Meramec Springs State Park 12/26/2004

Where: Meramec Springs State Park The park allowed free parking over the holiday weekend! The morning was about 22, but sunny. Multiple times I had to dip my rod to free ice from the guides. Fished an olive mohair leech almost the entire day. Nothing big but nice 16 an 17 inch fish every now and then. Did see some hogs. also fished a size 20 griffs gnat to a pod of fish that seemed to be holding very close to the surface. I landed two fish that took the gnat as a dry and the other three came in during a slow strip back with the fly just under the surface.

Montauk State Park 12/05/2004

Where: Montauk State Park Met up with Matt Tucker of Ozark Chronicles and Mark Kutcher also from the disscusion board. That area had recieved a lot of rain in the past week so the spring was pumping pretty hard. The water was up about six inches, but that was a decline from previous days. I had heard reports of it being up a foot. With the high flows the water was very cloudy which made site fishing difficult. The fish were also not holding in the same areas as the previous trip. It was also a lot colder with the morning temp below freezing. We had to occasionally dip our rods under to free ice from the guides. The day yeilded fewer fish than before but the fish of the day was a 20 inch rainbow Montauk above the bridge to the campground Riffles above campground bridge at Montauk. River is up 6in. to a foot.

Montauk State Park 11/20/2004

Where: Montauk State Park Fished with Matt Tucker from the Ozark Chronicles website along with another member Brent Hinde (Tiny1351). We met at the Hatchery Office around 7:30am. It really pays to get there early because we were the only ones on the stream. Matt and I started fishing just behind the Hatchery Office while Tiny went to the C&R area. I started with a scud under a white stick on indicator. I managed to catch a few on the scud, but was annoyed when the trout started trying to eat my indicator. I promptly swithed to a PMD and began catching fish right off the bat. In the mean time Matt went to see how Tiny was fairing. A little while longer I followed suit and all three of us were fishing in the C&R area. Nice Rainbow from Montauk C&R 
Not long after I caught my largest fish of the day. A four pound rainbow. Tiny helped me land the fish and took a couple of pics. After a couple more casts we walked over to the other spring branch and fished a while. I had a monster brown come from no where and smack my mohair leech. Unfortunately he stole it as well. We fished above the big rock up to the next big riffle catching fish fairly consistently on mohairs. After a brief break we headed back to the cars and went down to the beginning of the bait area (main bridge you cross when heading into the park). We all began catching fish and were able to sight fish to some nice rainbows in the riffles just below the bridge. I walked the bank and pointed out nice fish for both Matt and Brent. The rest of the day we all consistently caught fish. It was a great day and I fished a mohair more than any other day on the water. The mohair might be my new favorite fly. I just need to start tying them.
Montauk State Park 

Current River 10/30/2004

Where: Current River Fished from Parker hollow today. I got down there around 10:00 am. There were olives above the riffle just down from the parker access. I crossed the stream and headed up to the first big bluff hole. There were three small trout rising to what I assubed to be olive spinners. The riffle above the bluff hole was all so coved in olives. I caught two of the risers on a #20 griffs gnat. The wind was really blowing and was starting to blow the small olives around quite a bit. I also saw quite a few Caddis in the bushes. So after the the spinner fall was over I switched to a EHC and caught a couple more. I continued up stream fishing the EHC, catching a few here and there. Nothing great and I passed up a lot of fish that I may have been able to get if I would have tried something else. Found a big wide open flat with browns holding. I proceeded to sight fish and picked up three. One nice 15 incher almost left the water trying to get my caddis. He missed and luckily I didn't set the hook. A small twitch brought him back for round two and I was able to stick him. He put up a really good fight. A little later I found a big brown holding and was able to drift a mohair leech to him. He took on the third drift and turned out to be the largest fish I have ever caught. 22 to 24 inches. What a monster. I wish I could have gotten him in for a pic. After that fish it was a great day. I continued fishing up stream. I stopped at another flat area and sat down to eat lunch. While I was eating a nice eight point buck crossed the stream 20 yards up from me. It was a great site. All in all it turned out to be a great day of fishing.
Current River Trophy Trout Area 

Current River 8/21/2004

Where: Current River, Tan Vat Access I was a little tired after fishing/hiking Friday night, so I slept in a little Saturday morning. After waking and eating some breakfast I headed down to the Current River and Tan Vat access. I arrived at Tan Vat around 12:30 am. There were quite a few cars at the parking area, but I suited up anyways. I could see two anglers just up from the big Tan Vat hole on there way down. I proceeded upstream from and passed them with some friendly hello's. After the first riffle and in the first big hole I could see plenty of browns and a couple nice rainbows. I had two strikes on a humphy dry and that was the end of it. I proceeded upstream and picked up two rainbows on a mohair leech. Once again moving upstream I put on a size 18 elk hair caddis and fished up under the over hanging trees on the left side of the stream. I had a couple of hits and some good looks but no fish came to hand. Finally A little feisty brown took my dry and the fight was on. During the short struggle I must of excited a larger brown because he came out of his hiding place to inspect what was going on. After releasing the fish and resting the spot for a bit I began casting again. I was hoping for the larger fish. After three more drifts the big guy showed his head. The was a small eddie maybe a 18 inches out from the bank and under an overhanging tree. My cast landed right at the edge of the eddie line and I put a small upstream mend in my line to keep it there as long as possible. Then I watched as the take played out in slow moting. The big bruiser slowly came up and inspected the fly, carefully poking his snot from the water and sucking in the tiny caddis. After his nose dipped down below the surface I struck with a firm hook set. Instantly he knew something was not right and shot down stream. It was all I could do with my little three weight to turn him. After a short fight in the middle of the stream he slowly came to hand. He was a good 18 inches and as fat as could be. That was my largest fish to come from the Current River. I finished the day off with a couple more little browns but would have been happy to end the day after that catch.

Meramec River 8/20/2004

Where: Meramec River, below Meramec Springs State Park Fished from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Walked out past the park and into the river just below Meramec Springs Park. It was raining and drizzling all day, and contiuned. I had left my waders at home, which turned out to be a mistake. The air temperature was rather brisk. I ended up wearing swimming trunks and a wading jacket. I had heard that the "white flies" had been coming off the river lately. I didn't expect to hit the hatch because of the weather, but I was hoping the fishes would be enticed by the dries. I didn't catch any fish until the first set of riffles. The Meramec is a much different trout stream than most in Missouri. It has lots of gravel and fallen timber/root wads. It makes for some interesting fishing. Fish always tend to hang around the root wads and fallen timber in the stream. Another great place to catch fish on dries is under one of the many overhanging trees on the river.

Meramec River 8/14/2004

Where: Meramac River (Ceadar Ford to Hwy 8 Bridge) Another smallie trip goes down on the Blog. Unfortunately it wasn't a great trip to say the least. There is a reason why the local canoe outfitters do not put in that far upstream. Reason, It's too dang SHALLOW and SLOW. The trip started out with meeting a college buddy and regular fishing partner Faz at my parents home in Rolla. We both arrived at 10:00 pm on Friday night. Faz was courteous enough to purchase a bottle of Crown before arriving. That made for a good night of drinking and made sleeping easier. The plan for Saturday was to float the upper Meramac from Cedar Ford to Hwy 8 Bridge. I thought it would be good smallmouth fishing. Thought was the key word in that sentence because I thought WRONG! I woke at about 7:00 am on Saturday morning. We ran some errands and finally left my house at around 10:00 am. We stopped at the Hwy 8 bridge access and transferred the gear and canoe to Faz's car. We left my truck at the take out. We then drove upstream to Cedar Ford access. We were a bit skeptical about the size of the stream. Little did we know we shouldn't have put in that far upstream. We finally put in at around 11:00 am and proceeded to fish fairly heavily. At around 2:00 pm we realized that we had yet to float two miles. We proceeded to make a little ground. Which turned in to a paddling, canoe getting in/out of Marathon. We must have gotten in and out of the canoe a good fifty times. We did manage to boat three decent smallies during the entire NINE MILES! I vow to never float a stream that small again. We finally got off of the river, which shouldn't even be called a river (more like a stream or drianage ditch), around 6:00 pm. TightLines CanoeFlyGuy

Little Dry Fork 7/31/2004

Well this is my first trip report. Where: secret creek near Rolla, MO. Species: Lots of great Smallmouth Not quite sure of the name of the creek I fished. Met up with Seth, an old high school buddy. He had the low down on a great small smallmouth creek. I recently got my canoe outfitted with a motor mount and anchor mount, so I had to try it out. Earlier in the week the Ozarks got a fair amount of rain. Consequently all of the bigger streams looked like the river in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Seth had previously told me about this great smallmouth stream and I had to check it out. I called him up Friday night to go fishing and he agreeded, so away our venture began. After a little fighting with my new canoe rack we were off. Mopar does not make good canoe racks. The access was a familiar low water bridge, a popular party spot in high school. Low water one, low water two and pink bridge(actually painted pink). I guess we weren't very creative with names, but everyone new what we were talking about when planning parties. Anyways we pull up to Low Water 2 and start unloading all of our gear. I should also mention that it is better to load your boat while it is close to shore. We opted for the hard way and loaded the canoe with everything but the kitchen sink and attempted to carry it down to the water. We did eventually get the boat in the water. I've spent a great deal off time outfitting the boat. It's got a trolling motor and anchor system on it so we were set for adventure. Once we were both in the canoe we headed upstream through some rather swampy and un-smallmouth like water. I was starting to have doubts about this great smallmouth stream. We rounded the first bend and only then did I see what we were actually going to fish. Imeadiately after the bend was a smaller feeder creek. The water was fairly clear and slightly colder than what we had come through. This was smallmouth water. I had brought my fly rod, but becuase the creek was up a bit and a little off color I opted for spinning gear. We fished 7 inch powerworms Texas rigged. This little stream was picture perfect. Cold and clear with great structure. The smallmouth hit like they had never been fished for. We fished up stream with good success. The big fish award definitely goes to Seth. The last pool that we fished he landed a nice 16 inch smallmouth. That fish put up a great fight and when it exploded out of the water Seth let out a shirek like a little girl. He didn't see me but I was busting a gut behind him at the sound of that scream. All in all the short trip was a great success. Did I mention we only fished from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. A good day fishing is only icing on the cake and when you can spend it with a good friend, well that makes it all the better. Little trips like this are really what it is all about. Tightlines CanoeFlyGuy

An Introduction

This blog will be used to detail my journeys.