Thursday I get a call from my friend Mark. He’s planning a last minute wading trip to a couple of beautiful Smallmouth streams the next morning “can you make it?” he asks. With a little help from the boss I shift my schedule around and I’m in.

When we arrived at the stream I grabbed my rod, rigged with a watermelon baby brush hog, and was fishing in under a minute.

Mark grabbed his throw net and started catching bait. It only took him about 3 casts to get all he’d need. He prefers large minnows and suckers, up to 5 inches, but by the time he’s ready to fish, I’ve already caught 3 Smallmouth.

No worries, Mark works fast and plans to catch up.

We leapfrog each other on our way upstream, taking turns getting first shot at the next promising hole. The fish are cooperating, and don’t really show a preference for live bait over artificial. Mark starts a conversation with the fish “come on over here, I’ve got the real thing.”

We get into a school of Goggle Eye and immediately regret not bringing a skillet. Pan fried fillets sound much better than peanut butter and jelly. Mark’s big minnows are too much for the Eyes to swallow whole and he misses a couple before deciding to cut bait. This move pays off, and soon he’s catching one Eye after another.

By the end of the day we had lost count of the number of fish caught, or who caught more. 50 Smallies would be a conservative guess, most around a foot long. If live bait had one advantage it was as a follow up. Several times Mark followed me into a hole I thought I had fished dry, only to pull out one or two more.

We fish together a lot. Sometimes he uses artificials, sometimes I fish live bait. I certainly don’t look at live bait as cheating or somehow easier. In fact, most of the time it’s a pain in neck. But if that's what the fish want, you can bet that's what they'll get.

Here are few shots from the day. Hope you’re having some luck as well.

My best, 18”, around 3lbs

Mark’s best, didn’t get a weight or length

Nice Goggle Eye tries to swallow a 4” Senko

Mark with bait in tow holds a pretty typical Southern Missouri Smallmouth

The scenery wasn’t too shabby either…didn’t see another fisherman all day.

Thanks for looking, DMB

Great post!

Nice fish and beautiful country.

Sounds like a really sweet trip. Great pictures as well.

Looks like a great place to fish , thanks for sharing !!!!!!!

Some great photos. Nice work!

I love wade fishing for that very reason..NO OTHER FISHERMAN!! Looks like you got perfect water conditions also. Gotta love that gin clear water!!

Great river!! I wish there was one like this near my home...

Nice report and really nice pix...looks like a fun little river to fish. The water has been way too high all year on the upper Mississippi to even think about wading, but it's finally coming down now...might get some wading in yet this year.

Great river!! I wish there was one like this near my home...

Me too! We had to drive nearly 3 hours to get to this one...but it was well worth it.

What's the name of that river? I might have to make a trip up there one of these days.

What's the name of that river? I might have to make a trip up there one of these days.

I caught my best on the Jacks Fork River. Mark's Best is from the Eleven Points River. Also some great fishing on the Current River as well. All in the same general area.

looks like a great day!

Thanks for sharing.