photo by Kyle Kosovich

For a few years now I have had the opportunity to guide a seriously cool group of guys.  This is typically a 4 man trip so I called my buddy Kyle Kosovich to guide a couple of the guys, row the second drift boat, and be his usual wealth of knowledge.  Day one (April 8th, 2011)called for a float from Kelly Ford to Blair Bridge with a slight jaunt upstream to Lamb Shoal.  Fish were picked up here and there from Lamb to McKee Bridge but no real pattern was playing itself out.  Kyle changed rigs on one of his fisherman and had him tossing a small Wooly Bugger and was getting some pretty solid chases from small rainbows to get things rolling from McKee to ROLF.   After lunch we took off toward Blair and immediately my guys got several takes on the Wiggle Stone and some small Slacker Psycho Princes making things look up for the afternoon on a deep nymping rig.  Now at this point, I should say I had a first time fisherman in the boat who was doing a bang-up job learning (insanely quick learner....for a guy) and had landed his first rainbow upstream of ROLF and was to the point where he was "feeling it" and getting pretty laid back and comfortable with the fishing, boat, and everything to do with what was going on......until the indicator slid underwater on a tailout one certain time.  A little nudge to help him set the hook (read this as I was yelling "HIT HIM!!) and we see a serious fish head shaking underwater.  First time fly fisherman with a STOUT brown trout on the end of his line and a little coaching and he was in the net.  18" of awesomeness and a really pretty specimen at that.  It's funny, rainbows blush red.....big browns blush that unmistakable blue.  After some photos and a quick release we were on our way.  Fishing held pretty true with nothing crazy special happening from that point to Blair, caught fish here and there and floated the rest of the way out.  A couple months ago I got a new Sumo Rod Carrier from Feather-Craft and had the chance to REALLY put it to the test on this trip with a bunch of crazy-sweet Abel Super Series reels along with the custom Kool-Aid (OH YEAH!!) rod and a seriously nice custom Bamboo. 

Day 2 (April 9th, 2011) called for a trip from Blair to James Bridge.  Right off the bat I took Kyles rig from the previous day (even though I HATE woolies) but with a twist.  I have fished a 2 streamer set-up on higher water and had some really good success with it so I decided to have a small EP Clouser "chasing" the wooly.  First drift through and got a take on that setup so we decided to make the decision to pretty much stick with it at least for the morning for one of the guys and a lighter nymphing rig for the other fished on that sweet little 'boo rod.  Both setups were getting takes with the nymph setup probably leaning toward the better of the 2 until.....let me stop here and tell a back story.  Last year one of the guys hooked and landed a true pig of a fish only to drop it for the photo....therefore no real photo of that fish besides some screenshots from video, painful to be a part of really.  But before this years trip a short Facebook message where I told him "lets make it 2 years on a row" just-may-have-worked.....back to this years trip.  We had just dropped over a nice riffle with a seriously sweet tailout when I hear from the back of the boat "I HAVE ONE!" to which I look back and basically see huge head and tail somersaulting down this skinny, skinny riffle.  The fight was typical of a big brown trout, bulldogging, pulling, basically showing us who was the real boss until we netted the fish and freaked out!  The fish had munched the EP Clouser and Jimmy did an outstanding job fighting this fish....but I wasn't about to let him take the photo by himself after his performance with a big fish the year before.   We shot some photos, got some GREAT video, (to be seen in the Spring 2011 video coming soon) released the fish and had to take a little break until we quit shaking.  As a guide there is really nothing better than seeing one of your fisherman literally weak enough in the knees to have to take a breather to get back to normal.....and as a fisherman for that matter, I am guessing it is pretty cool seeing THIS GUIDE have to do the exact same thing, take a seat until the shakes go away.  We floated out to the islands above Patrick for lunch and to do some wade fishing after that.  I swear not 2 casts into fishing the skinny side of the uppermost island 2 guys were into fish on nymph rigs both swung and drifted one a nice rainbow and the other a nice brown.  Keith ended up simply tearing the fish up in this spot, catching fish almost at will with his smaller nymph/Bamboo setup.  It's always cool to see a guy really get into a zone, when they are there it doesn't matter who it is they make fishing look very easy...even though he was fishing a 7' bamboo with a 2 fly indicator rig.  We picked up fish here and there the rest of the day and had a blast going through the rest of the trip to James Bridge.  Kyle and I have a good time with this group of guys and it is one of those trips we always look forward to.

Nick, Adam, Keith, Jimmy, Myself, and Kyle---BOOYAH

I just wanted to introduce you to the new Fly Fishing the Ozarks.  As you can tell we have made some pretty drastic changes to the blog and now it is more like a site/blog....if that makes sense.

The first thing you'll notice is how different the blog looks.  We now have several pages listed at the top and below is kind of a map explaining those pages(not in any specific order):

Home -  This is the Blog....probably the reason you came to Fly Fishing the Ozarks in the first place--unless you came to see more of Matt Tucker.

Guide Services -  Pretty self-explanitory.  I am a guide, it has a bio and contact information--mostly River of Life stuff.

Photo Archive -  This is, well, a photo archive.  This is going to be changing as much as possible.  There is an archive of all of the crazy Fishadelic Foto Friday photos along with some guiding photos and personal fishing photos.

Fishing Videos - Just some fishing and distance casting videos including the epic 2008 Missouri Trout Odyssey videos.

The Authors - Introduces you to the guys that type on the blog.

Tying Videos - An archive of the Fly of the Month videos (or the Fly of whenever I can get them uploaded)

So there it is, browse through and check everything out...let us know what we can do better, let us know what we are AWESOME at (if you have that much time to type) and let us know what you would like to see or see more of.

Thanks!

With a LOT of the canoe traffic slowing down, the nights cooling off, and already some leaves changing color it is time to look at the outlook for fall fishing.  Besides, when you see temps in the high 40's in late August--you can't help but to look forward to fall fishing.

Usually when we think of fall fishing we think about water levels being low and crystal clear, not so much this year.  We had a great summer with water levels staying as close to the 60 year average as we have seen in a while so the low and clear water we usually have this time of year really isn't there.  With an above average prediction for rainfall in September we are looking (and hoping) for water levels to do very well.

With the water levels being higher than they typically are this time of year we are taking full advantage of it, we are still fishing bigger flies, and above that we are still getting away with heavier tippet.  You see, the peak of the colors changing is pretty close to the peak of the brown trout movement as they get started in their spawn....which makes using 4x tippet to any given nymph and 3x + on streamers incredibly helpful and landing any "pig" you happen to hook--we like that

Finding the fish is usually pretty easy in the Fall.  The deeper tailouts and deeper riffles are the go-to without a doubt.  I have said it a thousand times but it demands to be said again, if you see a drop-off fish it HARD, especially in a faster running tailout.  While nymphing, nymph DEEP (another thing I can't stress enough) lose flies!  If you are a fan of stripping streamers jump all over ANY chance you get this fall...basically any low-light situation be it early morning, late evening, cloudy, rainy--all of this equals good stuff for streamers.  Be aggressive with it, if I am personally stripping streamers for fishing I am not going to mess around--give me big and nasty and I'll strip it back like my life depends on it, unless the fish tell me otherwise.

The most beautiful time of year equals awesome fishing....even if the fishing is tough.

Brian Wise
Head Guide
River of Life Farm
www.riveroflifefarm.com

Kachow!

As always if you have a photo you want funkified and forever plastered on Fly Fishing the Ozarks send it to bnwise@gmail.com

Click here to view the embedded video.