It's been a dink fest the past 3 days. I have not seen a single fish caught over 14" You can catch fish in the normal holes but they have been raped bad.

I'm up here all week and will post if the Meat Truck shows up.

If you want me to text you Pm me your Cell #'s

Denny

Did I miss something or is this thread still about the Lower Mountain Fork fishing? Agreed that the facilities are terrible, but does that affect the fishing? BBT - only if you have the wife along, right

Once they get the stocking contract worked out, it will return to great. We have 2.5 months till spring break and the return of the masses. I can't wait to get back up there - Magick has drug my rod into the house 3 times recently - I guess he wants to go too.

Carey - he did a boo-boo. He'll be back after winter Striper season.

Have fun!

Denny

I decided to pass and hang out with my parents today. I thank you for the offer. Hope y'all do well today.

I'm 5 minutes from the river and I haven't been today. It looks great out the window, but the waders are still frozen to the deck.

DC

Ok Guys I know this is the Fly Fishing Section but I am trying to find any info about Non-Fly fishing for the river. I checked the regs but was wondering if it is worth driving up there for 3 hours if I do not Fly Fish or don't have waders? Sorry if I have offended any of the Fly Fishing Purests.

Plenty of bank fishing, spin fishing opportunities. It's about 50/50 fly-fishers/spin-fishers. It's really nice to have SOME kind of waders, but not essential. If I were fishing little cranks or spinners I think I'd try fishing down below the Evening Hole in some of the deeper pools. I imagine there might be a nice brown or so lurking around there. Last season I was fishing "The Bluffs" in the middle of the Red Zone. The guy next to me was using an ultra light spinning rod and pulled out about a 24" rainbow. He gently rescusitated and released it. That was last winter. The big ones are much scarcer now. Probably mostly been caught and kept or otherwise killed. Still reports of a big one caught here and there.

I used spinning gear for many years Trout fishing and my son stills prefers it. What we do is take a spinning rod with 6lb mono on it. Then we put on a indicator, 1/32 bullet weight, swivel and the you can tie a couple of feet of regular fly fishing tippet or 4 lb fluoro to the swivel and then you can use a regular nymph fly or whatever you want. My son was killing them in spillway creek with a 1/150 jig hook with red trout power worm on it[just use half the worm on those small jig heads]. He also caught several on a olive neer deer with a flashback hares ear [same setup as I was using on my fly rod]

I traveled for years by myself fishing tournaments all over. I'm a family man now, I always enjoy taking the family there and friends for fun trips to the mountains for many years now. Someone mentioned the stocking contract blunders and said now it's fixed maybe they can fix up the park. I mentioned it needed to be fixed to American standards and not 3rd world country standards. LOL! IMO.

People who take their families need to be aware the restrooms are few and far between and most likely covered in filth.

Maybe someone who patrols these forums of the higher up will see and go look at the restroom themselves and get the changes done.....

I'm sorry but that's a load of [censored]! Go over to the motor coach campsites in the other end of the park! The state spent over $250 thousand dollars building new shower house and restroom because the rich people were complaining too much! That was 7 years ago! The state spent another 100k on new signage in the park and then another 150k on the handicap walkways and fishing platforms because someone filed a lawsuit! They budgeted for new asphalt pads, cable TV hookups and a new shower house in the fern loop 6 years ago and then re-allocated the money!

Well, that's bad! I was just guessing and giving the state the benefit. Sounds like some better prioritizing is in order, for sure.

Going fishing Saturday - have a new reel to try out. We will be there 8am till 4pm.

Well,how was the fishing and new toy?

We caught a few, I caught pneumonia. Actually, just a bad chest/sinus cold. Spillway is barren. Still some decent fish in red zones. You have to work for them.

New toy - didn't get to try it much. Lots of ice on the guides and did not want to mess it up. Barely broke freezing all day.

Not going back until the stocking issues are worked out. AND it gets above 40 degrees

This is probably a dumb thing for me to tell everyone, because I'm kind of giving away my own (so to speak)little private trout fishing area, but there are plenty of trout in the Little Missouri River in Pike County, AR, and not excessive pressure on them. It might be a little far for some of you Dallas area fishermen, as it's about as far North as the LMF, but about 40 miles to the East.

There's 2 separate areas that have trout. There's the tail-race of the Lake Greeson dam. To get there, you go up to Murfreesboro, AR, and hang a left. There's about 5 good zones to fish there. Then there's the Albert Pike campground area. It's above Lake Greeson into the Oachita Mountains a little ways. I've only fished the main area by the campground, but I understand there's good fishing both upstream and down some.

The trout in both these areas are basically recent stockers. There's some hold-overs, but no native spawn as far as I know. It seems there's too little flow in the Lil' Mo' to support a year round trout population except right by the dam. The current stockers are pretty small, similar to the recent ones at LMF, but they're plenty of them, and willing if you present your bait in a way that's acceptable.

If you want more relevant info, I'll tell you all I can, but go to this web-site:
http://www.littlemissouriflyfishing.com/
It has links to generation and stuff like that. You DO have to pay attention to generation at the "Narrows", that is, the Lake Greeson tail-race.
If you need a guide, PM me and I'll tell you what I know.

Cheers,
Jon Strait
(jonbo)

Jon, that is a great idea. It's only 30 mins more for me. Our club went last month and had a blast.

How are the campgrounds?