You can access the creek from Crane's city park, and from the Wire Road Conservation Area upstream and downstream from Crane.įirst stocked in 1880, it has supported wild rainbows for more than 126 years, but like Mill Creek, it has experienced water-flow problems from the drought. Highway 185, Sullivan, MO 63080 or call (573) 468-3335.Ĭrane Creek lies in southwest Missouri, near Crane in Stone County off Highway 13. Remember that some sections are privately owned and not open to public fishing.įor more information about the Little Piney River and Mill Creek, write: MDC, P.O. Forest Service campground or access the creek at Wilkins Spring at the upper end of the spring branch. Just don't expect to catch any large trout. It has experienced low water flows during Missouri's drought, which reduced the rainbow population - but it's still fun to fish. The last five years or so have been hard on this intimate little trout stream. I've had the pleasure of fishing this wonderful little creek since the early '70s, long before it was managed as a wild rainbow trout fishery. Mill Creek is just west of Rolla and south of Newburg off Highway P. This trout stream provides anglers with excellent fishing for small rainbows up to about 15 inches, while still supporting a few larger individuals exceeding 18 inches. The 18-inch length limit protects most trout in the stream, while still allowing anglers to take home that occasional trophy fish. Access the fishery off Highway 63 south of Rolla or from Highway T south of Newburg.
It supports an excellent trout population from USFS Lane Spring Campground downstream to the MDC's access, all within the Mark Twain National Forest. Little Piney River is Missouri's newest and longest wild trout fishery. I'm going to advise you to fish Little Piney River, Mill Creek, and Crane Creek. During spring and summer, I usually wade wet, or use hip boots. All small streams, all are accessible by wading, and are best fished using a fly rod or an ultrahigh spinning rod. In some streams, the populations trace their ancestry back to those first trout stocked in Missouri in the 1880s. Missouri's Blue Ribbon trout waters also include a group of small spring branches scattered throughout the Ozarks supporting wild rainbow trout. Woods Conservation Area at the lower end of this section. Park, then walk down the spring branch to the river or from the walk-in fishing access on the Woodson K. Fish from the confluence of Maramec Spring downstream about two miles access the Red Ribbon water through Maramec Spring Trout Park. But it's still one of my favorite trout streams, and supports excellent brown trout fishing. I list the Meramec last because, in recent years, the fishing here has declined. I'll recommend trout streams to fish this year, areas of those in which to fish, and techniques that work, and provide phone numbers for obtaining additional information about each of the trout streams. Let's focus on spring branches and trout streams outside Missouri's trout parks - streams at which trout anglers can expect to fish over large wild rainbows and browns, some exceeding 10 pounds. This history, as you might realize, is much more complicated than what I've depicted here. The trout program has four trout parks, put-and-take streams that the MDC stocks several times annually (White Ribbon Areas), streams supporting wild rainbow populations with either no stocking or limited brown trout stocking (Blue Ribbon Areas), and streams into which the department stocks brown trout (Red Ribbon Areas). Missouri's modern trout program includes about 165 miles of coldwater streams associated with springs managed for trout and one tailwater at Lake Taneycomo. Consequently, the brown trout fisheries would have to be maintained by annual brown trout releases. Unfortunately, they also discovered that brown trout couldn't reproduce successfully in Missouri's spring branches the exception to this was Lake Taneycomo. They also began stocking brown trout in a few streams to create a trout fishery at which anglers could expect to catch trout larger than those normally found in the trout parks or the put-and-take streams.
By the '70s, biologists began to question this approach, having discovered several small wild trout populations in spring branches such as Mill Creek, Spring Creek, Crane Creek, Little Piney River, Blue Spring Creek, and the Eleven Point River.
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