©       

TightLine Fly Fishing Guide Service for Trout and Smallmouth Bass

 HOME Services   Rates  Directions  Service Area  Open Dates  Photo Gallery  Links  Stories  Improve Your Fishing 

Fishing Report August 12th

For those of you that enjoy fishing with the micro flies, the Trico hatch is very good right now. You can count on the spinners to start falling a little after 6:00 and continue, on the average,  until about 8:30 or 9:00. If you can find the feeding pods and you will be able to get in some excellent dry fly fishing. We have had to drop to 8X and sometimes 9X on the very selective larger fish. If you have to keep in mind that they have been cast to all summer and it is not unusual for the larger ones to become difficult to fool by the end of the summer, especially in the slow flat water pools. We have also had to drop down to 30s at times for the very wary ones. You can catch them with 24s on 7x and 6x for the smaller guys, but the ones that have been caught several times and have been in the stream for a long time become difficult to fool this time of year and into the fall. Also a lot depends on the pool you fish. If it is close to the parking lots you can bet those fish have seen a ton of flies by the end of the summer.

Afternoon fishing is becoming hopper and dropper time. We are currently using #10 and #8 hoppers with various nymphs on the dropper. There are a few caddis hatches in the evening at various locations depending on the type of water.  About a Size 16 light yellow/mottled brown wings.

A very nice17.5 inch late afternoon brown... this was Warren's first time fishing with a fly rod. He said he is buying a fly rod and reel when he gets home.

Fishing Report July 28th

I can't believe that it has been three weeks since my last report. This month has been crazy for me... up early - home late. Well the good news is that the Tricos are coming off better than they have all year. The heaviest hatches of the season are going on right now. If you like micro fishing and you like challenging fishing, and you like dry fly fishing then you will enjoy the Trico spinner fall. It can be very rewarding and it can be very frustrating trying to catch fish with a cobweb tippet and a fly so small that you can't see it when the glare is on the water and the fog is hanging all around you. But the bugs the trout are feeding on are that small. Catch one in the air and see for yourself. A #28 fly is larger than the real thing. When most fishermen come down for the first time to fish with me, they bring their 20s that they have purchased from a fly shop. When I tell them those are too large, they look at me like you have to be kidding.  Understand that most of the fish that feed on these tiny flies are not big fish. Most of the time the 6-12 inch fish are feeding on these. Occasionally, if there are a lot of bugs on the water the bigger fish will come up to feed on them. Every now and then we will catch one as large as an 18 and maybe once a year, a 20. Fishing in flat, slow water that gets fished a lot, will require a lot of patience. The fish have lots of time to study your fly and will refuse movement, or visible tippet, or flies too large. If you are lucky the spinner fall will last 3 hours or longer. If you are observant, you will see fishing picking them up long after the major fall is over. Look for them along the banks in slow eddies. The rise will barely be detectable, but there will always be fish sucking them down as long they are on the water. You may have to do a little hunting to find them. 

Brandon's very first trout, one of several he caught on his first fly fishing trip.           He caught this big rainbow the second day of his trip. I think he is going to make an excellent fly fisherman.

Fishing Report July 5th

Same ole report... our bug activity has been way down compared to the last few years. There are some caddis hatches, well I guess I wouldn't call them hatches. There are some caddis coming off, sporadically and the tricos continue to be below average spinner falls. Every time I go to the river, I am hoping for one of those big falls, but it has yet to happen. Fishing, none the less, has been good. There are some nice rainbows in the river right now and a few big browns. I wouldn't call them big compared to the Taney browns, but big for the upper Current. Fish in the 3-4 pound class. 

One of the nice things I like about guiding is when I have two friends, husband and wife, a father daughter or father son combo. It is a nice feeling, for me, to see them interact with each other and enjoy each others company.

Fishing Report June 23rd

I didn't realize that it has been a month since my last fishing report, but anymore I think you can get fishing reports from several sources so it isn't like fishermen aren't going to know what the fishing is like. The insect hatches are still not what they have been in years past, but that has been the trend this season. Fish are being caught on a variety of flies with nymphs and wet flies taking the majority of them. Dry fly fishing has just been so so. The Trico hatches are still very light and the caddis hatches have also continued to be light. Occasionally we would see a Cahill, but not very often.. The Brown Drakes were very disappointing this year and I would expect the Hex hatch to follow suite. Prince, Gold Ribbed Hares Ear, and Flashback Pheasant tails are picking up fish along with softhackles. Olive Woollies are doing Ok especially with some flash, like Krystal Flash, in the tail.  Water levels are about normal and the springs are still kicking out some milky water, but not as dark as it was last month. The streams are not crystal clear, YET, but they will be in the next couple of weeks, unless we get more rain, which we are forecasted to get this week. We have been using 7x this week and we have used some 8x with the pods that have been fished over a lot.

Fishing Report May 26th

Fishing was very good yesterday with the cold front moving in. We caught several fish all day. Elle had never fly fished before and she had a great day for a first timer. We used woollies all day, with brown being the best color. We tried other colors, but they were tuned in to the brown.

Ramon and Elle had a great day with several nice bows in the net.

Fishing Report May 16th

The streams continue to rise and fall, but just a little less than they were about a month ago. Fishing has been pretty good this week when the weather cooperates. Still have not seen great numbers of bugs, but I would imagine the floods would have a lot to do with that. There are some tricos, light cahills, small yellow stones and a few cranes but nothing in numbers to get excited about. The rainbows continue to be the dominate catch with about a 15-1 ratio. Use a variety of flies until you find the one they seem to like. We have had good success with woollies in size 10, brown or olive. There are some very small stocker browns in the river now, so it is important to keep the barbs pinched down for easy releases of these naive fish.

Fishing Report May 9th

I was having a pretty good day catching some very nice smallmouth two days ago, then the skies opened up and the lightning started. It was time to call it a day.. I had landed a nice 14 inch rainbow, a 17 inch smallmouth, two 15 inch smallmouth an eleven inch goggleye and a 12 inch smallmouth. It was pretty tough wading before the rains came but now it is not possible at all to fish where I was on Wednesday unless you are fishing from a boat. The trout fishing on the Current has been good lately, but you may have to work to find the holes where they are. The ratio of rainbows to browns is much higher than it has been in years past, even several miles down stream from the park. I have to attribute this to the floods this year. Get out and enjoy our Great Ozark Streams but still be careful with wading. There is a lot of loose gravel and sand that has not settled from the floods.

Fishing Report April 25th

I do have some good news, finally. The Current River is running about 1.8 right now. It was at 2.0 earlier in the week.. what does that mean?  Fishing is pretty good right now and you can wade a lot safer. The fishing pressure has been down this week with the turkey hunters in the woods instead of on the water. Caddis are flying and we are starting to see the tiny Tricos. The Craneflies are going pretty good as well... Isn't it amazing with all the flooding that these bugs have been able to hang on. They might not be in the same location they were a few weeks ago, but they are still here. But then you knew they would be back, because they have for thousands of years and I'm sure sometime in their history the flooding was much worse than it was this spring.  Still catching fish on woollies and streamers and we will continue to do so as long as the stream is off color like it is. I still haven't seen all the water between Montauk and Cedar, but eventually I will in the next couple of weeks.

Fishing Report April 12th

I wish I had some good news, but I don't. The flooding of our streams has hit again. This is the 3rd time in three weeks. I have not seen this much water in the rivers in a very long time. Don't get me wrong, I think it will help clean them out, but I would like to get in more than one day a week. Presently, I do not recommend that anyone wade the streams right now. They are running hard and normal crossing areas could be changed. You never know after this much water how the stream changes. Sand and gravel move a lot after high water. If you have to get in the water, make sure you have a wading staff or solid stick to help test the bottom and give you an extra leg. We fished Wednesday and had a very good afternoon. We had to use sinking leaders and add 1 or 2 #1 split shot to get the flies down quickly before the current swept them down and up. When we could get our flies on the bottom we caught fish. If you know where they are you can still catch several in one hole. They are still bunched up from hole to hole and probably will be like that until the stream gets back to a normal flow. Everything we caught were rainbows, not one single brown. I would say that by the end of the week the streams could be fishable again, but I may be wrong. With this much moisture in the ground it is going to take a long time to get back to normal flow.

Fishing Report April 1st

The fishing was very good this past weekend if you found the fish. They seemed to be staged up in the same holes, maybe because they are still new to the wild streams and have not figured out that there are other places to live besides with the same pod they lived with at the hatchery. I don't know why they are bunched up like that but they are. Get down deep and bump the bottom. If you are not losing a fly every now and then you are not getting down to where they are laying. We had a little over 3 inches in our rain gauge over a 24 hour period. Some places had more some less. The streams are currently running very high and unfishable, unless you are at the very top of the headwaters. They will remain high the rest of the week and with the forecast for the end of the week they will not be fishable this weekend either, and they will probably be a lot higher than they are now. Check the water levels often if you are planning a fishing trip this week. You can find links to the USGS water level measuring stations for streams in this area, in my links page.

Fishing Report March 27th

As you can see the rivers are still high and the water is still murky. The CFS (cubic feet per second) is pushing pretty good and fishermen should be cautious about crossing areas that they have normally crossed in the past. If you have a wading staff I advise using it on your next trip if are planning to fish the streams this weekend. If you don't have one pick up a sturdy stick along the stream and use it to help you crossing the streams. 

When sand and gravel move to new homes, due to high water they don't settled in for awhile and you will find yourself sinking in what looks like a solid bottom. This sinking plus the higher water and the increased flow could get you into trouble. After high water, especially as high as it was this past flood, will fill in holes that were there before and make new holes. Crossings that were there before may be gone and if you can't see the bottom how do you know you aren't stepping into a hole. That's where the stick comes in handy... test the bottom before you step. Be cautious in new water. We watched two young kayakers find out the hard way that the stream changes a lot after floods. They were having a good time until they rounded a sharp bend, in a fast chute, and a tree had fallen across the entire chute. They turned the kayaks over and had their yaks pinned against the tree for about 30 minutes. They were lucky they didn't get trapped under the tree. One of them had to climb up on the tree branches to keep from drowning, the first guy managed to get to the gravel bar.

Fishing was slow Wednesday for a couple of reasons. First of all, every fish that was caught was full of food... think about all the bugs and worms that wash down the stream after a flood like this. Every time a stone is turned over the bugs wash away until they can find another stone to crawl under. The entire stream bank was scoured on both sides washing away earthworms and terrestrial insects. Do you feel like eating when you are stuffed after a huge meal? Second of all if you don't put the fly exactly where they are, they have a difficult time seeing it, like they do in clear water. Will it be the same way this weekend, probably but it should be clearing a little bit everyday... so fishing should be getting better as the fish digest their food and the water clears so they can find more easy meals. Have fun, enjoy the streams and be cautious.

Fishing Report March 21st

The rivers are HIGH and running HARD. I don't know if you have been paying attention to the stream levels this week, but if you didn't and drove to this area to fish you were pretty surprised when you got here. The Gasconade River, at Jerome, got up to about 31 feet and Interstate 44 was shut down for awhile. It has been a very long time since we have had this much water in our streams. I know the Little Piney Creek was up over 14 feet, the Upper Current River at Montauk was up to 10 feet. The Big Piney was up to 25 feet and the Meramec was up to about 28 feet... So did we go fishing today?.. yes we did. Did we catch any fish ?  Yes we did. One small rainbow, one shiner and lost two small rainbows... The rivers are pretty dingy, the water is pushing very hard and the fishing is very difficult. When there is this much water in the stream, the fish can be scattered everywhere, but generally they are going to be on the very bottom, along the banks or in some slack water.. just about anywhere they can get of the main current. The bottom and the stream bank slow the current down, compared to the middle of the flow, and it is easier for them to hold in those areas during heavy flows. 

It will probably take three or four days for the upper Current river to get back to fishable conditions. The water further down stream will take much longer. The Big Piney, Gasconade and Meramec may take a week or longer to get down to anything close to fishable water. If you are looking for a stream to fish this weekend, find a small one and go all the way up to the head waters and start there. If you can't find that scenario, you might as well enjoy the NIT and NCAA tournaments with a pizza and a beer and a chocolate Easter bunny for desert.

Fishing Report February 27th

Sorry, but I have been so busy with my basketball program that I have not been on the streams since the end of January. As soon as the basketball season is over I plan to hit the streams hard to make up for lost time.  The Missouri Trout Parks open on Saturday the 1st of March. With the excellent weather forecast for Saturday I expect record numbers of fishermen at the parks. If you plan to attend one of the 4 trout parks in our grand state expect to be elbow to elbow this weekend. Please don't ask me if I will be there... I do not participate in historical opening day madness.

Fishing Report January 28

I finally got out to a local stream yesterday. I fished for about three and a half hours in the afternoon, with my only goal being to relax and enjoy an afternoon out of the cabin. It isn't very often that we get 60 degree days in January, so I image there were several fishermen on the streams yesterday. I went to a remote area with my intention to not see another person. I accomplished my goal for the day, I fished about 3/4 of a mile of stream in three and a half hours, used one fly, my favorite, (Nemes would be proud) and caught 39 trout. The trout were not very big, but I had a great time. I love to get back into remote areas, even if I have to hike a mile or so to get there. When I get back into those types of areas I always get to see plenty of wildlife. Those areas are timeless spots, quiet and peaceful, with only sounds of nature. The bubbling stream, an occasional hawk, birds and the wind through the trees. I love those areas, because you can truly get away from the human touch and be one with nature.

Fishing Report January 15

I found out why I didn't have any energy in late December, I had the flu. A couple of days after my last outing it started in and continued through the Holidays. I had a nagging cough for almost 3 weeks. I felt better after a couple of weeks but the cough wouldn't go away. I tried to avoid close contact with my team, but it appears to be spreading through my basketball team now. I have nothing to say about the fishing because I have not been since my last report. Basketball is currently taking up all my time. This is a great time to be on the water since there are very few fishermen that fish the winter months. If I didn't have my basketball, I would be out a couple of times a week at least.

Fishing Report December 22

My basketball team has consumed most of my time and restricted my time on the water for the past month. We are taking a few days off for Christmas vacation so I should have some reports for you in the next week. I did run over to Maramec Spring Park yesterday and fished for about 6 hours. The fishing was very good, but the fish were pretty weak and not much of a challenge. None of the 30+ fish I caught fought very hard, and only two of them had any color to them. I did not see anything over 15 inches and I caught both of them. I only fished in a small area yesterday and did not cover the park. I had not been on the water for a long time and I just needed to get away for a few hours and stand in the water with fish to catch. I did not have the energy to do a lot of walking, so I decided to go to the park for some easy fishing. I had a good day, meeting a fellow Rolla fly fisherman, seeing an eagle and I saw a former client that stopped by to say HI. It is nice to have a place to go for just an outing as this and to have it close enough that I didn't need to make an all day event out of it. OH, I forgot to tell you what I caught my fish on. About 90% of them were caught on an olive caddis larva in size 16.  This time of year I usually put on an egg pattern, but I wanted to try some flies I created so the trip was an experiment with several other flies I had tyed up. The caddis was doing such a good job that I didn't give the others much of a swim. I guess I will have to go back over there and do a better job of giving them a chance.

Fishing Report November 19

Rusty's first fish on a fly rod.  It wasn't a big one, but the smile says it all.     Rusty's second one and more would come that day making him a happy camper. 

Fishing has been very good this week and the fish have cooperated nicely. They are very predicable this time of year with their feeding habits and location. Find shallow riffles with a nice pea gravel bottom and you will find all the fish you want to catch. Tie on a #18 egg pattern below an indicator and you should be in business. You just have to adjust the indicator to the correct depth. Another method I like to use is a double rid with a scud and egg combo. Or a caddis larva and egg combo. Give them two choices and you increase their menu, especially for those fish that have been hooked by other fishermen on egg patterns recently. If you find a redd, concentrate on the seam directly below it. I guarantee there will be fish holding in the feeding lane below the redd. I know it is tempting to try to catch the largest fish on the redd, but most of the time it is a female and if you catch her the rest of the fish have no reason to be there. Before you jump in with both feet, get your adrenalin under control and study the fish in and around the redd. The males will be swimming up to her, or chasing each other. They can be caught and they will return almost immediately after they have recovered. She is under a lot of stress trying to lay eggs, so leave her alone. If she is caught and gets stressed out more she will find a nice slow current to recover and may not return for a long time, or not at all. If that happens the rest of the fish in and around the redd will move on to another location and you will have to find another spot to fish. If you are fishing in one of the trout parks, you may be out of luck, because of the competition with other fishermen. If you concentrate on catching the males you could have a lot of fish on the end of your line and not have to move at all.

In the mid morning look for the olives hatching in a nice flat with medium to fast moving water. You can get in on some great dry fly fishing, but you will have to put on your magnifying glasses to tie on the fly. These are very small flies, about a size 24. The hatch may not last long, an hour or so if you are lucky, but if you like dry fly fishing it can be a ball. The midges will come off later in the day so keep your eye out for them.

I think Rusty has been away from his wife way too long.

"A Bad Day Fishing Is Still A Great Day"     

Fishing Report November 12

I did not get a chance to get out this past week, my wife had surgery and I needed to stay home with her. I will be able to get out this week and give you a report.

Fishing Report November 5

Surprisingly, Saturday was a very light day on the stream. We saw a few fishermen, but most of them were fishing within sight of the parking lot. Unfortunately it was one of those bright sunny days we call "blue bird days". The fishing was OK but not real good, but I expected it to be that way when I saw the weather forecast. The tiny olives (24s) came off about 9:30 and we had some good dry fly action for about and hour and a half with some stragglers toward the end of that time frame. You have to be in the right location to get in on the hatch, but there are times in the late fall and even in the early winter when it is an amazingly heavy hatch. If the weather turns nasty, with spitting rain or snow and wind then you can expect another Olive hatch, but these guys are a little larger, going about a size 20. We also saw some very small caddis, but I didn't catch one for identification. We never saw them hatching, but we did see them fluttering in the sunlight cutting through the trees. The white millers were popping just as we left, but not very many.

The egg pattern is still the fly of choice this time of year. If you can find a redd, we only found a couple, you can drift the egg pattern below the redd and pick up the trout that are feeding on the eggs drifting down to them. It shouldn't be too much longer when the rainbows will start to do their thing and the egg pattern will continue to be the fly of choice for the next couple of months. 

All in all it was a good day on the water. A little cool in the morning, but it warmed up to the upper 50s. The fish cooperated for the most part and we didn't have to do battle with other fishermen, except one fellow that came right in on top of us. Fortunately he moved on pretty quickly, and I didn't have to tell him about proper fishing ethics, although I should have when he first arrived. I regret that I didn't. 

For those of you that like to catch crappie, (the only fish we harvest) now is the time to find them. A friend of mine has a 12 acre lake behind his home that I only fish in for crappie, or huge bluegill. It is currently about 3 feet low and as clear as I have ever seen it. Yesterday afternoon I fished it from 1:30-4:30 and caught an even 50 crappie (8-11inches) standing in one spot. Once I got to 40 I was determined to try to get 50 before I stopped. It didn't take long. I actually walked the lake for the first 30 minutes making mental notes about large rocks in the water and sunken trees. This lake does not have a lot of structure so anything laying in the lake or on the bottom is an attracter. I fished the north shallow shore at first, knowing that this time of year it would be the warmest water. There were lots of fish there, but they were very spooky and finally left the area after I caught 4 large bluegill and a couple of small bass. I knew where a large tree was sunk near the dam and decided to go after some crappie that I knew would be hiding there. I started on the south side of the tree, made 4 casts and caught 4. Then it was one every other cast or so until I had caught 15. I moved to the north side of the tree made 9 casts and caught 9. Then once again it was every other cast or so. I decided to switch colors and caught 5 in a row.. When it slowed down I switched colors again and again 4 or 5 in a row. The bite was very subtle and they took it as it was settling toward the bottom. All I had to do was concentrate on the line for the slightest movement or sometimes it just stopped. For those of you that like to catch crappie on a fly rod, the tinsel fly in various colors, with blue and silver being the most productive for me, is the best one that I have found so far.

"A bad day fishing is still a great Day"

Fishing Report October 27

This report is actually from last week. I have been out of town on a Steelhead fishing trip this week. My Steelhead trip is in my Stories section.

Last week was pretty slow and again way too many fishermen on the stream to make it enjoyable for me. Just about the time I would find a nice hole to fish, someone would come along and spook the fish I was after. With the water low and very clear, the fish are very shy and spook easy. The browns have something else on their minds this time of year and it can be difficult to get them to eat your fly. They will take flies, but not aggressively. The Tricos are still hanging around, but their numbers are very few, and they are giving way to the tiny olives for the morning hatch. The fly of choice for this time of year is an egg pattern, with the smaller browns and rainbows taking the fly. I use a number 18 TMC 2488 for my egg flies and target the fish below a redd, just like I do for steelhead holding down stream from the salmon redds. Most of the larger browns are busy concentrating on their annual task of propagation so I leave them alone. Not that I am harming their reproduction, but they get pretty stressed out with the process and I don't want to add to that stress. I did hook up with a pretty nice male rainbow last week, that I took on a # 18 with 7X tippet. I didn't have my landing net so a very nice gentleman, Clint Trankle, helped me out by netting it for me and taking the photo. This big male was 28" long and had a 17" girth.

Fishing Report October 12

I did not fish the Current this week, discouraged from my experience with all the fishermen I saw last week. I plan to wait for colder weather to keep the fair weather guys at home. I fished Tanny this week, but the bigger browns have not come up yet. There are a few of the bruisers around, but the main push has not arrived. I fished all night with streamers, with very limited success. I didn't catch very many, but the ones I did catch were over 20 inches. I broke off two very large ones, which I never got to see and I couldn't stop them from running. I thought I had one of them whipped, but when I got it close it took off on strong run down the rebar chute and it was gone. 

We floated the Big Piney yesterday for smallmouth. It was a great day, weather wise. About 70 degrees, cloudy all day. The fishing was poor to say the least. We saw very few fish and caught less than that. We fished top water flies and poppers, bounced craw patterns, and threw streamers. Almost all of the fish that did hit, were soft takes. It was a disappointing day for catching fish, but a very enjoyable day with two excellent clients. Great conversation, and fellowship. Eddie and David are excellent casters, throwing their flies within inches of the bank, logs or rocks. We didn't catch many fish because of their inability to present flies, it was just one of those days that the bite wasn't on. 

Fishing Report October 5

I fished for smallmouth early in the week and trout yesterday. The smallmouth fishing was pretty slow, but I did manage to catch 22 rock bass. The smallmouth I caught were not large and there were only 6 of them for an afternoon of fishing. I also caught 4 largemouth bass and about a dozen sunfish. I caught almost all of the rock bass on top water, which is very strange for rock bass. They usually target crawfish and minnows for their diet. They will eat insects, but prefer crawfish. The smallmouth were caught with a crawfish fly I make, and a few of the rock bass also took the crawfish pattern.

Yesterday I fished the Current river and it was a very slow day for me. I unexpectedly found several fishermen on the stream, which is unusual for a Thursday, especially in October. I decided to go to a secluded section of the river to spend the day. The only other people I saw all day, were on horseback so I had the stream to myself. Unfortunately the fishing was not very good. Or should I say the catching was not very good. I didn't see that many fish, and the ones I did see were not interested in what I was throwing them. I managed to only catch 6 browns, 2 rainbows, 1 smallmouth, 3 bluegill and several shiners for all day on the water. I stopped by TanVat parking lot on my way home and there were still 4 cars in the parking lot... Too many fishermen for me. Unfortunately the weekend outlook does not look any better. The annual Rose Holland fishing derby starts today at Montauk Park. When I drove by the camp ground, last night, it was already almost full and it was only Thursday. If you are headed to the Current River this weekend, be prepared to share some space on the stream. 

Fishing Report October 1

Sorry I do not have a report for you... I have been on a fishing vacation out of state.

Fishing Report September 16

Well we didn't exactly tear up the smallmouth this week, but we did hook up with a couple of nice fish. The top water action was slower than the bottom bouncing, so I guess they were just not interested. Usually one or the other produces. 90% of the fish caught were on the bottom and the bite was pretty soft. A couple of nice fish were lost, but Dan managed to land these two 18 inchers. Two of the pods that I had scouted out were completely gone and I was very disappointed, because these guys traveled a long way to hook up with some nice smallmouth. I don't know exactly what happened to them, but I have my suspicions. I watched three guys one afternoon, fishing with crawfish, keep everything they were catching. Some of the fish were so small they were putting them in the minnow bucket. The section of the river they were on is a trophy area with a  minimum length limit. Why didn't I call the hot line and report them? No cell phone and no cell phone service. We fished a long section on Saturday and only managed to hook up with some smaller fish. A lot of walking and not a lot of catching. The smallies will go on a fall feed pretty soon as the temps start to drop, so look for good action as the leaves start to clutter up the water surface.

Fishing Report September 1

The last couple of weeks have been fair to good for catching fish. It seems to be a day to day off and on, but I have noticed that the fewer fishermen we see the better the fishing has been. We have been catching some nice smallmouth and I caught a couple of really nice browns last week. One of them was about 6 pounds and the other one was about 4 1/2 pounds. How do I know how much they weighed you ask? Take the length X girth X girth and divide by 800 to give you an approximate weight. Thursday I caught about 30 smallmouth, and Saturday, my client caught 3 or 4 with the same fly. The difference was the amount of canoe traffic on the water and Saturday was a bright sunny day compared to Thursday. The Trico hatches are thinning, but the fish are still feeding actively on them for about two hours, compared to 3 hours or more this summer. There have been some nice caddis hatches late afternoon to evening and we have been catching fish with caddis dry flies and softhackles. There are still some Hexagenias in the evenings if you are in the right place on the stream and you don't mind fishing in darkness.

One of the side benefits of being a fly fishing guide is meeting a tremendous diversity of people with a tremendous diversity of fly fishing skills. I have been very fortunate to meet people from all over the Midwest and as of yesterday from Germany. I had a client last week from Wisconsin and earlier this summer clients from Texas. Most of them come from St. Louis, and Kansas City, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky and, like I said earlier, yesterday I had a client visiting St. Louis on business that was from Germany.  Some of my clients have very little to no experience and some of my clients have fished all over the world. You can see that the diversity of location, and background can lead to some very interesting conversations. I can honestly say that everyone of my clients have been good people and easy to get along. Some have been challenges, but each and every one of them, I believe, have had good experiences, at least they tell me they have.

The following pictures contain a couple of firsts. Jeff caught his first trout on a fly rod and Tom caught his first smallmouth.

Fishing Report August 20

We have been chasing smallmouth recently with a lot of success. No monsters but plenty of 14-16 inchers and an occasional 18-20. The hot weather has been limiting our time on the water to early and late in the day. Night fishing has been good to very good. The majority of fish have been caught on crawfish patterns from a size 10 to size 2. The larger fly restricts the number of fish taken, but at least most of the takers are good size. The smaller flies will pick up some Longear Sunfish, Green Sunfish and smaller smallmouth. We have also been taking fish on top with hoppers and spider patterns. Last Saturday afternoon I caught over 15 smallmouth on top, all with the same fly. They were not big guys, but plenty of action. The largest was about 16 inches. Earlier in the day, my clients caught a few fish, but the canoe traffic was very heavy and the fishing was very poor.

Last week two of my clients had a good day fishing, with a lot of hook ups and a lot of lost fish. They had a good time and they said they learned a lot. Next time we will try to keep the fish on long enough for a picture. We had our best luck very early in the morning with the Trico hatch, and with a fly and size hook they had never used before. The nymph fishing in the afternoon was very slow and the heat was very hot so we called it a day about 3:00.

Proudly displaying her new Sage outfit, and if you look closely, her father is showing you the size fish she caught, which wasn't true. She caught some nice trout and I believe more trout and larger trout than his. It was great seeing the father-daughter relationship between these two. They do enjoy each other's company.

Monday afternoon I fished about 4 hours in the heavy rain, so top water fishing was out. I caught over a dozen smallmouth, all on a #6 crawfish pattern that I ty. Tomorrow we are headed to the smallmouth water and Friday we are going after early morning trout. The weather looks to be hot the rest of the week so we better get our fishing in early in the morning or better yet, leave the house about 1:00 am, fish through the night and early morning...then head to the house to rest and watch the Cardinals move up on the Cubs in the National League Central.

Fishing Report August 8

I have not been keeping this report up to date lately, and for that I apologize to you faithful readers. I  have had basketball camps, and grandsons visiting, and of course fishing clients that has kept me hopping over the past few weeks. The fishing has slowed down this week, considerably. Up until the Heat Wave hit this past week, fishing was good, not excellent, but good for trout and smallmouth. Night fishing along with dawn and dusk has been the most productive. For trout, the Trico hatch has been consistent with a heavy spinner fall about every 3 to 4 days. The hoppers are producing good fish during the day, with a gold ribbed hare's ear dropper accounting for about 50% of the fish. If you use the combination, remember to keep your loops open and be patient with the cast. Getting in a hurry will get you plenty of tangles with a two fly system. If you are thinking about night fishing, sculpin patterns will net you some big results but the number of fish will not be high. There is also the Hex spinner fall that you can fish, but it takes precise casting to slurping sounds in the dark. Not recommended for the novice. The Smallmouth fishing has been good with crawfish patterns and large hoppers taking most of the fish. Early and late in the day is the best time to be on the water, with this heat. During the middle of the day concentrate on the shady areas and deeper water.

Fishing Report July 19

The upper Current River is still running nice and clear, with good volume, even after the 1+ inch (some farmers reported 3") rainfall. Fishing has been very good with a variety of flies taking good numbers. Early and late are still the best times to be on the water, but the middle of the day has also been productive, just a lot more casts between hook-ups. The hoppers are coming around and the fish are looking up a little more during the day than they were a couple of weeks ago. We have had good success with a double fly system. We have been catching 6 or 7 fish with the dropper over the dry. I would anticipate the ratio to go up as we head into August, and we start using hoppers as our dry fly of choice. 

 This was Barry's first time with a fly rod and overall he did a good job, for a rookie, landing 6 rainbows and almost netting a very nice bow after a long fight.

Barry's First trout on a dry fly

Fishing Report July 11

The tiny tricos are still going strong here. It seems to be hit and miss with the heavy spinner falls. One day it can be solid, the next day light. I haven't figured it out yet and to tell you the truth I haven't asked an entomologist. But have thought about it, that's all, just thought about it.
The hoppers are showing up, so if you want some afternoon fun bring along some #12 hoppers and fish the high banks that have weeds and grass along the stream. Combine the hopper with a prince/pheasant tail/hares ear/copperjohn or any other small #18 nymph of your choice, dropper. Some times they come up to look at the hopper and take the nymph...I like to use stimulators in the faster water. For you novices, it takes some practice to learn how to skip it, but it can be rewarding if the fish are feeling aggressive. The evening hours are starting to get some Hex activity, for those of you that enjoy fishing in the dark.
The river is very clear and the fish can see you coming, especially in the flat water. Longer, finer leaders are required...and gentle presentations. If you are slapping the water with your fly line, don't be surprised if you can't catch the larger fish.
"A Bad Day Fishing is Still a Great Day"
www.TightLine.Biz

Fishing Report June 28

This has been a very busy week for me, with lots of fish caught, but the action has not been consistent, except that most of our best fishing has been early in the morning. Monday was a very good day, with the cloud cover and especially the feeding fish. Tuesday was tough fishing and we didn't get the spinner fall that we had on Monday. Just enough fish every now and then to keep the interest up. Some nice size fish were hooked, but only one was brought to the net. The others broke off, bent hooks or just threw the hook. Wednesday and Friday was pretty good fishing again, with two large fish lost, but plenty of action with lots of feeding fish to catch, at least try to catch. The Trico spinner fall has been inconsistent in terms of numbers this week. Monday was as heavy as I have seen it, with fish feeding on them until noon. The next day and the rest of the week have been pretty light for this time of the year.???? I don't know why. We have had to get down to 7X and 30s over the heavily fished pools.

The upper Current River is running very clear, and with an excellent flow for this time of the year. The weather has been pretty good, not extremely hot or extremely wet. The bright sunny days make it tough for fishing, but if you work at it and change flies, until you find the right one, you will be rewarded. The Gold Ribbed hare's ear has been producing, and a parachute Adams accounted for the biggest fish hooked this week. I said hooked, not landed. The ticks and chiggers are bad this year, so take proper precaution. Caddis and a dropper have worked well during the day, giving them two choices. Remember to keep your loops open if you are throwing a two fly system.

Fishing Report June 22

I apologize for slacking off with my fishing report page. It has been non stop for the past two weeks and I am seeing myself coming and going. No excuses for not taking a little time to input a report or two along the way, but when I get home at night I just want to go to bed, to get ready for the next day. I have another trip for this afternoon, so I thought I better try to catch up.

One of the nice things about fishing, is that it provides an opportunity for good friends and family members to spend some quality time together. I have had close friends, husband and wives, fathers and daughters, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and brothers as clients. Fly fishing is the quiet sport, and it allows one to get closer to nature, to observe wildlife in their natural environment. We often see herons, eagles and osprey, muskrats, mink, squirrels, turkeys, deer, armadillos, groundhogs, and occasionally an otter. All kinds of songbirds and now that the touch-me-not are starting to bloom along the river, lots of humming birds.

The fishing on the upper Current River has been excellent over the past two weeks. Good numbers of fish in the river and some good size fish are being caught. A tribute to the new regulations a couple of years back and to the ever increasing amount of catch and release fishermen on the stream. There is still some poaching going on, but I have not observed as much this year as I have in the past. The Conservation agents and Park Rangers are doing a fine job and the new signs, in high use areas and the amount of signs, I believe, has helped a great deal.

We have been catching some nice fish, and good numbers each day on the water. The best times are early in the morning and late in the day. Don't get me wrong, we have caught fish all day, but the ratio of fish caught per cast, has been greater early and late. They are not feeding as aggressively during the middle of the day, especially on the Blue Bird days. On Cloudy days and rainy days, the fishing has been good, even in the middle of the day.

The Tricos are going strong and the caddis have been coming off in good numbers. We are getting some aggressive takes on emergers, during the caddis hatch, and we have even picked up some fish with streamer patterns. Sight fishing for fish that are high in the water column is a fun way to spend the afternoon. CDC caddis for the experienced fisherman work well, especially  for fish that have been in the river a long time. The larger fish can become selective and difficult to catch in flat water. The CDC rides very low and seems to do a better job on the larger fish. We use long fine tippets in 6X, especially in flat water. The Elk Hair would be a better choice for the novice, because of the high visibility. You will have a tendency to pick up some of the smaller fish, but occasionally you can get a larger fish to take in, especially in faster water. We have also been doing well with an indicator and a dropper or Elk Hair caddis and a dropper, to give them two choices. The Elk Hair and dropper can be difficult to cast for a novice, just because of the tangles between the two. A slower stroke with a bigger loop is required. We have had good luck with two stand by nymphs: a  prince or hare's ear in size 16 has produced good numbers of fish, over the past two weeks.

Fishing Report June 11

This has been a busy week for me. Lots of nice Smallmouth were caught and a few trout. The Smallmouth trips are increasing with more and more clients interested in expanding their fly fishing experiences. One of the nice things about fishing for Smallmouth, is that there are always other fish eager to eat your fly, besides the Smallies. Goggleye (rock bass), Bluegill, Longear Sunfish, Largemouth Bass, Chubs, Gar, Carp, Drum...just about everything that swims in the river will eat crawfish or minnows. We had our best luck this week with crawfish patterns. We fished the Little Piney Creek and the Big Piney River this week for the Smallmouth. We fished the upper Current River for trout earlier in the week. All the streams in this area are looking Excellent and fishing Excellent. The water is in as good a condition as I have ever seen it this for this time of year.

Fishing Report June 2

I was on vacation this week with our family, so I have no report for you.... it was a family trip to Alton to pay respect to our departed loved ones. I was along as a chauffer and tour guide of the springs in the Eleven Point region.

Fishing Report May 27

We fished for smallmouth this week...no trout...if you are looking for a trout report. We did well in the head and tail of pools in about 4-5 foot of water with crawfish patterns. Lots of weight to keep them down in the fast water. The dumbbell eyes did a great job keeping the flies near the bottom. If we cast up stream enough to give the flies time to sink before the swing and twitched them on the swing we got great aggressive hits. Nothing big was caught, but there was plenty of action and if you have ever caught a smallmouth in fast water you have an idea of how hard it is to get them in. The rods get bent pretty good with a 15 inch smallmouth on the end in fast water.  The streams are running great water right now and the fishing has been excellent.

Fishing Report May 20

This has been a very busy week for me, so I apologize for not keeping the report up to snuff. The Upper Current River is fishing very well right now. The water is in excellent condition and the fish have been responsive. They are being taken on a variety of flies, but we had our best luck on the Hare's Ear this week and the Olive Woolly. The Tricos are going pretty good, but you have to find the right pools and pods that are feeding on them. There have been excellent Caddis hatches, and Sulfers coming off in the evenings. The fish of the week was a very nice brown caught by a client on Thursday afternoon. After a lot of work and changing several flies and adjusting the drift, the fish finally took the fly and the fight was on. This was, as most of them are, a bulldog brown that wanted the bottom of the stream more than the top. To say the least, there was one unhappy fish and one very happy fisherman when the ole boy slid into the net, the fish not the fisherman.

Fishing Report May 11

I had a client that fished the Upper Current yesterday and had a fairly successful trip. He caught fish all day, but they were spread out over the entire day. Just enough and often enough to keep the hopes up that a big one was going to hit any moment. We found our fish in the deeper fast water all day. The river was still up and running a little off color, which is the way I like it. I think the fishing was a little slow because the stream has been up for a long time and the fish have been feeding well. We saw very little bug activity all day. Some caddis were coming off in the morning, but not in any numbers. An occasional little yellow stone would take to the air and I did see a couple of brown drakes. Overall it was a good day to fish and float. We only saw three canoes all day and that in itself makes for a good day on the water.

Fishing Report April 17

Today was one of those days I wait for, River is up, cloudy. Didn't get the rain I expected, but it didn't matter, fishing was excellent. I saw an Osprey, a Turkey, a Mink, a pair of Prothonotary Warblers and I caught some nice fish.

Very Fat 18 inch rainbow, I also caught a couple of 17 inch rainbows and several 14-15 rainbows today. I caught 6 browns, including this 20" female above. There was also an 18, 2 15s, a 14 and a 12 incher from last years stock. I used one fly for all of my fish today, (actually 3, but they were all the same). I can't tell you what it is, but my shoulder is very sore.(a friend of mine compares it to throwing a sack of kittens). You veterans will know what I am talking about.

The fishing was excellent today. Every fish I caught, all 23 of them, have been eating extremely well. The Upper River is in Excellent condition right now. It is up and still pushing pretty good, because the spring is kicking out some serious flow. A couple of days ago I said it would be down to normal by Tuesday, but after today I would have to say it will take a little longer than that to get back down to normal. Maybe by the end of the week or Saturday or Sunday. The water color is still  milky, and will continue to stay that way as long as the spring continues to spit it out. 

Fishing Report April 15

Earlier in the week the Current River was running great, but the weather wasn't for the occasional fisherman, with the extreme cold. Fishing was fair to good, and we continued to pick them up on woollies and nymphs below an indicator. Bug activity was still behind schedule and then it started to rain again on Thursday, by the end of the week all the rain we have had recently had the ground soaked and there wasn't anywhere for the water to go, so it ran off. The Current River went up 2 feet Saturday and wasn't fishable. The rise peaked late Saturday and is on its way down. It should be back to normal by late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Fishing Report April 7

The river has dropped back down to normal and cleared. Fishing has been very good. Even when we had the higher water, I was able to catch some nice browns on streamers. Prior to the heavy rains nymphs, like a hares ear and a prince, drifted below indicators were the best producers. Caddis hatches have been sporadic and we are starting to see some Craneflies, but not good numbers yet. The cold weather has set the bug activity back. I don't look for it to return to normal until we get some warmer weather by the middle of the week. BWOs are flying and some tricos should be flying pretty soon. You will see more BWOs than tricos in April, but for those of you, like me, that enjoy fishing micro flies the best fishing it is right around the corner...SO get out the magnifying lens and start tying up your favorite patterns in 22s-30s. I even have some 32s that I play with. You can get away with larger patterns, but you will not get as much interest and therefore fewer takes. Until then use the standard  nymphs in sizes 18-12 and enjoy the great Ozarks, even if you don't catch a bunch.

Fishing Report March 25

Thursday and Friday were excellent days for fishing. Nice temperatures, cloudy and a little rain. The streams were a little low and clear, but the fishing was slow. The fish that I could see were taking the flies softly and if the fisherman didn't see them take the fly it was too late to set the hook, by the time I relayed the message. The strikes that were felt were not strong and most of them short of the hook. We tried to stay away from the areas that normally can be crowded at times. Solitude on a quiet stream is a reward in itself, but it sure is nice to hook up every now and then. The larger fish that were hooked avoided the net and managed to release themselves. Long releases are OK, but a picture before the release is a whole lot better. The reports I received after the trip indicated that pheasant tails and gold ribbed hare's ear were the flies of choice....we tried both flies and only managed to pick up some little guys. Olive Woollies produced for us and produced those short strikes I mentioned earlier. 

Saturday was a change of pace for me. I had a couple of fine young men that wanted to learn how to cast a fly rod. We went to a local private lake for our fishing and fly casting lessons. Largemouth bass and bluegill were more than ready to take the woollies along the banks. The wind was a bit of a problem and of course the trees kept trying to eat the flies. Several of the bluegill were large, all of the bass were small. We concentrated on the fresh runoff water feeding the lake. The fish were stacked in the channels pretty well and eager for a meal. Both young men caught and released several fish. 

Fishing Report March 17

I had a little time this afternoon so I decided to go down to the Little Piney Creek and test the water. I had the stream all to myself until I was getting ready to leave about 4 hours later. It wasn't an afternoon of big fish, but it was an afternoon filled with action. I only used one fly all day and caught a good variety and several fish. The smallmouth were the most cooperative. Like I said, not big but they were fun. I caught about 12 or 15 of them. I also caught 4 rainbows, a dozen Longear sunfish, two Goggleye, two Bluegill and about a half dozen large Shiners. The stream was running a little low for this time of the year, and it was clear. The takes were not strong, but I attribute that to the temperature of the water. The smallmouth seemed to like the fly moving, with fast twitches, but the trout turned away from the fly with that kind of action. I caught them with a dead drift. I could see most of the fish I caught, so I adjusted my presentation and retrieve accordingly. I have two clients coming in the end of the week, so I will have a report for you on Saturday the 23rd.

Fishing Report January 7

Has it been a month since my last report? Guess what, I still don't have a trout fishing report for you. I have been busy with my basketball season and have only been fishing 3 times this month....for Crappie. Our weather has been unusually warm and the papermouths have been coming up close to the surface, where the water is warmer, making them easy to catch. This time of year, we should be fishing through the ice to catch crappie, not casting to the shore line. I have been catching them in a private 12 acre lake along the dam, about 3 feet deep, in the middle of the day. Fishing is especially good when the sun is high in the sky. Normally bad for fishing, a bright, sunny, warm day in the winter turns on activity. Yes I do own spinning gear, and yes I use it,  for pan fish and smallmouth bass.

Fishing Report December 8

The river is in excellent condition for fishing. It did have a significant rise with all the rain and sleet we had last week, but it looks great right now. Earlier in the week it was just about right for streamer fishing, but it has cleared since then and continues to have an excellent flow. I had a client in from Kentucky the first of the week that hooked up with a very nice brown in his first attempt at streamer fishing. He was very happy with the fish and the experience, despite the temperatures. He is pretty hard core when it comes to fly fishing and would be tagged, just as I am, obsessed !  It is about a 4 hour drive for him, but he feels like the Current River is the best wading river in the area. I would have to agree with him, the Current River is a wading fisherman's dream, except for the close cover. The trees along the stream get a steady diet of flies all year. I try to take the flies ( along with the line attached ) out of the trees and the banks when I find them. Not that I am that frugal about saving money on flies, but fishing line and flies dangling from them are hazards to wildlife. In a report I gave back in July I found a Wood Duck that had eaten a fly that was dangling from a limb on the water. Apparently the duck saw the fly swinging in the water and mistook the fly for an actual bug. The duck was released, but unfortunately I did not get a picture, despite the fact that I had a camera with me. 

Fishing Report November 19

No Report this week. I do not get on the rivers during the deer season.

Fishing Report November 12

Thursday, was a clear, warm day and the bugs were everywhere in the morning. Tricos were dancing in the sunlight, tiny olives were fluttering on the water trying to get airborne and caddis were doing their egg dance.  There were some rainbows sucking the Trico spinners on the far bank and didn't have anything close to that size.  I left my tiny flies in the truck. I was trying out a 7wt Loomis that I had just finished making and I didn't have my micro box with me. I did however have my caddis box, so I found the smallest fly I had, an 18 tan and brown soft hackle. I greased the line and even put a little on the fly. I picked out the closest rainbow, they were all rainbows as far as I could tell, and dropped my fly about a foot in front of his nose. Unfortunately he ate a spinner just to the right when my fly drifted down to him. On my second cast the fly came close enough and he sucked it in. I was laughing to my self the entire time I reeled him in. This wasn't a picky fish, so I guessed that he had not been in the stream too long. When I got him in, he was missing a pectoral fin and he had a washed out color. The second fish down stream was closer to the bank and a little smaller. I probably made a dozen casts to him and he refused the fly every time he looked at it. This guy was picky and I knew that, with the fly I had, I should probably find another fish. 6 or 7 feet below the second fish was another rainbow, about the same size. I dried the fly, greased it up a little and made my cast. He swam about a foot to his left and took the fly. This rainbow was also washed out in color and about the same size as the first fish, around 11". I moved down stream to the next pod and picked up 3 more rainbows and a small brown, that was stocked this past spring.

I eventually found the fish I was looking for, a nice brown that was about 21-22 inches. After going through a half dozen flies I finally found one he was interested in, but it got by him before he could eat it. On the second cast with this fly he moved over a couple of feet and picked it up. I had him on for about 3 minutes until he wrapped me up around a rock and broke off. I ended up catching a couple of browns around 15-17 inches out of that hole and realized that I needed to get home, I had basketball practice in about two hours. 

It was a good morning, with lots of bugs and feeding fish. I will try to get out on the stream again, when the deer season is over. If you have to be on the water, make sure you have some hunter orange on.  The stream is very low and very clear, so move slow and keep your distance.

"A bad day fishing is still a great day"

Fishing Report November 5

Busy week on the stream and several fishermen on the water this weekend. The Current River is running very low and very clear and fishing success has been good to fair. The browns are ending their thing and the rainbows are getting in the mood. We even saw a male rainbow that thought he was going to pair up with a female brown. I have never seen this before, but I guess there is always a first. Egg patterns seemed to be the best fly to use this week, with streamers and soft hackles also taking fish. When the weather clears, the caddis start flying and the fish are more inclined to take the elk hair. The rain and cool weather has the Olives flying, but we did not see many numbers, not enough to get excited over, but there were enough for the fish to take them off the top so they will provide some dry fly action in the morning. There are two olives coming off right now. A tiny one that is pale olive and in a size 24, and a larger olive that is a dark olive in color and a size 20. The larger one seems to prefer the "Baetis type days" like we had this weekend.

This is a picture of a very nice Rainbow that a client caught yesterday.

"A Bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report October 30

The River is still running very clear and it is very low for this time of the year. Fishing has been fair to good depending on your fishing location and your choice of flies. This time of year the browns have other things on their minds and feed a lot less than normal. They usually don't go out of their way very much to get food, waiting for the river current to bring the food to them. We are getting a good tiny olive hatch in the morning and various caddis hatching throughout the day. They are not heavy hatches, so you will have to catch one to see what they look like, if you want to go through the trouble to match the size and the color.

With all the changes in the weather recently, it affects the type of hatches. During those cold, windy and rainy days the larger olive, size 20, will come off and the fishing will turn on. This bug seems to bring on a more aggressive feeding, so I love to be on the water when these little guys hatch. The "Baetis type days" are my favorite days to fish. Most fishermen avoid these days, miss out on some very good fishing, and leave a lot of water for me to fish. Days like this are not comfortable for the average fisherman and just the "crazy guys", as my wife calls them,  end up on the water. 

The colors along the stream are amazing, but will be gone very soon, so if you want to catch them you need to get out in the next week or so. In a couple of weeks the rifle season opens for deer. If you plan to fish during the hunting season make sure you wear some colors to make you distinct from a deer. Do not wear white of any kind, and stay away from the tans and browns. I know that most waders are in this color range, so if you have to be in the stream, outside of the parks wear some kind of florescent orange on your body. I personally do not fish outside of the trout parks, or Taney during the deer hunting season.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report October 6

The upper Current River is running very clear and just about normal, maybe a little low for this time of year. If you are fishing early in the morning the Tiny Olives are the predominant bug in the air, with some Tricos and small, #20-18, brown caddis flies mixed in. The Tiny Olives are going to be about a size 28-26 in light olive. and the Tricos are about a size 28-30. You can fish a couple of hook sizes up from the actual bug, if you make your imitation sparingly on the hook. Some of the fish that have been hooked and released a few times, may be a little more picky and actually look for the exact size and color. Fish that have not been hooked or not fished to very much will be less wary and take a larger presentation, and maybe one that isn't actually close to the real bug. Finding the right location to fish is very important, because these bugs do not just hatch everywhere. If you are fishing over deep water with a sandy bottom, you may not see them at all. During the afternoons, a hopper or stimulator with a dropper is proving to be an affective way to take them. A good report, from a reliable source, turned in early this week, was using this set up and caught some nice browns with it. Hoppers are still around and the fish will definitely take a large easy meal if it is presented correctly. You can't go wrong with a caddis emerger, or caddis larva as the dropper. The upper Current River has Caddis of all colors and sizes. If you are attentive to the bugs around you on the stream right now, you will notice a very large Caddis coming off every now and then in the afternoons that is a size 6-8. If you are fishing in the evening look for a brown/yellow caddis in size 12. 

This time of the year brings brilliant colors to the river, so take your camera for those fish you catch and make sure you take some pictures of the colors around you.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report October 1

Sorry guys, no report this week I have been out of town on a fishing trip up north. You can read about it in my fishing stories section.

Fishing Report September 24

No change in the fishing report this week over the past two weeks. The Tricos are still the best bet early in the morning, with some Tiny olives starting to show up. Caddis in brown and about a size 18 are good right now. You will see them along the banks in the foliage. The hoppers are good all day and there is a good Caddis hatch in the evenings. The browns are really starting to get brilliant colors, perfect for photos. The stream  is still clear and the fish are sill spooky in the shallow flats, but the weather this week has been excellent. I love the cloudy, drizzly days for fishing...not many people are on the water and the fish are more active. And the temps have been perfect.

Fishing Report September 07

We had a very good day this week in Montauk Park. Several fish were caught with the largest a 4lb brown. A very nice 3 to 3 1/2 rainbow was on but managed to lose the hook just before netting.
The river is very low and very clear. So if you are a sight fisherman, the water is perfect for you. Remember that the flip side is the fish can also see you much better.
The tricos are still coming off, but in fewer and fewer numbers. Caddis are good late morning and hoppers continue to be the best bet in the afternoon. The cooler temps and early shade on the water brings on an excellent Caddis hatch in the evening, starting about 5:00. They are about a size 18 in brown.

We fished the Big Piney one morning  this week and did well with hoppers and crawfish patterns. Nothing large was caught but we had the river all to ourselves and it was a great morning on the river.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report August 25

The Current River is very low and clear. Floaters are spending a lot of extra time getting in and out of their canoes  to walk them down the shallow riffles. The middle and lower section of the river would be a better choice for floating than the upper section. The Tricos are still your best bet early in the morning. They are coming off in good numbers, but the fish are getting a lot harder to catch by this time of the year. Even the little trout are more picky than they were a month ago. The more fishermen that fish to them the pickier they become. After getting hooked a couple of times they are more cautious about taking a fly that doesn't quite look like the bugs they are eating. The Tricos will continue to come off into September, but the numbers will dwindle and eventually there won't be enough to get the attention of the fish. Caddis are still the best fly to fish, when you can't figure out what the trout are feeding on. We are switching to a Caddis pattern like an Elk hair or CDC after the Trico spinner fall is over. Later in the afternoon we switch to hoppers and sometimes add a nymph dropper like a prince, pheasant tail or a rockworm. Fishing hoppers in the afternoon has been very productive, and a ton of fun. We have not caught a fish over 20", but there has been a lot of 12-15 inchers, with a few between 15-20. The cooler temps in the mornings has been a welcome relief, but it soon warms up and fishing in 90 degree plus afternoons doesn't seem that bad when you are fishing on the Current River.

" A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report August 13

The Current River is low and clear. The water conditions make it Great for sight fishing, but it also means the fish can see the fishermen better. If you are fishing in the shallow flats, keep your distance and use a long leader. I use a 5 foot AirFlo braided leader for the butt section and build the rest of my leader with tippet material. I use 0X to 7X depending on the water I am fishing. In the shallow flats my leader will be about 12 foot long, and I am making 30-50 foot casts.

My clients had good success this week with Elk Hair Caddis patterns. The darker, colors seemed to work better. Brown or Green produced better than the tan caddis. Size 16 was a better producer than the larger ones. I had one client that caught almost all of his fish on the same fly. He said he was going to retire the fly to a shadow box or mount it on a rock in his office. We did not catch any big fish this week but we did catch a lot of fish. Even my 4 inexperienced fly fishers caught fish this week. Tricos are the best bet early in the morning, hoppers are good in the afternoon, or a dry fly like an elk hair caddis. We did fish below an indicator a little, but it is not my preferred method, especially when they will take dry flies. 

One of the trips taken this week was exclusively for smallmouth bass. Although we didn't hook up to any larger fish, plenty of fish were caught. The crawfish patterns worked well, especially the flies that were not weighted. None of the takes were solid hits, the fish were hitting pretty soft, so sight fishing to them was more productive than waiting for the feel of the strike. If we could see the fly, and see the fish come up to take it, we had a lot more hookups. We also did well on the surface. Dry flies like hoppers, frogs, or spiders will produce in the shaded areas of the stream, especially close to the banks when the sun is high and bright

Fishing Report August 5

I did some smallmouth fishing a half day this week with very good results. I caught a dozen nice smallmouth, 12+ inches in three hours. I also caught 8 rock bass, 3 bluegill, one green sunfish, 5 longear sunfish and a chub. I caught all of these fish with hoppers, and crayfish patterns. I didn't get to fish much, because we were visiting our grandsons this week. I will have some trout reports for you in a couple of days.

Fishing Report July 22

It has been a busy week on the water, with lots of fish in the net, but some were not landed on the Current River. I fished two days at Bennett Spring this week with some very good friends from the Kansas City area,  and a half day on the Current. The other half of the day was with two eager fisherwomen. These ladies were excellent students and very patient with their new found hobby. Usually when someone learns how to fly fish, they don't start out with one of the hardest hatches to fish. But that is exactly what I did with them. We started with the Trico spinner fall and finished with elk hair caddis. Fishing the Trico spinner fall has frustrated some of the most seasoned fly fishing veterans, but these ladies managed to hook and land two browns each off of the fall.  When the bugs were gone we switched over to gold ribbed hares ear, and only managed to pick up one rainbow, which surprised me because we did well with that fly last week. After watching the fish react to the indicator, I had them switch to elk hair caddis and they picked up three more browns. All in all they had a good time, learned a little about casting, presentations, insects, locating fish, landing and releasing fish and just a touch of herpetology. 

I fished for three hours in the afternoon and caught about 15 small fish, mostly on CDC Caddis and a few on the X-Caddis. I prefer these flies, because they lay flat on the water. They are much more difficult to see on the water, but I have fished them long enough to be able to pick them out pretty well. They are not flies that I would recommend  to beginners. The Elk hair sits high, does a fine job and it is much easier to locate and follow by the fisherman. I stayed in a size 16 olive/tan all afternoon. I did not try anything else. When I can get them to rise to dry flies I don't fish any other way. To me it is the ultimate way to fly fish, so why do anything else, and carry all those other boxes around.

Fishing Report July 10

It was a great day to be fishing, except for the continuous rain all morning. It isn't often during the Month of July that we get continuous rain for hours. We will get occasional storms that blow in, but the rain is usually over in an hour or less. Today it rained for about 5 hours continuously, and it was raining when we left a little after noon. At times it was heavy, but mostly a good soaker. As you can tell by the rain jacket that Travis has on, it was indeed a soaker. He caught fish all morning, mostly on the good ole gold ribbed hare's ear. A tried and proven nymph for years, at least as long as I can remember. His largest fish of the day was a 16" rainbow. We would have used a dry fly for an indicator, but with all the rain it made it difficult to keep a dry fly floating long enough to be useful. Fishing was very good, the river is clear, but we did get some debris that started floating down when the river came up. It didn't come up much, but I could tell that the flow was increasing. If the ground would have been soaked the river would have had a good rise, but in July the ground is never soaked enough to bring the river up very much. Today should be an excellent day to be on the water.

We did experience a once in a life time event yesterday. We found a Wood Duck hen that had eaten a fly that someone lost in a tree. The hook on the fly was rusted, indicating that the fly had been in the tree for a long time. The tree was leaning over the water with the top branches touching the surface. It had dropped during the heavy water we had a couple of months ago, when the bank washed away from the roots. The fly line was wrapped around a branch and the fly was close to or on the surface of the water when the Wood Duck ate it, apparently taking it for a bug. The poor duck was thrashing around trying to get lose when I saw it. As we approached she dove under the water trying to hide from us. When I caught her, we found the hook had penetrated the end of her upper bill. I cut the line, pinched the barb down and let her go.  It was a great feeling watching her swim off.  The only regret I have is not taking a picture... I will never see it again in my life, I'm sure.

Fishing Report July 1

The upper river continues to run well and clear. The fishing has been very good with a variety of flies catching fish. The Trico spinner fall is starting a little after 6:00, but the pods are still spotty. If you can find a good pod you should be able to fish it for a couple of hours providing you don't wade into the middle of it and spook the fish. When you hook a feeder the rest of the pod will drop to the bottom for a few minutes, but they will return to their feeding if you don't spook them. The caddis are still popping sporadically throughout the day, with no major hatch occurring. The yellow stones are just about gone, but I see one every now and then. We caught some good fish this week, with a couple going 22+, but like I said before we used a variety of flies and really did not find a single pattern that was better than the others we used. We can catch the rainbows on just about anything, but we are after the browns, the larger ones, and that has been the challenge. I am starting to see some small hoppers, so I guess I will get out my #12s and begin to test them along the grassy banks. After this week, it can't hurt to try something else, to find a pattern that will out produce the ones we have been using.

It looks like a hot and crowded weekend. Share the water and respect the water someone else is fishing. Have a good weekend and enjoy the Great Ozark streams.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report June 25

The river is still in great shape, with a very good flow compared to the past few years. It is very clear, so try not to get too close to the area you are fishing to prevent spooking them. Move slow, and blend with the shade, you will be surprised how many more fish you will find.

We fished Wednesday and had a very good morning. I was really surprised how spotty the fish have been feeding on the Trico spinners. A friend of mine and I fished about 50 yards apart and he didn't see any risers. I fished risers for about 2 and half hours. I can not explain it, because he was in a area that has produced excellent dry fly fishing for the spinner fall, forever. We did catch some very nice fish, with the largest a 21 inch rainbow. My buddy also hooked, but lost a brown that was bigger than that. My largest fish was a very pretty 18 inch brown. We fished similar flies, and the fish were eating both.

There are still some yellow stones coming off, but not very many. There are several different caddis coming off in the morning, and every now and then we saw a light cahill. I wouldn't call them hatches, because they are sporadic and variable.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report June 16, 06

I was not able to get to the Current River this week. I had other commitments, but I did receive a good report from a reliable source. The river is in great shape for fishing with just about an average flow. Most fish were taken with Elk Hair caddis or a Copper John. Combining the two flies and fishing a two fly rig was very effective. Most of the larger fish were taken with the dropper.
Finding the right location on the stream, will help you avoid the aluminum hatch ( canoes ). The traffic is especially heavy on Saturdays, but with a little planning you can leap frog most of them and enjoy a peaceful day on the stream.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report June 8, 06

The river is running about normal flow right now, and still a little cloudy. It should get gin clear in the next two weeks, if we don't get any heavy rain. The side creeks, and small springs that are very unnoticeable along the stream are running good flows. So our water tables are back to where they should be for this time of year. 

Fishing has been good with all the little stocked browns in the river and with the rainbows that washed down from Montauk park in the last flood. There have been a couple of reports of nice browns of around 5 pounds taken. Unfortunately they were taken out in coolers instead of released. I'm sure that other fish over 18 inches have gone on stringers. Everyone is not a catch and release fishermen, and for most guys, a fish over 3 pounds, is a fish of a lifetime.
The tricos are coming on strong, but the fish are not on them yet...I presume it is because of the late stocking, I don't have any other explanation. I have never seen the fish not rise to this spinner. There are some caddis fluttering around, but not in great numbers. The yellow stones are slowing down and the light cahills are still here and there.

The aluminum hatch is going strong, so be aware, especially on weekends.

Fishing Report June 1, 06

The river is still running about normal, maybe just a little over average. We did get a small spike yesterday, but it is dropping about as fast as it went up. Typical of the upper Current River. Up fast and down fast, hence the warnings about flash flooding in this area. I had a client catch a nice trout last Wednesday afternoon, about an 18 brown that was taken in some fast water. He had a long hard fight getting the fish to the net. In strong water you have to be very careful about not horsing them out. The extra power of a swift current increases the force tremendously at the end of the line. Cliff did a great job keeping pressure on this fish and he was very patient. Notice the slight off color of this fish. When fish are in discolored water for an extended period of time, their colors will become faint. As the stream clears up the bright colors will return. You may have noticed this with other fish, such as largemouth bass taken out of muddy water.

The upper Current River is in excellent fishing condition, and the fish are returning to normal after the aluminum hatch this weekend. 

Fishing Report May 20, 06

The Current River water level is running just about where it should be for this time of year. The color is great and the fishing is very good. This is a great time to introduce a novice to the world of fly fishing for trout. There are plenty of stockers to keep up the interest and some nice fish to bend a rod. The extra high water last week provided an opportunity for the stocked rainbows in Montauk to make their way down stream. Although they are not legal size fish to keep, they provide a lot of fun, and they are eager to take a fly. It really does not take them very long to get tuned in to the insect activity in the river. I don't know if they see other fish feeding on the bugs and learn from them or if they just have a natural instinct that attracts them to the insects. I doesn't matter, either way they eat flies and provide enjoyment to fishermen throwing a fly rod. This weekend was kid's day at Montauk Park, so I'm sure that the stream was pounded pretty good today and will be again tomorrow. I would imagine that families will be camping out more and more during the week days as well, now that schools are closing for the summer. The tricos are coming off well in the mornings, the caddis are hatching in the afternoons and the little yellow stoneflies are popping during the day. A lot of bugs, a lot of fish and a lot of fun.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report May 10, 06

I checked the USGS river levels today before I left the house. It was a good thing I did, the Current River blew out today. It went from about 450 cfs to 3,000 in about 3 hours. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail telling me that he had heard that they evacuated the camp grounds at Montauk Park for safety reasons. I decided to fish the little piney creek instead. It took me about 10 minutes to drive to the creek and another 10 minutes to get dressed and walk to the hole I planned to fish. When I got there the creek was up a little, but with good color. I fished for about 3 hours, catching 6 rainbows and 2 smallmouth on streamers. They were not hitting hard today, I ended up missing 4 fish on soft takes. I was in the water about thigh deep when I started to notice the current picking up and the stream getting a little debris. It was time for me to move into shallower water. It wasn't too long after that the color started to change and in about 10 minutes the creek was up about a foot and it turned to a chocolate milk color. It was time to go home. I checked the water levels when I got home, and the Current had peaked and was dropping. It should be OK by the weekend if we don't get more rain. With the ground totally saturated from recent rains, any more rain we get will run off into the streams. The Flash Flood warning signs posted on the Current River are there for a reason.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report May 3, 06

Perfect fishing conditions, for me,  today on the Current River. When I arrived at the river this morning, I was excited about the level and the color of the water. Not to mention that it was a rainy drizzly day. The fish were very active today and hit a variety of flies. I was throwing some big stuff and probably had seven or eight missed takes for every fish I hooked. The smaller mouthed rainbows and small browns would hit the fly but not enough of it to get hooked. Throwing the bunnies, I caught about a  half dozen rainbows, and the rest of my fish were browns. The browns ranged from 14 to 18 inches. No big guys today, and with the water conditions the way they were I was disappointed that I didn't hook a 20+ fish. There was a fair caddis hatch today about 1:00 or 2:00. Good size, about a #14, brown. Probably the spotted sedge, but I didn't catch any to identify them. I was throwing bunnies today and really not interested in the minor caddis hatch. When the river is in this condition, I throw big stuff. I can fish the caddis hatches when the river clears and drops, but I only get to fish it a few times a year when it is in the condition it was in today. Unfortunately, I didn't check the water level before I left the house this morning and drove to the river with my 4WT. Not exactly the right rod for the type of fishing I was doing, but I didn't have a choice. Chuck and duck was going to be my method for at least half the day. When my shoulder wears out, I have to stop and change tactics. I probably caught just as many fish drifting a caddis emerger below and indicator, that I did throwing the bunnies, but they were smaller fish.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report April 25, 06

The river is back to just about normal for this time of year. It was just running about 50% before we received rain this week. We had about 3 inches in two days, but they didn't get that much south of here. The color of the river is just a little cloudy, not much but noticeable. We were expecting it to be more off color this morning, but it wasn't. Bug activity today, wasn't what it was 5 days ago, but the cool rainy weather may have something to do with that. The forecast is for more rain and a lot cooler.. down in the 30s tonight. The temperature dropped a lot this afternoon. We had a pretty good day, not great, but the weather cooperated, it stayed cloudy most of the day and we had the stream to ourselves until about 2:00. I would say we ( my good friend Tom and I ) caught about 20-25 fish today. We didn't find any one particular fly that worked all the time, but the olive/brown caddis emerger, size 16 seemed to do better than most. We caught them on caddis dry flies, softhackles and the olive emerger below an indicator. We even tossed some bunnies, but didn't catch a fish on them. The stream is in excellent condition to fish right now.

Fishing Report April 20, 06

I have had a death in the  family and it has taken me some time to get back to the stream. I had three clients this week and have a couple of reports for you. The Current river is very low, and very clear. I believe it is flowing about 50% of its normal flow for this time of year. There have been some caddis hatches and the crane flies are going well. The larger caddis brown/yellow is coming off about 7:30-8:00 PM and of course the Cranes are also popping about this time. I was told that caddis were also hatching in the morning, but I wasn't there so I can't tell you the size or the color. The ones we saw in the afternoon were very small, brown/purple about a size 20. The fish were not very active during the afternoon, but seemed to be getting after the bugs in the evening. I wouldn't call it real active, but there were, at least some rises, and splashes. There was NO activity during the afternoon. 

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

We fished the little piney creek and mill creek yesterday with limited success. The fish of the day was the first one hooked, but he broke off about 5 seconds into the fight. We fished with dry flies, mostly Adams, and some soft hackles. The bright sun in the afternoon didn't help and of course there wasn't much bug activity, except in the morning. If you fish the little piney, make sure you have some #18-20 black caddis. They always seem to be flying around when we go there. The little piney creek as well as Mill creek are very low and very clear right now. A low profile and slow approach will get you more takes than a walk right up on top of them as fast as you can go approach. The fish are very spooky in this low clear water condition.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report April 10, 06

Sorry, no report this week - personal reasons

Fishing Report April 2, 06

Sorry, no report this week - personal reasons

Fishing Report March 26th, 06

I don't have a report today for the Current River. I went to Taneycomo to fish with a friend of mine. I will have a report next week.

This report was sent in by a  friend of mine: 

A buddy and I went fishing last Sunday, 3/26, with my new canoe.  I mounted a trolling motor on the back so we motored up from Parker about 3/4 of the way to Ashley and floated/fished back to the truck.  The water was high and muddy, about 1.6 on the USGS website.  We threw streamers all day and each caught a handful of fish.  It was pretty slow. 

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

I moved two or three really large browns on white zuddlers but couldn't get them to commit.  We landed fish on olive and ginger mohair leaches, olive WBs, olive sculpins, and I caught a fish or two on tan-bodied caddis dries with dark wings, sizes 16s and 18s.  I only fished the caddis when I saw a rise and this was not very often

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report March 17, 06

The river is still up a little and a little cloudy. Excellent looking water for fishing, but looks can be deceiving. The fish have been feeding pretty well over the past week with the high water and we have a cold front coming in so for whatever reason they were not feeding aggressively today. I had several short soft hits and only managed to land 5 today. None of them were big fish, but two of them were wild or they have been in the river a long time Rainbows. They fought like crazy with several jumps, so if they were not wild, they were very close to it. I drifted some flies, but I did most of my fishing with streamers. I worked at it pretty hard today and the day got colder as it went on. The wind came up, so I was glad that I took my jacket. The weekend looks to be colder and Monday they are calling for snow possibilities, so fair weather fishermen take heed.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report March 8, 06

The river is up today, and running a lot of debris. There was an excellent caddis hatch in the afternoon, an excellent BWO and an excellent midge hatch in the afternoon. The fish were not paying a lot of attention to the bugs however.  I guess the water conditions had a lot to do with that. The fishing was a little slow, if you measure by the numbers of fish caught, but I did manage to catch some very nice browns on streamers. I didn't catch very many fish today, but I netted 3 browns over 20 inches. It was a lot of work and I covered a lot of water. 

Fishing Report March 6, 06

The river is very low and very clear. As I drove by the dam at Montauk I noticed that there was very little water coming over the dam. As low as I have ever seen it for this time of the year. The fish are spooky in this low clear water, so approach slowly, keep a low profile and wear clothes that blend with the stream bank. I didn't get on the stream until later in the day, but I managed to catch about 12 fish this afternoon. The  largest was a 23" female. The caddis were flying everywhere and the fish were feeding on them sporadically. There were a couple of different caddis. One was a small guy, about a size 18 with tan wings and a dark brown body. The other one was larger, about a size 16, with light brown wings and a green body. I believe they are called little sedge, but I'm not sure. I caught about half my fish on a close patterned emerger that I had, and half on some CDC 16s that I had. If I can catch them on dry flies then that is how I prefer to fly fish. The weather is going to turn warmer over the next couple of days and storms are in the forecast. I hope it pours for the next three or four days, because we need it and it would give me an excuse to get out my 6 wt. and throw some big ugly stuff.

"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"

Fishing Report February 26, 06

The river is still running clear and about normal. It was a little cold this morning with the temps in the 20s. It did warm up to about 50 degrees in the afternoon. We saw several bugs later in the day when the temperature got up to 50. Two different caddis, one was brown with tan wings and the other was a dark brown/green with tan wings. Both were about a size 18. There were small black stoneflies size 16. Some very small mayflies, but I didn't identify them, and our tiny midges.

Fishing the deep water in the morning was not productive. We managed to catch a few fish in the shallower moving water. The largest fish was a nice rainbow about 15-16 inches, and a brown about the same size. There was some fair activity in the afternoon when the caddis started popping, but not  full fledged water busting activity. The next couple of days is suppose to warm up to the 70 degree mark, which will bring on some major insect activity, and get the fish turned on.

Thursday was a day for me to do some exploring, trying to find some fish for a couple of clients. I really didn't find a lot of fish, but did manage to catch a nice 20" brown. They were sipping midges along an eddy current in some slower water. A couple of guys came down the stream, walking a canoe and trying to fish. They walked right into the hole I was fishing, and that was the end of my dry fly midge fishing for the day.

Fishing Report February 13, 06

The river is running clear and normal. The only bug that I saw is our little midge, and there were very few of them. The weather has been cold with some snow and fish activity has been very slow. There is a weather forecast for warmer days and some sun this week, so hopefully we can see some caddis activity and get the fish turned on again, like they were a couple of weeks ago. I picked up a couple of bows with a Mohair leech and a couple of small browns with a #24 midge. I was having problems with ice in my guides early in the morning, but that is a problem often encountered with winter fishing. I still have not used that silicone dressing that I have read about to help prevent the ice build up.  Maybe next time. I wasn't doing as well as I had hoped and actually my heart wasn't in it at the time, my mind was on basketball and it was cold, so I decided to call it a day and go home to watch game films.

If you plan on fishing in this type of weather, make sure to have extra warm clothes in the vehicle and a means to create a fire. If you get wet, get out of those clothes and into some dry ones as soon as possible. If you don't have them, you better get somewhere warm quickly before hypothermia sets in. Shivering is an early indicator so pay attention to the warnings. No fish is worth the loss of a finger, or toe or worse. Winter is a good time to fish with a friend, for safety sake, and make sure you stay close enough to communicate with them. 

Fishing Report February 4, 06

No report this week, I have been involved with a basketball tournament and I have spent my time with scouting reports, analyzing film, playing games and practice. I have noticed that the Roubidoux creek was running a little cloudy and up about a foot or more this week. Perfect conditions for streamers.  Other area streams were running high on Monday and Tuesday this week, but are currently dropping back to about their average flow for this time of year.  A friendly reminder that February 1st starts a new fishing season in Missouri and your 2005 license is no longer valid. If you plan to be out on a stream, remember to pick up your 2006 fishing license. 

Fishing Report January 27, 06

I was able to get out on the stream for about 2 hours yesterday and managed to catch 6 nice fish. It was slow for about half an hour, with a few ticks on my streamer, but no hook-ups. I switched over to one of my favorite winter flies, a #10 olive mohair leech. I fish mine on a swing and short twitches. On the 4th cast I had one on for about 20 seconds before I lost it. At least it was progress, if only for 20 seconds. A half dozen casts later I had another one on and managed to release it after a good fight and a couple of leaps. Not a big one, but some action for what was proving to be a slow day. A few casts later I had another one, release it and continued to throw in the same hole. I spent about a half hour fishing in that one hole and took six fish out of it. The clouds started to dissipate, the sun was getting higher and the fish catching stopped.  I continued down the stream without success and decided to fish it back up with an indicator and caddis worm... no luck, not even a stop. I fished my way back up stream past the truck and realized that I needed to pick up the pace and fish back down, because I needed to leave in an hour or so. As I was working my way back down stream a guy stepped into the river ahead of me, about 30 feet below me, and started fishing. I will not get into my thoughts on that at this time, but I am determined to write a lengthy article on fishing etiquette in the near future. I have had this happen to me several times over the past couple of years and it is really getting on my nerves. I believe that there is an increasing percentage of fishermen today that just don't understand that it is rude to disturb the water in, around and where a fisherman is heading. I blame this on the fishing attitude of some of the fishermen in our trout parks, here in Missouri, and that there are fishermen out there that don't know any better, because no one has taught them. If we, as fly fishermen, do not say anything to these guys, they will continue to disrupt the water we fish and not realize that it is poor fishing etiquette.

Fishing Report January 19, 06

Sorry, no report this week, (so far). I have been extremely busy with my basketball season and I had some minor surgery, so I needed to stay in a "clean environment" until the incision healed. This weather is amazing for January, but I am worried about the water tables. We really need the moisture during the winter to help keep our tables up. Anyone that loves to be outside and enjoying the great outdoors has had an unbelievable winter to be out and about. I have seen a lot of "gig boats" this winter, so I assume that the suckers and carp have had a pretty rough time of avoiding all the gigs being jabbed at them this year. Without the rain and snow runoffs to keep the rivers dingy, the giggers have had a perfect winter for their sport. Warm nights and crystal clear water provide perfect opportunities for high rates of success.

Fishing Report January 9, 06

The great weather that we have had this past week has allowed some fortunate friends of mine to get out and catch a few fish. One friend reported that bead head nymphs were producing some nice fish despite the bright sunny conditions that make the fish very spooky. ( There are a lot more of eagles over the rivers in the winter and they love to eat fish).  A few browns over 15" were hooked with a couple netted. One that was closer to 20 managed to avoid the net and was released on a long line. The primary flies that the fish were eating were bead headed midge nymphs and red asses.  Fish were also taken on caddis worms and a few rose to caddis dries. The fisherman providing this report  had to leave the river a little earlier than usual Sunday, so unfortunately he missed what was probably a great caddis hatch in the evening.  When he left, the bugs were starting to hatch out of the riffles and fish were taking soft hackles pretty regularly.

Fishing Report December 29, 05

Fishing was a little slow today, but it was nice to be able to get out for a few hours. I managed to hook up with a half dozen average size fish. All on olive Mohair leeches in size 10. I like to use them in the winter when the water is clear. I fish them on the swing and a few short strips at the end. I know some fishermen, like Missouri's coldwater director, drift the leech below an indicator. I prefer to cast and strip it, because I really enjoy casting a fly rod more than throwing an indicator.

Two reports came in this week, from other fishermen, indicating that the fishing was also slow for them. They tried a variety of flies with limited success. The nice weather earlier in the week made it really nice to be out and enjoying the Ozarks.

Hey, I forgot to mention that I had the privilege to see a bald eagle today... 
"A bad day fishing is still a Great Day"
www.TightLine.Biz

Fishing Report December 11, 05

A great hatch of BWOs and Midges, in December, on the Current River. The picture below was sent to me by Ryan McCarty. His girl friend took the picture yesterday in the fly fishing section of Montauk Park. All the little specks you see in the photo are bugs, thousands of them are surrounding Ryan giving him and his girl friend several hours of quality dry fly fishing. There are tremendous bug hatches on this river, and you can have a lot of fun if you are in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, yesterday, I was fishing several miles downstream from this hatch and missed it.

I was able to get down to the river for a little while today and really had a pretty good outing. I saw a couple of other guys on the stream, but I never did see them with a fish on. One guy was drifting a red plastic worm. I politely informed him that plastic baits were strictly prohibited on Blue Ribbon waters. He said that it wasn't natural bait,  it was artificial and it should be Ok. I told him that I was an authorized guide with the National Park Service and that I was 100% sure that plastic baits are explicitly prohibited in this section of the stream. I told him it was listed on the yellow posted sign and that he could read it for himself. He said he thought it was OK to fish with the plastic worms, because he had seen other fishermen fishing in the exact same place using them. After a few more minutes of discussion he thanked me, switched over to a spinner and continued on down the stream. I continued up the river to a couple of  holes that I knew, from past years, would be holding some winter fish. I stopped at a little run that dropped off into a nice hole that had plenty of cover. I was only able to catch one little bow there so I started to work back down to the truck. I really had a couple of other holes in mind, the run was just a starting point. I quickly worked through the shallow sections, knowing that I was probably wasting my time, but I needed the extra time to get my cast down. I slowly worked down to the first hole I was planning to fish and could see several trout holding on the bottom. My second cast produced a good strike, but I missed it. The fourth or fifth cast connected and after that I had a pattern. I was throwing a #10 Mohair leech with a single size 6 split about 8 inches up the line. They were taking the fly on the swing or sometimes following it and hitting after a couple of short strips. I was mending the line two or three times on each cast, to give the fly time to sink  close to the bottom. I weight my leeches so I knew I didn't need a lot of extra weight to get them down. I don't use extra weight if the current is slow, or the water is less than 4 feet deep. I managed to land 11, lose 3 and break off 3. Not that the fish were that big, just several rocks for them to get into and cut the line. Pretty good fishing for a little over 3 hours, especially for winter fish. The river was very clear, and just about normal. OH I forgot to mention that I saw a bald eagle. It is always a great day when I see an eagle. For you older fishermen you know what I am talking about. When I was a kid we never saw eagles. It wasn't until about 20 years ago that we would see one occasionally. So yes, I get excited when I see them. I'm sure you younger fishermen appreciate them and enjoy seeing one, but for most of you under the age of 30 you have always seen them and don't realize how rare the sightings were 50-30 years ago.

"A bad day fishing is still a great day"

Fishing Report December 3, 05

I have not been able to get down to the river this a week. My basketball season has started and I am pretty deep into that right now. We had a tournament this past week and I spent all of my time watching games, reviewing scouting films, practicing and putting scouting reports together. There have been reports that the fishing is good with streamers, especially when the river was up. That will almost always be the case, so watch the river gauges and plan to fish some big ugly things when it is high. I did have a report that came in today from Ryan McCarty. He and a friend caught some bows throwing small Sculpins.

During the winter months, the insect activity really slows to a crawl and the fish are more clued in to minnows or nymphs that have been dislodged from under rocks by fishermen wading, or animals in the stream. I usually do well with the smaller Sculpins in clear water or #10 Mohair leeches in olive or brown, which I believe the fish take for small Sculpins anyway. 

Be careful fishing in the Winter, hypothermia sets in pretty quick especially if you get wet. I wrote an article last year about winter fishing that may contain some helpful advise. You can find it in my stories section, or on the OzarkAnglers.com/ forum.

Fishing Report November 12, 05

While we were getting dressed two rifle shots rang out across the river and that was when we decided to stay in the river below the river bank on our walks up and down the river. Deer season is not a good time to be walking the river banks on the fishermen trails with tan colored Simms waders. Not a lot has changed over the past three weeks with the trout fishing on the upper Current River, except that the Tricos have really dropped off over the past week. There are still a few flying around and being eaten, but they are mixed in with the tiny olives when they fall and I think the fish just feed on them opportunistically when they are picking up the olives. There are some good tiny olive hatches going on in the mornings and yesterday they were the primary hatch of all the bugs observed. There are some small midges, (a lot smaller than the ones at Taney) in the air but not in great numbers. There was a good caddis hatch yesterday morning and fish chasing them. It wasn't a major hatch, but enough bugs to get the fish interested. They are about a size 16, with tan wings and a light brown / olive abdomen. A good friend of mine and I fished about a half day yesterday catching approximately 12-15 a piece on a #24 tiny olive spinner dry fly. When the spinner fall was over and the fish stopped feeding on them we changed tactics. Tom switched over to an indicator and a bead head copper john. I switched over to a caddis dry fly for an indicator and an olive and copper nymph for a dropper. I picked up 6 more fish with half of them taking the dropper and the other half the dry fly. The weather was good for fishing with the cloud cover and the light rain we had a mid morning. I was a little disappointed that the larger olive did not come off yesterday. The weather was just about right, except that it wasn't cold enough. They seem to like the cold, windy with rain or snow days. It is a size 20, and the fish go crazy over them. Oh well maybe next time, the weather is suppose to change this week with dropping temps. Now if we can get some rain or snow to go with that I will be headed for the river with my number 20 olives. I look forward to those Baetis type days when I will probably be the only fool on the river.

Fishing Report November 5, 05

The fishing report is the same this week as it was last week. Despite the rain earlier in the week the river is still very low and clear. Usually after a heavy rain Ashley creek will dump in some good runoff to give the river good color for streamer fishing and get the fish turned on into more aggressive feeding, but with the water tables as low as they currently are, it is going to take several days of heavy rain or a real gully washer. Reports in this week are showing good results with lots of fish to be caught. The early morning pattern is still tricos with tiny olives and some caddis. The midges are still increasing, but not the bug of choice yet. As the tricos tail out here in November, and the days get colder, the midges will continue to hatch and gain more attention from the trout. The caddis hatches are really going strong right now, with tremendous fish activity in the last couple of hours of daylight. 4:00 PM is a very good time to be on the water in the evening to catch it. The browns are not as active with their annual fall responsibilities and some of the males have dropped down into the deeper holes to recover and start replacing all the weight they dropped. Large offerings in the deep pools will draw good attention this time of year. # 10 Mohair leeches can be pretty affective in November, drifted through the deep pools. The deeper water, with the slower currents is a welcomed relief to the male browns from fighting the strong currents of October. The leaves in the Ozarks are at their peak, or just a little past peak this week. So if you enjoy the colors this may be the last weekend of the year to see them.

Fishing Report October 30, 05

This is going to be a short report this week. The river is running very low and clear and there are lots of fish to be caught especially after the last stocking of the year in Montauk park this weekend. The brown trout  in the river are spooky so approach the holes slowly and keep your distance. The Tricos are still coming off at dawn and the BWOs are kicking in about 10:00 or 11:00. The evening hatches include midges, caddis and sulfers.

Fishing Report October 22, 05

I am sitting here this morning writing a fishing report instead of being on the river with a client because he was a no show. The first no show I have had. I'm not upset about it, but it would have been nice for him to have called to let me know. I was up at 5:00 getting things ready for today and I could have slept in. It has been a very busy week on the river for me and I needed the rest. I guess the weather has a lot to do with that. Fishermen like this time of year and I do too. Lots of bug activity, the temps are usually just about perfect ( not this week though, it has been very hot for October ) for fishermen to plan a trip to the rivers. The last week of October it completely full for me so I will be dragging my poor old body around about a week from today. Maybe the no show was a blessing in disguise. 

The Current river is low and clear and the fish activity has been excellent. The Tricos are still coming off, not as many now, but enough to get the fish interested and feeding on the spinners.  The tiny olives are really going strong, but for some reason Thursday didn't produce any numbers. Just about the time you think you have it figured out mother nature throws you a Roy Oswalt curve. There was a  #16 brown/tan caddis coming off sporadically during the day, all week, with a very good hatch starting a couple of hours before dusk. The fishing were chasing them, so it is a bug they are use to seeing in enough numbers to fish it. 

The leaves are probably going to really reach their peak this week, so get out and enjoy the great Ozark hills and streams, because the woods will soon turn to a dull brown and gray with the weather to match the color. Great for steelheading, but unfortunately we are not blessed with them here in Missouri. 

Fishing Report October 13, 05

Sorry I have not had a fishing report for the past couple of weeks. I have been on vacation and doing some fishing of my own. My trip is covered in my stories page.

The Current River is running clear and just about normal. October has always been my favorite time of the year to fish. The leaves are changing, the temperatures are cooling off . There are bugs hatching all over the water making it a dry fly fisherman's heaven. This morning there were Tricos in the air, tiny olives were coming off and Caddis were fluttering in the sunlight. I took the picture below, this morning, just to show you how many bugs were in the air. They may be hard to see in the photo so I labeled them to show you where they are. I also saw some midges flying around early this morning and they will continue to increase as we head deeper into the autumn.

The Tricos are still hatching about dawn with the spinner fall starting about 9:00. The olives start coming off about 9:00 or 10:00 and they start falling a couple if hours later. You can fish micro dry flies until 1:00 in the afternoon. The secret is knowing where to find the bugs. If you find the bugs you can find fish feeding on them. I was able to catch several browns and rainbows this morning on Trico patterns and Tiny Olives. I fish # 28s with the Tricos and #24s with the Olives. The larger Browns have other things on their minds right now, so you may have to force feed them to get them to eat your fly. There are plenty of smaller browns and lots of rainbows to suck down your tiny little flies.

Get out and enjoy the great fall weather. Take a camera and save your memories on the river.

Fishing Report September 16, 05

I am sorry the report is late this week, but my computer has been down for three days. Well we finally got enough rain Wednesday night and Thursday to raise the stream and turn on the fish. We had some good rain Tuesday night and Wednesday morning but the rain we received Wednesday night and Thursday pushed enough water into the system to give us some good streamer fishing. I had a client out on Wednesday and was hoping that the storms earlier that morning would give us some good streamer water, but it just wasn't enough to give us the off color we like to have to throw streamers. The Trico hatch continues to provide some good dry fly fishing in the morning, with the spinner fall occurring around 8:30. There were a few fish still feeding on them at 12:00, but as usual not very many that late in the day. The Caddis hatches a