The Current River, called La Riviere Courante by early French trappers is on the South Eastern side of the Ozark Mountains and comes by its name honestly – it has plenty of current. The river has about 90 miles in the National Scenic Waterways. Many years ago it was used for floating logs down to the mills. Today it is totally recreational. There are several caves along the river including one you can canoe into.





The Current is Missouri’s most spring fed river so regardless of the rainfall there is adequate water for canoeing. One of the springs we visited was Blue Springs. It discharges 85 million gallons of water per day into the current and it is not the biggest spring on the Current. It is the seventh largest in Missouri and its color comes from its 300 ft depth and mineral content. As big as it is it is a mere piker compared to Big Spring, farther upriver which has an average daily flow of 276 million gallons and is said to be the largest single outlet spring in the world.



I was excited to be invited to a Smallmouth fishing trip by another AR member and smallmouth enthusiast – Ted Thornburgh (Ted Thorn on AR). Ted braved the Labor Day jet boat culture and a cold front to make this possible for me.



Ted lives nearby and has fished the Current for years. He has the right equipment – a jet boat that can skim through 4 to 6 inches of water making it efficient to bypass the shoals and concentrate on the deeper holes. I learned that the jet boats without trolling motors were owned by cruising type people and those with trolling motors were owned by the good guys – fishermen. There were not many trolling motors to be seen on this day.



The part of the Current that we were fishing had deep holes separated by riffles and shoals. On other rivers I usually catch fish in the riffles on a spinner bait but not on this day. Come to think of it if I were a fish on Labor Day I suppose I wouldn’t stay in 6 inches of water waiting for the next maddened or inebriated jet boat driver to smear me on the bottom.



So it was the deeper holes that produced fish. The holes varied from 50 yards to hundreds of yards long and were quite deep with large boulders in them that had evidently fallen from the cliffs above.



In the swift water and strong wind it was hard to keep our crawdad color Wiggle Warts in the right spots but Ted was quite proficient at it and kept pulling in fish after fish. I had shown up with a giant tackle box full of lures, 4 poles, a lunch box and a miscellaneous equipment bag with raingear (not a cloud in the sky) and Ted showed up with two poles, two lures and two crackers.

It wasn’t going that well for me so I tried a new strategy – fishing in the tree branches – just in case some of the smarter Brownies were hiding from the jet boats up there. However after a few hang-ups 30 or 40 feet above the water I concluded that either the Brownies were not up there or else they were too smart to come out on the end of the limb for fear of falling into the path of a jet boat. Besides, Ted was alternately looking at me and then his long handled gaff hook so I gave up that strategy and went back to hanging up on rocks and shoreline weeds.



As far as I could figure out the fish were hiding from the jet boats under those big boulders with their tail wrapped around a rock, their fins covering their eyes and nothing but a chunk of dynamite would get their attention (hmm I wonder if the warden could hear that what with the noise of the jet boats flying back and forth).



Despite the jet boat races and wild parties on every other gravel bar we stayed true to our mission and eventually ended up with maybe 40 fish between the two of us (counting my 2 and Ted’s 38).

A fun time – thank you Ted.

Allen, you are more than welcome. I promise a dry boat next time.

Most days are nearly boat free we can do better next year.

Anytime,
Ted

Nice write up. I love fishing for smallmouth bass.

BUT..there are three wekends I NEVER go near a river or lake unless it's in the far back counrty of Canada or Alaska. Those weekends are Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day.

Really enjoyed the post. Caught my first trout on the Current river when I was a youngster growing up in neighboring Southern Illinois. No jet boats back then. Didn't know about the springs, pretty cool. Thanks,

Scott

Jet boats are a plague. Worse than jet skis on some of the local waters I fish.

The local river I fis is narrow and constantly twists and turns.
There used to be one boat launching ramp within 10 or so miles and one jet boat, the owner was careful and courteous.

Now there are several launch ramps and jet boats blasting up and down all the time.

Guess I am becoming a COF out of reason!