Little Missouri Fly Fishing

I went fishing again this morning. I guess I am the definition of insanity!! They did not run a generator today as they have the past 3 days. We (my wife has an excellent sense of smell) noticed a chemical smell or acetylene smell the past 3 days when they ran water. We attributed it to the lake turning over as it always does this time of year. Here's what I found this morning: the river bottom is covered with dead crawfish, I'm talking about a LOT of dead crawfish, I saw no minnows, and no tadpoles. I saw no sign of any kind of fish (I haven't caught a fish in my past 4 outings). I tried to catch a bream, could not find one, there were not even any herons fishing the river! The otters were not in the wall hole or the meat hole, I assume their food source is gone so they are too.  I did turn a few rocks and found a few live Mayfly and Caddis larva, that's good! There were no rises as far as I could see down river. On another note, the water clarity and the bottom condition is better than I've seen it in 2 years!! The water temperature is 66 degrees.

I will not be putting out any generating information until after the AGFC stocks this river again, there is no need, there appear to be no fish, in my opinion!! This is a rather dead river right now. There was no smell this morning and no sign of any foreign substance in the water-that's a good thing.

They turned on one (or 2 ??) generators at 8:00 am. They are starting and stopping on an irregular schedule. They opened and closed a couple of times yesterday. I won't be able to keep you posted until they finish testing and whatever!

Water is at 66 degreese, just wish there were fish to keep cold. I have zeroed the last 2 times I fished. The otters are really hurting us.

How long did they keep discharging. Did the water temperature drops into the 60's.
Thank for keeping all of us updated.

At about noon today I saw the first water run thru a generator in a couple of years!!!  Don't know for how long? Don't know if the trash grate is fixed? Don't know anything except there is water coming down the river and no bunger valve is open!!  I can see the water coming out of one generator!!  That's all I got 😁😁🥴.

It's now been 20 days since there was any flow of any kind on the Lil Mo. the water temperature at River Ridge is 84 degrees, at the River Side park is still 72 degrees due to the leakage from the dam. It's almost impossible to get a fly down clean due to the lime green slime and all the trash in the river. For the past two weeks I've watched 4 very large otters 🦦 eat their weight in fish at the wall hole!!  I believe they have about wiped out the fish in that area. They travel from the meat hole to David's rock, back and forth, killing and eating fish. I assume the will move on soon since the food supply is about gone. Thursday morning I caught 2 fish at David's rock, Friday I caught 2 fish in the wall hole, Saturday I caught 1 fish in the Meat hole. I guess today it will be zero somewhere!!  It's about as bad as I have ever seen on the river, even for this time of year.

They are still working on the dam, that's all I know about that!!  We've gotten no help from the AGFC to keep any flow going during this period. I went to the Corp office at "Sawah" and spoke with the head dam man, Mr. Mitchell, I plead my case for a little cold water and he said he had "nothing to do with that" and he "controlled none of it". He said that's all decided in Hot Springs at the Blakey dam. (I knew that but thought I'd try anyway).

Your call on weather to come fishing or not? Wish I could be more positive ☹️☹️.

Add: I've also become curious about the Lil' Mo' around Langley, or the base of the "Winding Stair" (Is that what it's called?). Has anyone ever tried there for, say, smallmouth?

Well, this is trout "off-season" pour moi. I'm about to try some warm-water stream fishing for smallmouth, or whatever, having never tried it, in another local stream. I'll let y'all know how I did. Say, has anyone ever waded, say, below Hind's Bluff, or below the Low Water Bridge and fished for warm-water species? For the first time I've become curious about stream fishing for warm water fish. I'm about to give it a shot.

Maybe the city water will start smelling bad again and the Corp will let some water out.😷😷

Always hated that stuff! 😑

Sounds like the heartiest of the hearty are hanging in there! But this was always the time of year I'd mention not to fish after noon or so and maybe come back out once the sun was off the water! 😏

15 August 2025

The water temperature at the wall hole yesterday was 71 degrees, which is great for August considering how much flow we have had. We still have live fish, even though they are few and far between. There is a really bad algae bloom building up in the skinny water toward the dam. I usually take the temperature reading in the wall hole this time of year, it's the deepest part of the river with any fish remaining. The bloom makes it almost impossible to run a fly without getting slime all over it. Least little slime on your fly and the fish won't touch it. This happens every year!!