There's no closed season for floating and fishing on the Kings River, but it was opening day of sorts for a trio of eager anglers.
A float trip on April 28 was the first of the season for Jeff Fletcher, a Kings River fishing guide from Eagle Rock, Mo. His buddy, Larry Gay of Republic, Mo., and your faithful outdoors writer joined Fletcher in his 18-foot john boat for our first float trip of spring.
Float the Kings
The Kings River flows northward through Madison and Carroll counties before it empties into Table Rock Lake near Eagle Rock, Mo. Most floating and fishing is done in the 70 miles between Marble access and Table Rock Lake.
Features are beautiful scenery, clear water and good fishing. The Kings River is a Class I stream suitable for paddlers of any skill level.
Trip information: Jeff Fletcher, 417-847-7434 or [email protected].
— Staff report
Our float from a pay access at the Grandview bridge to an Arkansas Game & Fish Commission free access at Stony Point is one of Fletcher's favorite sections of the Kings River. It's a gorgeous 5-mile trip on the clear and gently flowing stream. Fishing can be superb, especially when the water warms later in spring. We were curious to see if the river's smallmouth bass would cooperate this early in the season.
Fletcher guessed the water temperature to be 55 degrees. The morning was a chilly this late-April Tuesday. Jackets and sweatshirts were the day's fashion statement. Easy current cradled Fletcher's aluminum boat and sent us downstream. We made our first casts along a bluff cloaked in wildflowers and fresh spring greenery
Small tube baits, green-pumpkin in color, are the only lures a fisherman needs on this premier fishing stream. Fletcher and I had good results, hooking smallmouth bass right away. Gay chose a different tack with his brown jig and pig. It paid off in only a few casts.
No telling how big the smallmouth was that ambushed Gay's lure, but his fishing rod bent deep. Fletcher whooped when the trophy smallmouth came thrashing to the surface in a ruckus of spray. That was the last we saw of that fish. Gay made up for it later in the trip with another dandy about 17 inches long.
That one didn't get away until Gay unhooked the smallmouth and released it, as we did with all our fish.
Several Ozark bass, called goggle-eye by most anglers, were part of our catch of 50 fish that trip. Most were smallmouths, and we caught some nice-sized ones. Largemouth bass, spotted bass and the goggle-eye rounded out our day.
Conservation Minded
Catch and release is the mindset of most stream fishermen nowadays, said Jon Stein, area fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission. Our 50-fish trip backed up research Game & Fish did on the river last spring, Stein said when we chatted after the float trip.
"Last spring we did a sample from the Stony Point area down to Table Rock Lake. We found good numbers of smallmouths and good-sized ones. Two of them were nearly 18 inches long," Stein said.
Game & Fish has received suggestions that the stream be made catch and release only. Biologists are studying it, "but essentially it's pretty much catch and release already," Stein said. Daily limits are tight and most anglers release their fish, he noted.
"Smallmouths in our Ozark river systems rarely get up to 18 inches," Stein said. Smallmouths grow larger in lakes because they have better forage, he continued.
Lake smallmouths have abundant threadfin shad and gizzard shad. In a stream, smallmouths eat mainly crawdads and minnows.
From the results of our early-season float, this could be a stellar year for float-fishing the Kings River.
Sports on 05/07/2015