrow), and I thought I'd get in a couple more days of fishing Monday and Tuesday.  Liking the idea of staying in a motel, I reserved a room in Lesterville, called my Black River shuttle guy, and took off for the Black before dawn Monday morning.  I floated an upper section Monday, and the fishing was spectacular, again on the plopper and bladed jig.  I had my highest total of the whole 2.5 weeks, over 90 fish, with several over 17 inches and a couple 18 inchers.  The second 18 incher came in the pool at the take-out.

So I was really looking forward to Tuesday, when I'd float downstream from the first stretch, in a section where I've always caught bigger fish.  What a difference a day makes.  I caught a grand total of 10 fish, none of any size, though I did hook and lose one that was pushing 20 inches.  This year's floods have really messed up that section of river; the banks were scoured, the river was wider and shallower than I remembered it, and the habitat just wasn't there like it had been.

I also stuck another hook in myself, this time when I set the hook in a fish on the surface and missed, and the lure came flying back and stuck me in the arm just below the elbow.  Using the string trick to get a hook out of an arm or hand isn't easy when you're by yourself, since you kinda need two hands to get the job done.  But I was able to go to the bank, push the eye of the hook against a snag, and pop it out.  

I finished the float before the shuttle guy got my truck down to the take-out, and had to wait a half hour before he got there.  

So I wasn't going to fish today, but I changed my mind.  I did a float on Big River, not on one of my favorite sections, but on a pretty decent stretch.  It was another slow day, with 35 fish caught and one 18 inch smallmouth and a 17 inch largemouth.  Nothing was working consistently, but I caught a fish now and then on everything I tried.

So, in 2.5 weeks, 10 days of floatfishing, something like 560 fish caught, somewhere between 40 and 45 over 17 inches.  Only two other bass anglers seen. My thumbs are sore.

[Quillback]

Wow, that is some great fishing!

What sized plopper do you use?

[Al Agnew]

4 hours ago, Quillback said:

Wow, that is some great fishing!

What sized plopper do you use?

I make my own.  Body is about 3.5 inches.

[Quillback]

27 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

I make my own.  Body is about 3.5 inches.

That's pretty neat - thanks!

[WestCentralFisher]

Sounds like a great trip. 

After a hook related incident requiring some minor self-surgery on the Niangua last week, I am seriously considering smashing down barbs.

[Foghorn]

Atta boy ,Al!