Trips

[WestCentralFisher]

Even in a place like the Ozarks where you can fish quite successfully even in the depths of winter, for most of us there is still a certain seasonality to fishing. For me, from about early November to mid-March, fishing is a once every few weeks type deal. There will be stocker rainbows on the Niangua here, wild ones on spring creek there, and a few smallmouth bass scattered in too, with any luck. But fishing is best described as more of an occasional drip than a steady flow.

In late March or early April most years, that changes. Instead of an occasional trip, fishing becomes a part of the weekly routine. And the bigger trips begin to come into focus.

Last year, there was Lake Taneycomo in June, then a four day jaunt along the drainages of the Big Piney, Little Piney, and upper Current. Many trout and smallmouth bass were caught, and memories were made. The year before, it was a big float on the Eleven Point and a long Current River camp trip, along with nearly constant fishing on creeks near home.

This year, we saved a fair bit back, and the plans are looking decidedly more grand in scale than looked possible a couple years back. Later this week, we plan to ease into things with a four day trip to the Arkansas Ozarks. Plans include a healthy dose of the Beaver tailwater, a day trip to the Buffalo, and perhaps more. There is unusually posh (for us, anyway) lodging involved overlooking the river, and the whole thing seems pleasantly unlike the sort of down-home trip I'd usually plan. You can credit the lady friend for that, who planned this trip for me as a belated birthday present. I am legitimately unsure she could have done a better job. 

Following that, I plan to get back to my blue collar nature and try to replicate a really fun mid-week floating, fishing, and camping trip I took on the Niangua last year. That will be a solo mission, of which there needs to be at least one per year.

This is all to work up to what we hope to be the crescendo, in the form of Alaska. We saved for over two years for this trip, and the whole thing has gotten out of hand, in the best sort of way. The plans include a salmon boat on Prince William Sound, dolly varden on feeder streams, grayling fishing in the shadow of the largest mountain in North America, and, because since some things never change no matter where you go, a couple days on a small lake supposedly full of stocker rainbows. The last one is a sentimental choice of a family member who used to live there, but I'm not above willfully forgetting their origin and pretending they're real Alaska native rainbows.

It looks a lot like 8 days of hell-for-leather fishing and general outdoor shenanigans, and the 17 hours of daylight probably won't do anything much to slow me down.

After we return, it will surely be hard to avoid a feeling of anti-climax, especially in the late summer heat. But it won't take more than one or two trips to renew my love affair with Ozark streams, if past trips to Montana and Colorado provide any context. I find these big trips show you the wider view of what's out there, but unless you have a very different mindset than me, don't make the creek near home any less charming.