Current River Missouri
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Matt,
I am planning on wade fishing , I have access to a canoe but I hate fishing out of it. Considering I have never been there where would you send me? I am interested in doing some trophy fishing as I hear there are some large trout in the current, possibly at night. But, I am open to whatever, I will be there monday evening and will leave wedensday evening.
ThanksYou definitely don’t need a canoe for fishing the upper current (anything upstream of Parker Access).
There are big fish in the Current River for sure. With regards to access, there is really four main access points below Montauk State Park.
1. “The Wire”
“The Wire” is the end of Montauk State Park (trout park) and the beginning of the trout management area. You can access this by taking the gravel road out of the park and there will be cabins on your right (near the river). there will be pull-offs near the cabins that you can park and hop the fence and walk to the river. You can also access this area from the Montauk State Park camp grounds (there are trails that will take you there).2. TanVat Access
TanVat Access is a major trout fishing access. You can park here and easily wade upstream and fish all the way to “The Wire” and back down to the access in a day. You can also hike the field up to “The Wire” and fish all the way down to Baptist Camp access for a full day of fishing. You might not feel like walking the trails / stream back to TanVat after the end of the day. TanVat Access during the summeris home to “squatters” that will camp at the access for extended periods of time. Also the big pool directly at the access can become quite crowded and is a popular swimming hole during the summer.3. Baptist Camp Access
Baptist Camp is the other major access on the upper Current River. To get to Baptist Camp access you continue on the dirt road out of Montauk State Park and it will dump out onto a blacktop road. Make a right off of the blacktop road (your first right) at the MDC sign for Baptist Camp and it will take you down to the access. It does get very crowded. You can park at Baptist Camp and easily wade / fish all the way to TanVat and Back in a long morning. This is a very popular access and can get crowded — but there is ample parking. You can also hike downstream as far as you feel like and fish the way back up or vice versa.4. Parker Access
Parker Access is a little less crowded and harder to find but it is off of the blacktop road as well — I believe it is your 3rd or 4th right (gravel road) and will wind down a bit but will eventually get you to the river. This will generally be the least crowded access. The water gets slower and deeper near this access. I would recommend going upstream from Parker if you do fish this access.I have not night fished on the Current yet, so I don’t have any experience on that. I do know that I have watched 27″ browns feed in the river from Baptist upstream and there are some big fish there. If I were going to the Current during the summer (which I tend to avoid because I generally only get out on weekends and it is a zoo) I would park at TanVat hike the field up to the waste water facility and fish downstream to TanVat and have lunch, then fish from TanVat downstream to Baptist and walk back up to your car. I would then get in the car and head to Baptist Camp and hike downstream until you get to a bluff on river left and fish the water of the bluff during the evening.
With regards to fly choices, I am a believer of the big fly = big fish camp and also like to throw things that doesn’t get seen much. I have had great luck with #4 rag Sculpins (golden/tan, black, white) and #8 slumpbusters when streamer fishing. I have also done well with Partridge and Yellow softhackles and definitely don’t leave home without some Trico’s (#22 and #24), cracklebacks (#14 – #16) or elk hair caddis (#12 – #18). The usual speghetti and meatballs (micro eggs and san juan worms) always seem to work as well.
Hope that helps and please let me know how you do (and shoot some photos if you do hook up with a nice fish). Another thing to look for if you are chasing “trophy sized” fish is to check out the lakes at Montauk as well as the C&R area. During the week the crowd should be minimal and there are some bruisers in the C&R water. I know it doesn’t have the same appeal as a non trout park fish — but there are some bruisers in there.
–Matt Tucker
The trip to the current was very successful and a great learning experience. We did not land any big ones all though I hooked a brown that was somewhere around 24in.
Thanks for all the advice, I will post pictures later on.
Day one I fished from Baptist to Tan Vat in the morning, and from baptist down about two miles in the afternoon. Day two I fished from Tan Vat to the park boundry. Most of my fish were cought on big nymphs, princes, 20 inchers, and tung teasers produced very well. I also cought a few on a small burgundy copper john. I found a lot of small mayfly nymphs under the rocks, I first thought they were tricos but they were too big. Maybe pmd’s?
Both mornings there were huge trico hatches and no fish rising, however when the hatche was over they were gorging themselves on the spinners and I pulled a lot of fish on a size 22 para trico that I had smashed with my pliers, since I had no spinner patterns that small.
I pulled a few fish off a #12 humpy, I think they were mistaking it for a hopper. Then I threw a hopper and got nothing. Who knows.
Most of my fish were browns, out of fast deep runs, my fishing buddy caught mostly rainbows out of the slower water.
I saw a lot of big fish but was not able to get any of them to move at a fly. I tried everything from streamers to nymphs, crayfish, cranefly larva. Nothing would move these fish. No worries though, that is just more motivation to go back.
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