Kayak fishing the beautiful Flat Creek in Barry County, Missouri....outstanding ozark stream!

Flat Creek in Barry County, Missouri is a place I have wanted to kayak for sometime now, so I was grateful to get a chance to explore it over the weekend.  I had a feeling that the water was fairly skinny, so I knew I would most likely have to portage and fish upstream, then kayak back, which is exactly what I did.

This would be an excellent float with several parties to make it a one way float....real challenging going up stream, then back down, but we were able to make it happen.  The water is nice and cool (due to several springs along the way) and is a prime environment for smallmouth bass.
Fishing wise, the Chomper hula grub on the stand up jig was what they were really hitting on (orange colored).  A lot of times when I am smallmouth fishing, I like to throw a texas-rigged zoom trick worm, but they were not liking these on Flat Creek...they like the hula grubs!

I would say we caught approx. 10-12 fish (all caught and released), most being of a smaller size.  There were a couple that were not bad sized (as you can see in the video).
The Missouri Ozarks have some of the most incredibly beautiful waters in the U.S.....worth it to get out and explore!

Click HERE for a map of the trip

Paddle ON!

Mike

Kayak fishing Table Rock Lake in the summer: topwater plugs work VERY WELL!

In this short video, we are fishing Rebel topwater plugs early in the morning.  In the summer time, especially on Table Rock Lake in southern Missouri, early morning and evenings on topwaters with structure fish very well.  With the heat and sun, and with the water temperature higher this time of year, a lot of the big fish stay deep, and then come up on structure to forage before and after the heat of the day.

"Life is better on a kayak"

Mike

Kayaking the Lamine River, near Blackwater, MO: Deep steep shores and tons of rough fish!

The Lamine River just west of Columbia, MO is a river that one crosses on the way from St. Louis to Kansas City.  I have been eyeballing this river for years and years, and I finally had an opportunity to spend a couple of hours on it last week.

The water quality, in my opinion, is fairly poor.  It is very common of rivers in the northern part of Missouri- true mud bottoms, slow flow, and due to the proximity to flowing into the Missouri River, chock full of rough fish.  I do not think I have ever seen that many gar in one body of water- they literally were swimming around like sharks!  There were parts of the river that had a green algae like film, which are typical of bodies of water that have an issue with farm run off chemicals, etc.
I ended up kayaking about 4 miles total.  Heading up stream to one of the bridges (fishing for bass the whole way) and then turning around and coming back.  I also went down river just a bit to see the confluence point of the Blackwater River.   One of the more interesting highlights was about a 5 pound Asian carp literally jumped from one side of my kayak to the other side of the kayak.

This is a river I will probably not come back to fish (although it probably has some very large catfish in it), however it would be a great river to get the touring kayak out and go for some miles in the winter- very few people appear to use this river- probably due to the way the river lays out and possibly the water quality.

"Life is better on a kayak"

Mike

 

 click HERE for a water trail map of this adventure

 

Best of July kayak bass fishing...Stockton, Beaver, Dardenelle, and Lake Sherwood

We have not had a lot of posts in regards to kayak touring over July...It has been so hot, the only way for me to do it is to use my Moken 13 SOT fishing kayak and get out and fish....and beach it on occasion and swim.
July was a great month in bass fishing....enjoy the video.  We have some trips planned with the sea kayak once it starts to cool down a little on us

You can see some cool fishing stories at www.fishmissouri.org

Paddle ON!

Mike

Table Rock Lake, Aunts Creek, Stone County, MO.- Peaceful last days of summer