Two Great Days And One Great Night On The Big Piney River!

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I went on an over night , 2 day float on the "Big Piney" river, in pursuit of small mouth bass and goggle eye! Jerry and I put in on the Big piney river on Saturday, early morning and floated till Sunday night on a 2 day float trip! We started at Mason bridge access on highway 32 west of Licking about 11 miles. We floated down to Six Crossings about 6 miles above the Ross Bridge, near a little town called Duke, Missouri. That made it about a 25 mile float trip!

Saturday was a beautiful day with the high near 60 degrees and sunny. We caught too many goggle eye to count! I would estimate we caught around 50 goggle eyes and we caught several 17 -20 inch small mouth bass. Bass season is closed until Memorial day weekend on the rivers around home, so we released them all. We did keep several goggle eyes and had a nice fish fry Saturday evening for supper.

We made a camp on a nice gravel bar and we found a big drift of wood and used the chain saw we had with us to cut the drifts up for a nice fire and boy did it come in handy! The temperature fell into the low to mid 20s and made the fire feel really good to us. We wore shorts and T shirts Saturday and nearly froze to death on Sunday. The temperature Sunday was about 42 and really that is not too cold, but with 40+ mph winds I would say the chill factor was in the 20s.

Being natives to Missouri weather, we took our warm clothes and coveralls because, if you don't like the weather in Missouri, just hang around because it can change as quick as you can blink your eyes, sometimes! So we were prepared for the weather change, good thing! We woke up Sunday morning, and there was frost all over everything and the fire had all but gone out and it was cold, when we crawled out of the sleeping bags. Needlessly to say it didn't take long to build a fire and warm back up!

Sunday was a total disaster fishing wise, and we didn't catch hardly any fish to speak of. Yes , Even I get the skunk once in a while, too! But, we had a wonderful outdoor experience! We saw several deer and turkeys both days, and we even saw a black bear and some wild hogs! It was the first wild black bear, that I have ever seen in Missouri!

Jerry caught a couple of nice small mouth bass ,Sunday! With the biggest small mouth weighing in at about 5 lbs. We caught about 11 goggle eyes on Sunday and they all ran just about 9 or 10 inches! Quite the contrast between Saturdays catch and Sundays catch! Just goes to show you how a cold front can change the quality of fishing. But again, they can still be caught.

We listened to the coyotes howl all night and even though it is eerie sounding, it is so neat to listen to them grouping for the nights hunt!

Sunday morning we started over a shoal and standing in the middle of the river was the biggest bobcat I have ever seen. With one leap he hit the bank and was gone. Our 2 day trip was great and we look forward to the next trip, too! It seems like the more I get out in the outdoors, the more I want to get out in the outdoors! Now , whats up with that?

So when the weather warms back up again for a few days, get on the river and get after the goggle eyes! Saturday they were hitting spinners, crank baits, and jigs! I believe they would have bitten a bare hook!

So until next time, keep your hooks wet and your lines tight, boat safely and Enjoy, the "Great Outdoors!"