Capps Creek 11/20 "White Ribbon ...Why?"

After a long day on Friday chasing wild bows on Crane Creek I didn't want to make the drive back to KC so I made plans to meet Kevin and head over to Capps Creek on Saturday morning. With a cabin cruiser sitting on TR in Kimberling City I've always got a convenient place to crash if I don't feel like hauling all of the camping gear down, which makes it nice for last minute overnight stays.

I awoke Saturday morning just as the sun was coming up over the lake and made a quick cup of coffee before hitting the road. I arrived in Aurora just before 8:00 and we made the short drive to Capps. I've only fished this stream once before and had been wanting to get back since that trip. This is one of MDC's White Ribbon areas which means the bucket brigade shows up every time the stocking truck is in town.
Don't get me wrong I'm not an elitist flyfisherman , I just hate to see what could be a healthy trout stream raped every month by folks carrying 5 gallon buckets and jars of powerbait. Missouri has places where that practice is and should be totally acceptable , trout parks , and you don't even have to wait for the stocking truck. OK , rant over for today.

Anyway , Capps is a pretty little stream with both stocked rainbows and browns. I'm not real sure if they continue to stock brown trout but they're in there so they did at one time. The stream is fed by several small springs which allow it to be a year-round trout fishery although the stocking is discontinued during the summer months. Kevin and I pulled into the Jolly Mill parking lot just before 8:30 and were both a little surprised to find it empty. Our only guess was that the Missouri rifle deer season was keeping everyone off the water this weekend. I put on a 2 nymph setup and Kevin went with a dry to start the morning off with.

We began up by the mill and worked our way downstream through the shallow riffles with neither of us getting bit. Once we got to the deeper pools just above the bridge our luck changed and we began landing fish pretty regularly.We worked our way down to where the treeline hits the creek , with the fishing slowing up after we left the deep pools and got back into the riffle-run water. We'd both caught enough fish to make it a good trip already so we decided to hop in the truck and head downstream to the Walleye Road Access.

A quick sandwich on the drive down and we were back on the water before our waders could dry. Neither of us had fished the downstream side of this access so we took off in that direction to explore some new water. Man was there some good looking water down there too , deep holes with rootwads for cover - nice riffles leading into mid-depth pools , perfect water for brown trout in my opinion.

Surprisingly the fish either weren't cooperating or just weren't there , we managed to land a half dozen more small bows but not what I would expect from water looking like that. By now my time was running short before I had to hit the road back to KC so we decided to head back upstream and fish a couple spots above the Walleye Road Access that we were familiar with.

This proved to be a smart decision as we were again able to locate some active fish and catch several more bows apiece before the afternoon was over. We witnessed some pretty large mayfly hatches going off on this upper section , both BWO's and a larger dark bodied mayfly that we couldn't identify (my entomology skills suck!), but neither of us could raise a fish nor did we see any fish rising to take bugs off the surface. Another great day of fishing , although I must admit to being a little dissapointed at not catching any browns. I know there's some nice fish in this little creek and I guess that thought will keep me coming back until I get lucky and nail one.

No fish pics on this outing , after catching those little wild bows yesterday I almost felt dirty fishing for those "raceway rainbows". Kind of like sleeping with the bad girl from the other side of the tracks , you may not want your friends to know but it was so much damn fun you can't wait to call her back. I'll definitely be back for another shot at this little stream before too long.

Crane Creek 11-19 "Small Stream Education"

Another beautiful weekend was forecast and as much as I wanted to stick around the house and catch up on chores , I just couldn't talk myself into it. I wanted to get back down and try a little more sight fishing at Taneycomo but after checking the SWPA schedule and seeing non-stop generation predicted both Friday and Saturday I was forced to devise a plan "B". Seeing as how my last outing to Crane Creek was cut short I opted for a return trip to try my luck again.

A couple of small young of the year fish were all I was able to manage that day and I had hopes of doing better this time.
Got down to the town of Crane about 10:00AM Friday morning and headed to the Upper Wire Road Access for my starting point. Kevin and I were unable to connect with any fish in this section last trip and didn't see very many fish either , so I wanted to do a little more exploring and try to figure out where they were hiding at.

I geared up in the parking lot and then headed off down the trail until I was downstream far enough to begin working my way back to the truck. This stream is small enough that there are very few pools you can't see the bottom in so it's pretty much a visual game.

You walk along keeping your eyes peeled for your quarry and keep the fly on the hookkeeper until you spot a fish. I'd already decided from my last visit that I needed to slow down and spend a little more time at each pool looking for fish. As soon as I did this it was amazing how many more fish I was able to spot.

What I found was that the fish were almost always seeing me before I saw them and then scurrying under the nearest cutbank or rootwad to hide out until they felt safe.
If I sat down on the bank and waited them out for a few minutes they would almost always move back out into their original lie and settle back in.

This simple process improved my success greatly and I began catching fish where I hadn't even seen any on my last trip. This is still small stream fishing and I was by no means tearing em up, but I was consistently hooking up when I spotted fish.

I managed to land 6 or 8 small rainbows in this section before arriving back at the truck , much better than my last trip but I still hadn't hooked up with anything of respectable size.
I decided to move down to the city park and fish the section from the railroad tressle to the ballfields.

I'd actually never fished this area before so I was excited to see some new water. Although not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the Upper Wire Road Access, this section of stream didn't dissapoint me for numbers of fish. Definitely a few deeper pools that seemed to hold some larger fish , they wouldn't prove to be any easier to catch but at least I knew they were there.

The same method of approach used in the upper sections proved to be the ticket in these deeper pools as well. You had to let the fish sit for a few minutes after arriving at a pool so they could move back into their feeding lies instead of their cover areas.

None of these fish were big , but size is all relative to the stream in which you're fishing so I considered a couple of my fish to be respectable for wild rainbows in a small creek.
I had my best day ever on this creek, landing my biggest and the most fish I've ever caught in a day. This is a true gem in the Ozarks and we should all work to keep it protected for future generations to enjoy.

Beautiful fall day...pretty creek...wild rainbows...life is good.

Wakarusa River - 11/15 "Local Flavor"

Wasn't able to get away this weekend for a coldwater trip but the weather was simply too nice to not hit the water.

Upper 50's and sunshine in mid November isn't unheard of around here but we all know our days are numbered before we feel the first signs of winter so you gotta take advantage of it.

I had heard rumors from a buddy that a few walleye and white bass had been caught by a friend of his a couple weeks ago on a local river below a reservoir.

No more details , just that a couple fish were caught. What the hell , it's only a 30 minute drive and I got no excuses not to go. I grabbed the 5 weight , a box of streamers , the homemade stripping basket and threw it all in the car and the dog and I headed West.

I knew the spot I wanted to go and being a Monday there was not another soul in sight.

We walked along the small river fishing any deep pools or riffles with with an assortment of streamers , from small shad patterns to foxee clousers.


The fishing was great , the catching on the other hand was a little slow.

I managed to land two small walleye out of one hole.

A little farther downstream a deeper pool produced a small sauger , a close relative to the walleye common here in some Kansas waterways.

I had another fish on here that felt bigger but of course I didn't get to see him so it's nothing but a fish story at this point.

Another brush choked pool turned up a small white bass (camera shy) and a small largemouth as well.

It was a beautiful afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed spending a few hours with my best friend throwing some line around.

Need to go home and tie up a few more foxee clousers after losing two today , they were the ticket. With December looming large , the tying vise will start seeing more time and the waders will take the hit seeing less use as the weather turns colder , days like today will help me get through it.

Crane Creek - Taneycomo 11/5 - 11/7

This time of year there are several rivers and streams I know of that keep me up at night trying to plan that next visit. The White River tailwater of Taneycomo is close to the top of that list for obvious reasons. With my last two trips to the tailwater producing some very nice fish I decided to give it another shot and see if the third time really was a charm. With a little coaxing I convinced my buddy Kevin to take Friday off work and hit the water with me. The plan was to meet at Taney Friday morning around 8:00 am, but after checking generation schedules the night before we were forced to devise a plan B. They were predicting 4 generators online until 11:00 am which would make it virtually unfishable without a boat. We decided to meet at Kevin's house in Aurora and then head to Crane Creek about 20 miles away and spend the morning there waiting on the water to drop out.

The Crane Creek mystique is that the trout are all wild strain McCloud rainbows that were supposedly stocked by railroad engineers riding the trains cross country. Story has it that they stocked likely streams in areas where they stopped over, either for recreational purposes or to have access to an easy fish dinner. Regardless of how they arrived, these fish have survived extreme low water conditions and poaching problems over the years and established a reproducing population of trout that is a real jewel here in Missouri.

Neither Kevin or myself had been to Crane since early last spring so this trip was to be a kind of scouting trip as much as anything. We wanted to see how the little stream had fared over the fairly dry summer and fall we have been experiencing and how the fish were doing as well. Our first stop was the upper access bordering private water , Upper Wire Road Access.

At times this section has been known to dry up so it was good to see plenty of water flowing under the low water bridge. After rigging up in the parking lot we headed off downstream, stalking the streambanks keeping our eyes peeled for our quarry.
The water looked good but to our disappointment we only saw a couple of fish in this upper section and weren't able to hook up with either of them. We decided to check out the section of water in town and see if there were any more fish in that section.

While it's not the most scenic section of this little creek the town section has some nice water that always has fish. As expected we saw more fish in this area and were each able to pick up a few young of the year fish on small nymphs.

A few larger fish were seen but were simply too spooky to get a good drift over. Sometime around noon I checked the water level at Taney and heard what we were hoping for , zero units online. Although we both had the desire to check out another section or two of Crane we decided to pack it up and head for Taneycomo to finish off the day.
We arrived below the dam around 1:00 to a tailwater still falling out , at a level of 704.2.

After gearing up in the parking lot we headed down to the water. After doing some scouting in several areas it was becoming evident to me that the brown numbers below the dam had decreased since my last visit two weeks prior. There were still some really nice fish around but not in the same quantity as before. Although there were less browns to be found, a good number of really nice rainbows had shown up to take their place in all their bright spawning colors. Kevin and I both had a really good day of catching fish on Friday using several different methods.

Fish were caught using midge imitations 18 inches under an indicator , unweighted scuds sight fished in less than 6 inches of water to feeding trout and tandem nymphing through some of the deeper runs.

Lots of good healthy rainbows were caught but nothing breaking the 20" mark and not a single brown landed.

Just as the sun was going down behind the dam they blew the horn twice signaling the start of two generators again. With camp still to set up before dark we decided to call it a day and finish up with a hot meal and a few cold beers.

Saturday morning we awoke and called to check water flows only to find 4 generators online and a tailwater level of 707.8. This wasn't fishable water for us so we took our time with breakfast hoping that the prediction was correct and the water would be coming back off by 10:00 am. Not surprisinly 10:00 rolled around with no change in water flows to our dismay. Kevin had only planned on staying until early afternoon and with no change in water flow yet he decided to throw in the towel and head back for Aurora. I decided to stay until noon hoping that the water would be shut down as predicted. Just about the time I was ready to give up hope, the water began to fall. All units had been shut down and now it was just a matter of an hour or so until the water fell out to normal levels.

With half the day gone already I decided to stay another night and fish hard the rest of the afternoon, not knowing when I'd get another opportunity.
I spent more time sight fishing to some of the larger rainbows I could find and landed several really nice rainbows over 20 inches over the course of the afternoon.

The largest fish was a 23 inch rainbow that took a # 18 olive bit-scud.

Towards dusk when the light wasn't good enough to sight fish I switched tactics and started fishing less than six inches of water to fish that were feeding on scuds with their backs practically out of the water. I finished up the day catching more fish than I could count using this method in one little backwater area.

Even with the shortened day of fishing I had once again had another great day on this tailwater. While not catching any of the browns I had come to chase , these fall rainbows were more than making up for it. I headed back to camp to have a hot meal and warm up around a big campfire for the evening.

I wrapped the night up celebrating another good day with a few cold beers and a good cigar.
Sunday dawned cold and clear as I awoke just as the sun was beginning to rise over the surrounding hillside. I began taking down camp after making a quick cup of coffee over the cookstove. My plan was to hit the water for a few hours before having to hit the road back to KC for some evening plans. I fished several areas from the day before and landed one rainbow over 20 inches as well as good numbers of average sized fish.

The fishing got better as the sun rose higher in the sky and was getting really good just about the time I had to call it a day of course. Those fish will just have to wait for another day I suppose.

Another fantastic weekend on one of my favorite rivers in the Ozarks. As I walked back towards the truck I began thinking about maybe making my next trip to one of those other rivers that had been keeping me up at night, maybe a little streamer fishing on the Current for a change of pace. Decisions...decisions...