A Great Fishing Trip: Trout Fishing in Missouri

Reader Contribution by Caleb Regan and Managing Editor
Published on March 23, 2011
1 / 5
2 / 5
3 / 5
4 / 5
5 / 5

The second weekend of March, the weather broke just enough for me and a couple of family members to get out on a spring-fed creek (called Spring Creek, actually) and catch several pounds of trout while fly-fishing in southern Missouri, near Rockbridge.

I was skeptical at the outset, to say the least. My wife has been going down to this particular place for years, and she assured me I’d love it.

My skepticism was rooted more in hatchery fishing in general than any lack of trust I have in her outdoor pursuits. I’ve watched Gwen put myself and another guy (I’ll let him remain nameless) to shame dropping dove out of the southeast Kansas morning sky.

But with hatchery fishing, I’ve travelled several times down to Cassville, Missouri, and fished the Roaring River. I’ve also travelled further east and south, down near Alton, Missouri, to fish the Eleven Points River, which boasts the largest number of native trout in Missouri.

But I can’t think of a more discouraging feeling in all of my fly fishing and trout fishing experience – not getting skunked on the Arkansas River in Colorado, the Deschutes in Oregon, or the Yellow Breeches Creek in Pennsylvania; not watching a fisherman just down stream hauling them in; not even breaking the tip off my fly rod – than the times at Cassville on the Roaring River when I’ve hooked up with a fish, and as I’m playing it out, there’s four or five other guys shuffling in and casting into the hole I’m pulling the fish out of.

Online Store Logo
Need Help? Call 1-866-803-7096