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.