Just a Couple of Reasons Why I Love Spring in the Ozarks

Unless you live deep in the South or snow skiing is your pastime of choice, Spring is almost always a welcome season when it finally rolls around. Old man winter starts to release his grasp on things and Mother nature begins brushing the countryside with the multitude of greens on her palette.
While I'm sure that Spring is just as welcome in your backyard as it is mine, there's something about a Spring morning in the Ozarks that's pretty hard to beat.

Boats loaded and rods are set-up, fully armed with what I'm hoping is the smallmouth candy of choice today...

This girl was enjoying a warm, sunny morning on her Spring nest as I floated by in search of hungry smallies...

There really is nothing to compare with an early morning float on a peaceful river this time of year. Everything is greening up and taking on a new face after a long winter season...



Definitely my kind of morning coffee break...

These rivers take on an entirely different look come Memorial Day, on most of my Spring floats I seldom see another person though...



Lunch always tastes better if consumed streamside with your feet kicked up on the side of a boat...

Who doesn't love a good portage (or two), that would be ME...


And the best thing about Springtime in the Ozarks is most definitely the smallmouth bite. There's just nothing that beats a good day on the water tangling with a bunch of scrappy smallies!

Road Tripping with Joe....The White Bass Gamble

I only had one day to kill so it was going to be a relatively short trip. Four hours to the nearest trout stream...three hours to my favorite smallie creek or two hours and some change to check out the white bass situation. While all of the choices had upsides (and downsides), in the end I chose the white bass gamble for several reasons. First of those being that, if you hit it right, the whites are usually around in numbers and are relatively easy to catch when found.


The second reason was that I wanted to take my best buddy along and he just doesn't do well with extended car rides or long, tough hikes anymore. At 14 years old (what's that, like 100 in people years!) he's to the point where short trips to the local lake and laying in the grass under a shade tree are his idea of a good time, and we get out and do just that as often as possible.

That being said, I know I sure miss those long roadtrips together with nothing to do but enjoy each others company on a quiet riverbank, and I sincerely hope he does too. On this day, the weather was mild and the trip relatively short and since I didn't even know if the fish were up in the river yet I was fine with calling it a day whenever my old buddy got tired and was ready to head home. Just two old guys with a day to kill.


We hiked...we sat on the bank and listened to the water meander by...we gave a piss poor attempt at chasing a couple of mouthy red squirrels in the field edge as we were hiking from one spot to another...and we even managed to throw a few flies as time permitted.



We snacked on peanut butter crackers (Joes favorite) at almost every stop and we had our usual fried chicken tailgate lunch.


While I can't say that the fish were ever found and caught in any numbers, we managed a few small males to hand and lost a few others.


That being said, it still might have been the best trip I've had in quite awhile. Sometimes the company you keep outweighs the end result achieved...here's to many more fishless trips with my old friend.