Little Missouri Fly Fishing

I met the stocking truck from the Jim Collin's net pins at River Side today at 12:00 noon. Today Robbie, the Jim Collin's delivery man, stocked fish at Riverside and River Ridge. He advised that yesterday he stocked Hinds Bluff and Old Factory Site. There were some really nice 12 plus fish in the group, that's a great size for net pen fish!!  🐟. Being put in on high water should scatter them all over the river 🤗🤗🤗. Robbie advised that he will stock one more time the end of March and that will be all of the net pin fish from lake Ouachita. The fish should hunker down and grow and get strong while they bring the lake down. Needless to say they are still running the bunger valve. 😞😞.

At 8:00 am today they opened the bunger valve!!  It's been a really good 28 day run of fishing👏👏. Who knows how long they will run or how far they want to pull the lake down from its current 544 mark. I'll try and post as soon as they stop 🛑!! 

At 5:00 am on Saturday 16 March 2024 there is no "bungeration" happening on the Lil' Mo'. That makes 25 days of good fishing and you have sure taken advantage of it!!  Yesterday around one o'clock there were 9 fly fisher people standing in the water and 3 bait fishers on the rocks at Hinds Bluff!!  Great to see the river being utilized. Spring break has sprung!!

The lake has come up to 544 and Langley is still running at 5 foot so more water to come down. They could start bungerating at any time so watch yourselves and don't get trapped on the wrong side of the river!😬😬. Also remember they don't always blow a siren when they start the bunger valves.

I saw no sign of more "Net Pen", or any other fish being stocked this past week, but they could have slipped a load in on us somewhere??  Nevertheless, there are still a ton of fish hung up at all the stocking sites. 

‼️ @ 5:00 am Tuesday morning still no water running. Lake is at 545, three feet down from standard pool, could start the bunger any day, fish while you can!! 🤔🤔.

The water temperature is still running around 58 degrees up and down the river. Water clarity is a little cloudy down river due to the run off from the inch of rain this past week, but the fish don't seem to mind. The March brown hatch is in full swing!!  Brown fly, brown fly, brown fly to entice the larger trout. Attractor flies drive the net pen fish to a frenzy. 🙂🙂.

My brother in law David and I arrived at Hinds Bluff at about 1015. There were two spin fishermen in the main area. I went to Butt Buster and David went down to the lower end and I think we both caught a fish on our first cast. From then it was on as I am sure it was at least a 50 fish day apiece. Sad to say the fish are stuck at HB with no generation to spread them out.

We visited with Mike Ingram and some men with him. Thanks again Mike for the River Peports. Please keep them coming.

We caught fish on the Temple Duck Dry/Emerger, Charteuse, Brown and Orange JD Specials. There are plenty of small stockers as well as some really nice larger fish. I actually caught a small brown at Butt Buster. As we were coming out of the river I saw a fly fisherman do something rude and embarrasing to me as a fly fisherman. There were about 4 spin fishermen along the bank just below the stairs. This guy waded in front of them, not behind them, started fishing right where two of theses young men were fishing. There was plenty of river below the spin fishermen for this guy to wade and fish.

Anyway we had a great day, caught many many fish, didn't fall in, and got home safely, John Davis

Thanks for the update.  I went out there today and hooked into quite a few.  Looking forward to going there this week with my son again.

Trying to keep you informed since you can't believe the posted generation schedule. As of 5:30 am there is no water running on the Lil' Mo'. We had 1 3/4 inches of rain in the past few days making the river a little muddy down stream. The lake has come up to 541'so who knows when they might start "bungerating" again?? 

As I previously noted there are a lot of fish everywhere, some very nice ones and a slew of small catch pen fish with approximately 21 thousand more to come as they continue to empty the catch pens on lake Ouachita.

The March Brown hatch is in full swing.  I'll only say one thing: brown fly, brown fly, brown fly!!🥴🥴.

‼️ Just for you weekenders, they are not running any water as of 6:00am Saturday morning the 9th of March.

‼️ Ditto for Sunday morning!!

‼️ At 5:30 Thursday the 14th of March there is no water running on the lower Lil' Mo'. This makes 24 days of no flow on the river so I checked the water temperature. It was 57 degrees at the park and 59 degrees at Hinds Bluff. That's great considering no releases from the dam. The fish are still trapped in the stocking locations, have been "trounced", and are still biting!!! I do think every fish has been caught at least once so they all have the sore mouth. I'll try and report as soon as I see water running past my back door!!  I would ask that y'all practice my plea of "take out one more piece of trash than you bring in". The river has been really crowded and the bait fishermen are out in droves, thus there is trash everywhere!  Worm boxes, powerball bottles, hook packages, coke cans, Twinkie wrappers and 14 miles of broken off monofilament line!!  Help keep our river pure when you can. Thank you 🙏

Thanks, Mike, for the info.  I want to thank Ryan Gary and Christie Graham for all you are doing for The Little MO;  we certainly appreciate it!

I was just advised by a friend that yesterday while I napped, around 2:30 they stocked at Riverside!!  I went and checked the stocking tubes and I don't think they stocked at River Ridge or Hinds Bluff. Therefore I think, as Jeff mentioned earlier, that they dumped another load of "catch pen" fish at the park, and maybe Old Factory. I fished the park yesterday morning and caught one right after the other nice 13 and 14 inch fat fish!!!  These catch pen fish are generally small so it may make it hard to catch the nice ones, but that's ok!!!

Still no "bungeration" or generation since they stopped on the 20Th of February. We got another 1/2 inch rain so we'll see what the Corp does. The water temperature is in good shape and so is the water clarity. River looks really good over all. There was a biologist at River Ridge day before yesterday taking nymph samples. He had a bottle FULL of various May fly, caddis, and stone fly nymphs, and a bunch of other bugs!! Our river is healthy!!

They also stocked 1980 fish at Albert Pike yesterday, just in case you want to fish the WILD RIVER!! 

‼️ 12:00 noon today I met the stocking truck again!!  Today stocking more small net pen fish: 1386 at OFS,1827 at HB, 1827 at RR and 693 at LWB. The driver said they are emptying the catch pens on lake Ouachita, and will stock approximately 30 thousand catch pen fish in this river between now and the end of this month!!  If your a numbers guy your in luck!!!🤗🤗🤗. 

Would like to say a BIG thank you to Ryan Gary and Christie Graham for all the fish we are getting. If you knew everything I know, you would be thanking them also!!!  They truly went to bat for this river.

Loading in Net Pen fish for Spring Breakers! 😏 It's the tradition for March! 🙂

I just posted no evidence of fish being stocked, I was wrong!!  When I got to River Ridge about 9:00am the stocking tube was cleared and I knew they had stocked!!  They must have stocked late yesterday after I went down for my nap 😴. Fresh NICE fat fish at all 5 stocking sites. There are a ton of people here fishing today, boy did they hit it right!! 

‼️ 2 March 2024 @ 5:00 am there is no water running on the river. The lake is holding at about 539' and we have only had a quarter inch of rain in the past week so I don't expect any "running of the bungers" this weekend, but who can tell for sure!!  It's a cold 35 degrees on the river, bundle up!🥶.