5 Tips for Missouri River August Success

1. Go early. Early bird gets the worm. First to fish is a good plan. If you think about warfare and the tactics that never fall from favor, you will understand. If you like to win, go early.
2. Fish like oxygen. Higher water temperatures hold less oxygen. Riffles hold more oxygen. Find moving water. Fish moving water.
3. Fish learn. If you like to learn your (rising) fish rapidly, drag the fly over the head of the trout. Do it, the dragging part, the first few casts to increase the learning curve. Fish learn. The surprise attack is a tactic in warfare that does not fall out of style.
4. Fish will eat terrestrials early in the day. Ants, beetles, and hoppers. You don’t have to wait til the afternoon to feed fish hoppers.

Squeaky Oar Lock’s Wedding Buffet Theory. You are tricked did not have an excuse lined up into attending some lame ass wedding your wife wants to to attend and you sleep through the ceremony arriving pretty snoozy at the reception. You get in line and are served up a dry overcooked shredded slice of roast beef with cold burnt au-jus. The good news is there is 46 more pounds of the scorched roast beef.

But as you are choosing between the wilted underdressed spinach salad and the tepid a bit juicy Ambrosia Salad you see a salted yet carefully aged ham.

Ohhhhh, yes.

Same feeling that the trout have. 10 gazillion Trico Spinners drifting over their head. Analogous to the dried out roast beef.

A tasty red ant happens by the same fish. Yessir. Tasty salty sweet ham.

The last tip? Enjoy your day. Enjoy your friends, your family, the water. Fishing is fun. Enjoy it.