Friday was our last day. Strong southerlies were expected and delivered by 11 am. Cloudy in the am but roasting in the pm. River flow had dropped to ~2.7k for another day
Fishing was slow despite fewer boats. A catalogue of errors and bad luck/fweeds didn’t help, or canoeists and bank anglers being in the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ places depending on your perspective.
In the am about a mile above Craig, folks were letting loose with shotguns at a pheasant farm where reared birds are released in to a large field to be subsequently shot or in this case likely missed.
My KS buddy noted shooting any flying bird in high winds is really hard to do as they whizz downwind, he’s done a lot of it and said you really need to be an excellent shot; our guide noted the shooters that go there were always newbs and to the danger of them blind firing towards the river as there’s a 10-12’ drop from the bank of the field and so they can’t see the river that they are blasting towards….you know where this is going.
There were was few shots in succession and then we heard the plopping towards us in the water and immediately turned our backs and dropped our heads from that bank, shot landed all around us and on the boat. Our guide got hit on the knee and was very, very angry. He and my boat partner screamed at the bank from where the shots came from to GTF.
It worked and the shots stopped, no one came to look. We got to Craig and our guide found 2 pellets in the boat. It’s was reported to the game dept as a pellet in the eye and you’ll be blinded, also two sports near us were in WMs, both elderly and neither with PFDs that I could see
dunno if a pellet(s) could piece them but if it did there could be trouble as both were mid river in faster flows.
South of Craig was slow for us, and the wind was a pain, we hooked or really found ways to lose fish. Last drift my bud picked up two nice ones, I missed a good one and then got the mother of all wind tangles from my strike, then at the Dearborn take out. It was that kinda of day. The other buddies boat had over 20…
Off home at 730 this am, wet. A great trip, very challenging at times but really climate change has messed up the Missouri experience re low water in the river, it’s warmer and of course if the freestones are on hoot owls then more pressure on the Mo.
There are still lots of fish there, just high temp/bright sun/low flows /high angler pressure. We saw the wake of one fish on the flats that was like Jaws, a 3-4” high bow wake and the two boils from its tails that were beyond a dustbin lid size. All in <10” of water, it is amazing to see one fish simply well beyond the many of good sized fish we scared and clearly saw on the flats, there are monsters
A great trip nonetheless, despite varied results. The main part is I’m so lucky to have friends who tolerate hard fishing conditions, me, the others, and are very good fishers and a lot of fun. Also they make great food, drinks, can bs, have many funny fishing camp/life chat/tales and can tell/take jokes. Ego’s were never an issue
My thanks too for Lance who drove his truck both ways. 1200 miles all round.
Dave
