Missouri Blue Ribbon Adventure

Gonna get some time on the water this weekend.

Trip starts out Sunday morning meeting a friend at Roaring River State park to fish for the day. Sort of a brush the rust off kinda day. The wife and daughter and I are getting up early Sunday to drive 2 hrs to fish for the day. Drive home and sleep for the night.

Wife and daughter head off to work/school Monday morning. That's my queue to head back down to southern MO for another day of fishing with my friend. We are meeting at Crane Creek to fish this little blue ribbon trout stream.

The history I have gathered is that this stream was last stocked in the late 1800's with pure strain McCloud rainbow trout by rail car. It has been a self sustained trout stream ever since. From what I have read (don't hold me to this) it is one of only three pure-strains left in existence.

It is a small spring creek and I am pretty excited to fish it, especially since it will be part of my first trout trip this year. I'll try to get some pictures and post them when I get back. Hopefully I'll have some luck and even hook up with a couple of these beautiful trout.

Wish me luck.

Black Co.

Crane Creek can be a challenge for sure. Move slowly, stay low, and carry a short rod.

Good luck!

Shh...........

I believe there was talk of this creek
or another like it that is known to hold
the last remnants of the McClouds.

The McCloud River itself, to the best of
my knowledge, no longer holds a pure
strain. I do wonder though, that since
the New Zealand rainbows originally
came from the pure McCloud strain, have
they remained so.

I've fly fished the McCloud River in N. CA
for a lot of years and wonder if someone
has thought to re-introduce it's own native
rainbows from another part of the world where
they remain. A thought.

Cheers,

MontanaMoose

black co. G'luck. Don't ferget to set yer clock forward tonight so you won't be late, or early or...uh... Have fun. Jim

I've fished Crane Creek off and on for many years. My daughter lives a 1/4 of mile from it. I am able to fish the creek by accessing it through her neighbors field.
I've heard stories about how the fish got there. The most prevalent is a train derailed near the town of Crane which was transporting the fish. Not wanting to let them die they were dumped in the creek and survived. As mentioned that was over 100 years ago. The fish I've caught from Crane creek were beautifully colored and vivid.
It tough fishing for sure, brushy, ticky, snakey and buggy.

I was talking to a conservation agent at Bennett who told me all fish in Mo trout parks are descendants of Crane creek bows. He said if you stopped feeding them trout chow and let them forage naturally they would assume the colors of the Crane bows.