Steve and Ed Adair
I took out Ed and Steve Adair on an overnight trip. The weather cooperated and was fabulous. The river was in great shape for floating and fishing. Ed is an accomplished fly fisher but Steve, his son, was a beginner. The first day we floated from Riverside Resort at the Hwy. 62 Bridge to just below the Grandview Bridge. My usual camping gravel bar was already taken. Well what do you expect on a Memorial Day weekend. The fishing was hot and heavy from the beginning with a bunch of smallmouth taken on spinning rods. We ended up with about 75 fish boated the first day.
Ozark "Rock" Bass
The only downside was my Sage spinning rod was broken while setting the hook. After that one of the guys had to fish with a fly rod. The FFing was slow until we figured out what the fish wanted. They ended up wanting a hellgramite pattern, size #4. Many varied fish were caught on it. Now I have to tie up a bunch more. Steve caught 5 species of fish the first day and his Dad, Ed caught 3 species. A total of 6 species were caught the first day. At the end of the day we pitched camp and relaxed a little aand had some casting lessons. I cooked dinner for the guys. We had salmon fillets, teriaki rice, baked beans and garlic toast and finished off with homemade brownies. The night was just right and we slept pretty well. Breakfast the next morning was breakfast burritos with salsa. We got on the river about 8am and the fishing was not as fast and furious as the day before, we only caught 40-50 fish. Most of the fish, well over 50%, we caught were smallmouth bass today. A larger spotted bass was caught at about 2.5 pounds and our largest smallmouth at about the same.
Ed and his Spot
No new species were caught today. The best flies used were a #4 black woolly and a #4 olive woolly with olive rubber legs. By far the best lures were 4″ green Zoom lizards and green tubes. Call me and set up a trip and I’ll give you the specific color of green. Steve caught his first smallmouth on a fly rod and it was a pretty good one.
Steve and his first fly rod smallie
Over all I think the guys were satisfied. we ended up with about 125 or so fish boated. Several species caught and I think a new fly fisher will be hitting the water more often. One other good/bad thing was the rain held off until we were done with the float but dumped on us as we were loading the boat up at the end of the trip. Oh well, ce la vie!
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