Hello guys, my name is Matt. I stumbled on to this forum looking for little red river specific info and find yall's reports very fascinating.
I am traditionally a bass fisherman, recently started fly fishing last year. Lately I have been pursuing trout at little red using a fiberglass cabelas cgr 7'6" 5/6wt that I bought for throwing streamers for bass on smaller ozark streams. I've caught some beautiful trout with that rod, but after my last fishing trip the only thing I could get bit on was a tiny sow bug drifted motionless under an indicator and now I am starting to feel the limitations of my current rod. I know I need something longer, and maybe lighter like a 3-4wt or something and graphite to throw those tiny bugs more efficiently. I was hoping you guys could lend me your expertise in helping me determine the preferable rod specs for these low flow tiny bug conditions. Im also curious about any rod brands/models that you could propose I look into. I cant spend tooo much, maybe $150-$200 maximum or if you know a great bang for your buck rod, I would appreciate any suggestions you can give.
As for my last fishing trip...Last Saturday, I put my canoe in at JFK and floated to Cow Shoals and brought 4 fish to hand, all really nice rainbows with 2 around 18". Im thinking that float is about 4 miles, I started out with my spinning rod bouncing a white marabou jig off the bottom, bites were hard to come by. I had one nice rainbow on that spit the hook. It wasn't until I was halfway down my float that I tied a really small gray sow bug onto my fly rod and finally landed my first fish. I continued fishing with that gray sow bug and also with an olive sow bug above it, all 4 of my fish took the gray bug. I was very happy to catch those beautifully colored up bows and released them all. I had a great day slowly floating down a beautiful ozark stream. Anyways, thanks for any input or suggestions yall might can give me regarding a better fly rod setup.
Matt
I am traditionally a bass fisherman, recently started fly fishing last year. Lately I have been pursuing trout at little red using a fiberglass cabelas cgr 7'6" 5/6wt that I bought for throwing streamers for bass on smaller ozark streams. I've caught some beautiful trout with that rod, but after my last fishing trip the only thing I could get bit on was a tiny sow bug drifted motionless under an indicator and now I am starting to feel the limitations of my current rod. I know I need something longer, and maybe lighter like a 3-4wt or something and graphite to throw those tiny bugs more efficiently. I was hoping you guys could lend me your expertise in helping me determine the preferable rod specs for these low flow tiny bug conditions. Im also curious about any rod brands/models that you could propose I look into. I cant spend tooo much, maybe $150-$200 maximum or if you know a great bang for your buck rod, I would appreciate any suggestions you can give.
As for my last fishing trip...Last Saturday, I put my canoe in at JFK and floated to Cow Shoals and brought 4 fish to hand, all really nice rainbows with 2 around 18". Im thinking that float is about 4 miles, I started out with my spinning rod bouncing a white marabou jig off the bottom, bites were hard to come by. I had one nice rainbow on that spit the hook. It wasn't until I was halfway down my float that I tied a really small gray sow bug onto my fly rod and finally landed my first fish. I continued fishing with that gray sow bug and also with an olive sow bug above it, all 4 of my fish took the gray bug. I was very happy to catch those beautifully colored up bows and released them all. I had a great day slowly floating down a beautiful ozark stream. Anyways, thanks for any input or suggestions yall might can give me regarding a better fly rod setup.
Matt
