Post by dainw on Oct 20, 2016 13:46:38 GMT -6
Ok so I know it's not as cool Colorado, but I made a fall fishing trip myself recently. Full disclosure, I was supposed to be in colorado this past week but there was a scheduling conflict with my Dad's calendar. Being an English professor, we make a trip on his Fall break every year. As it turns out, he had mistakenly though that Fall break was this past weekend and it was instead the next weekend. I couldn't fish next weekend because I have engagement pictures that I have to be a part of. Apparently both the bride to be and the groom to be have to be present for those and we'd have to pay extra for the photographer to drive to Colorado. Seeing as how we'd only have 3 days to fish instead of 5, the executive decision was made to make the 6 hour drive to Missouri instead of the 12 hour drive to Colorado.
Anyway, long story short, day 1 we fished the Current River which is a favorite of mine. It wasn't as great as it usually was. Could've been low water, could've been the air pressure, could've been angler error, who knows. I did catch about ten fish in the morning, but they were all less than 10 inches in length, which is rare for this river. There is some natural reproduction in the Current, but whether these are wild fish or hatchery escapees is anyone's guess. Needless to say they weren't what we came for. After a break for lunch, we decided to try our hand fishing the trout park, which is like fishing in an aquarium, with fish that are highly pressured and don't eat unless there's a hatch, or you're throwing bait. Seriously it can get frustrating basically standing on fish and them not even so much as breathing on your fly. Anyway, I did manage to bring a few to hand after a small bwo hatch started up on a parachute style bwo emerger. Dad caught a really nice fish that went unphotographed as I was on the other side of the river and he has shunned technology and refuses to even own a cell phone, let along a digital camera. Afterwards we packed up and headed to Alton, MO to fish the Elevenpoint River.
This was my first time fishing the eleven point river and all I can say is WOW. We hired a guide for this trip since it's a river that's really best fished from a drift boat. Brian Sloss of Elevenpoint Canoe Rental is the go-to guide for this river. We made the roughly 9 mile float from Greer Springs Access to Turner Mill (the blue ribbon section) in just under 9 hours. We had plenty of time to hit every hole we wanted, sometimes 5 or 6 times, and stop and wade at a few choice spots. The Elevenpoint River is a really cool spring fed river that fishes like a western spring fed river, with a healthy population of caddis and stoneflies. The preferred method of fishing this river is to nymph deep with big rubber leg stonefly imitations. The elevenpoint is stocked regularly but also has a very healthy population of stream born fish that do their thing in the late fall, and a couple very healthy males in pre-spawn colors that looked to be either wild or long time holdover were caught. All in all we caught around 40 trout, one goggle-eye, and hooked an lost countless more. It was a blast. I highly recommend both the eleven point and Brian Sloss. I'll post some pics of the river as well.
Last day we fished the Little Piney in the morning. It hasn't been stocked since the early 90's in the blue ribbon section and the strain of fish are rumored to be McCloud Rainbows in there. We had a tough go of it that morning bringing only a couple dinks (like 5 inches long to hand). We ate lunch and headed back to the Current again, this time fishing a different access further downstream. We did catch some bigger fish, but in general it was still tough sledding. Dad caught a small brown and I hooked a nice brown that blew up on a stimulator but that I suspect was foul hooked on the dropper. Did catch one nice (for this weekend anyway) rainbow on the stimi and another on the dropper.
All in all it was a fun weekend in spite of the tough fishing for two days. I exclusively fished my new Allen Azimuth 10 foot 4 weight on this trip and loved it. It did everything from throwing heavy double stonefly and shot rigs to size 20 emergers. Really happy with the purchase. Broken Bow in three weeks.
Current River Fish
Anyway, long story short, day 1 we fished the Current River which is a favorite of mine. It wasn't as great as it usually was. Could've been low water, could've been the air pressure, could've been angler error, who knows. I did catch about ten fish in the morning, but they were all less than 10 inches in length, which is rare for this river. There is some natural reproduction in the Current, but whether these are wild fish or hatchery escapees is anyone's guess. Needless to say they weren't what we came for. After a break for lunch, we decided to try our hand fishing the trout park, which is like fishing in an aquarium, with fish that are highly pressured and don't eat unless there's a hatch, or you're throwing bait. Seriously it can get frustrating basically standing on fish and them not even so much as breathing on your fly. Anyway, I did manage to bring a few to hand after a small bwo hatch started up on a parachute style bwo emerger. Dad caught a really nice fish that went unphotographed as I was on the other side of the river and he has shunned technology and refuses to even own a cell phone, let along a digital camera. Afterwards we packed up and headed to Alton, MO to fish the Elevenpoint River.
This was my first time fishing the eleven point river and all I can say is WOW. We hired a guide for this trip since it's a river that's really best fished from a drift boat. Brian Sloss of Elevenpoint Canoe Rental is the go-to guide for this river. We made the roughly 9 mile float from Greer Springs Access to Turner Mill (the blue ribbon section) in just under 9 hours. We had plenty of time to hit every hole we wanted, sometimes 5 or 6 times, and stop and wade at a few choice spots. The Elevenpoint River is a really cool spring fed river that fishes like a western spring fed river, with a healthy population of caddis and stoneflies. The preferred method of fishing this river is to nymph deep with big rubber leg stonefly imitations. The elevenpoint is stocked regularly but also has a very healthy population of stream born fish that do their thing in the late fall, and a couple very healthy males in pre-spawn colors that looked to be either wild or long time holdover were caught. All in all we caught around 40 trout, one goggle-eye, and hooked an lost countless more. It was a blast. I highly recommend both the eleven point and Brian Sloss. I'll post some pics of the river as well.
Last day we fished the Little Piney in the morning. It hasn't been stocked since the early 90's in the blue ribbon section and the strain of fish are rumored to be McCloud Rainbows in there. We had a tough go of it that morning bringing only a couple dinks (like 5 inches long to hand). We ate lunch and headed back to the Current again, this time fishing a different access further downstream. We did catch some bigger fish, but in general it was still tough sledding. Dad caught a small brown and I hooked a nice brown that blew up on a stimulator but that I suspect was foul hooked on the dropper. Did catch one nice (for this weekend anyway) rainbow on the stimi and another on the dropper.
All in all it was a fun weekend in spite of the tough fishing for two days. I exclusively fished my new Allen Azimuth 10 foot 4 weight on this trip and loved it. It did everything from throwing heavy double stonefly and shot rigs to size 20 emergers. Really happy with the purchase. Broken Bow in three weeks.
Current River Fish
