We had been talking about doing another group smallmouth trip for a couple of years since the Kings River overnight trip but, with the on-going drought, we just haven't been able to pull it off. Luckily, we have had a very wet spring this year and were blessed with awesome flows on all of our smallmouth streams. It took some time to get the trip together with conflicting scheduling and we almost waited too long to be able to float but we finally made it happen. The plan was simple. We would ascend upon our favorite local smallmouth stream with 3 drift boats and 8 anglers. We would base-camp out of Bill's old family cabin just up the road from the 2 major access points on the river. We would float, fish, drink, and eat like kings on this trip. Alright....let's roll....
On friday night, everyone met up at Bill's cabin where we spent the evening getting rods rigged up, drinkin' some adult beverages, telling stories, and listening to Cole play some good ol' red dirt country on the acoustic guitar. The stories are always the best, no matter how many times you have heard them. We got to hear a new story this trip, the story of "The Outlaw Cody Young", who had finally decided to join us on a trip over to the Ozarks after a long hiatus. I can't go into details on the Outlaw's story, but just know, CTD is rollin' with a real outlaw these days. BTW, the ol' family cabin of Bill's....totally bad ass. It really made the trip...
On saturday morning, we all crawled out of our sleeping bags and began our morning rituals to get ready for the day's float trip. Bill had the coffee percolating which seem to help motivate the one's who mighta had one too many adult beverages the night before. Float parties were decided, gear was loaded, and last minute trips to the john were taken. This morning, I would have Cole and Bill joining me while Crik, Cody, and Squatch would take Bill's Clacka (The Tugboat), and then Donny would pile in with The Professor in his Hyde. Corey and Donny would go with us to float the upper section of the river while Crik and the boys would float the lower section. Finally, we were ready to hit the water!
The guys started out the morning throwing some topwater bugs up on the banks to see if any smallies would give chase. A dink here and there turned up, but no big fish wanted to play. With the river almost at the point of no return for floating in a drifter, we didn't have much water to work with so we were spooking lots of fish in the skinny water. Not much you can do there but it is frustrating to see a 20" smallie laid up next to a tree and then he spooks out on your backcast as you try to make a presentation. The bite was tough for a while so we switched it up, broke out the sink tips, and dug into the meat boxes for some streamer action. It took a few fly changes but we finally got them dialed in as the fish seemed to want smaller baitfish patterns. The bite was pretty solid after that. Still no big fish but we did put a few decent river smallies in the boat. Cole was really putting the spank on them with his lil' EP minnow-ish fly...3 fish on 3 casts out of the same lay down is pretty good livin' for smallmouth.
Things were starting to look up for us as we had the fish dialed in on a pattern but then a particular "hatch" started to come off on the river. Its legendary on some of these Ozark rivers. I'm not talking about any kind of a bug here either. It has various names. Some call it the "aluminum hatch". Some call it the "raft hatch" or the "bikini hatch". Whatever you wanna call it, it finally caught up to us about midway on our float right at lunch time. As we passed one of the major access points for all the float outfitters on the river, all we could see was a bank lined with people ready to pile into a canoe or raft, get drunk, get sunburned, and just party. We pulled over for lunch and just watched school bus after school bus pull up and unload more and more people. It was a circus to say the least. We knew it was coming so we just accepted it and ate our lunch in hopes the river would clear out enough for us to fish. Boy, were we dreaming...
We finished up with lunch and then just BSed for a while longer just hoping it would buy some time for the floaters to get on downstream. Again, boy were we wrong. We pointed the boats downstream and got back to word, chuckin' our flies in all the fishy spots. Our thoughts of fishing were short lived as another "hatch" of floaters started to swarm us. Not much you can do as a fly angler as you don't wanna hook somebody on your backcast.. We fought it for a little while and then just threw in the towel. We pushed on downstream, weaving our way through all the "party barges", and just trying to avoid pissing off someone off by making them get out of the way. It was pretty comical most of the time and basically everybody let us by without any problems. One guy did smoke his head on the side of my boat because he wouldn't move. It probably hurt. All the normal stupid questions were asked by all the floaters. Another "attractive female floater" complimented me on "how big of an oar I had". I can't make this crap up. It was really silly...
We finally made it to the take out and got the boats loaded up. We got word from the other boat that they had just finished their float and were waiting on their shuttle. We decided to head down there and meet up with them before heading back to the cabin. The word from Crik and the boys on the fishing was similiar to ours, small baitfish flies were the ticket for good numbers of fish but not much on size. Spooked lots of big fish. Saw some drunks, even some boobies. All in all, had a good time. We made a quick trip to town to get a few last minute items for dinner that night and to top the coolers off with ice before heading back to the cabin.
At the cabin, we all found our chairs and a shady spot on the patio to chill out for a bit before getting some grub rounded up. As we are all sitting around and letting the BS fly around, someone finally noticed a mildly large snake making its way across the patio behind us. Holy crap! Well, Cole decides to go all Crocodile Hunter on us and tries to catch it so he can pick it up. Straight comedy. Finally, the goon was able to get a hold of the snake's head and get a good handle on the sucker. It was quite the specimen...
After having our own little Wild Kingdom episode w/ Cole, thoughts started to turn to our empty bellies and dinner. After assembling the new Weber grill and some prep work to the evenings meal, we had the filets (yes you heard me right) on the grill. The smell on the patio was slightly intoxicating as the bacon wrapped little medallions were cooked to perfection. Hard to beat having 2 of your crew members work for the State as Meat Inspectors and they know where to get the best deals on our favorite food group, BEEF!
After dinner, a few of us got the hankering to go throw some late evening topwater so a few of us jumped in the trucks and headed for the upper access on the river for some wade fishing. We worked our way down throwing a variety of poppers but the ditch pickles just weren't gonna play. Coulda been the
1000000 floaters that the river seen that day, who knows but they weren't gonna eat. We kept wading downstream, hitting all the fishy spots till we got as far as we could go without walking on private property because the river was too deep. It was a nice pool with a good run dumping into it with a nice weed lined back on 1 side and a gravel flat on the other. As darkness was trying to settle in, we started noticing bass chasing baitfish up on the bank. Jackpot! We were able to stick a few decent smallies right before dusk on topwater bugs, The Outlaw Cody Young even caught one on a mouse! Not a bad way to end the day. Sadly, none of us had cameras or cell phones with us on this trip but I did get some sweet GoPro footage of a few topwater eats.
We finished out the night with a few adult beverages and some more story telling. After a long day in the hot sun, everyone was crashing out pretty early. Didn't take long for the entire CTD crew to find their bed rolls and dream of big smallies for tomorrows float trip.
The next morning, we had a slight change of plans as Bill had to get home and Squatch's back had him laid up on his air mattress with no motivation of getting up. This worked out though as the 6 of us piled into my Clacka and the Professors Hyde to float the lower section of the river. We also shortened our float up so we would get done around Noon and everyone would get home at a decent hour. We launched the boats with high hopes....
Sadly, the bite was pretty slow on the lower section. We got out and hit some of the good wading spots with only a few dinks to show for it. After I got to thinking, this was the section where most of the floaters stopped to beach their boats/rafts to party. Kind of a brainfart on our part but what are ya gonna do? I took advantage of the opportunity to get out of the boat to take some pictures and do some filming for our upcoming smallmouth video later this summer.
Overall, the fishing pretty much sucked on sunday until we got within a mile of the takeout and we finally started to get some eats on the bigger streamers. We missed a few nice fish and put a few decent fish in the boats before we hit the ramp. I got some more good GoPro footage as well so things are looking good for the smallmouth video. With the river starting to get super low and the excessive amount of floaters, we had the chips stacked against us but we made the best of it on the fishing. We had a great trip nonetheless. Spending time with good buddies on a beautiful Ozark stream isn't a bad way to spend a few days.
On a side note, this past week we have received some good rain for a few of our smallmouth streams so they are on the rise and will get a good late summer flush. This will revitalize the fisheries and get the fish back on the feed bag. I hope to get the boats back out and throw some more topwater bugs for some big smallmouth. Hopefully more on that later...
Until next time, keep chasin' the dream...
