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3. Crane Creek

I have made it a goal to fish all 10 blue ribbon waters in MO by June. Well I fished my first this morning at Crane Creek, Crane MO. It was an unbelievable day. We have had cold weather lately but this week it rocketed and was 65+ degrees today. I got to Crane at about 7:40 and hit the water. It was a slow day but a great day. There was a terrible ice storm that downed a lot of trees which made fishing difficult (needless to say I lost my fair share of flies). All in all I saw 20+ fish and was able to land one nice 13" rainbow and two 8" fighters. Hit one whole that held 3 20"+ rainbows that at least went a LBS 1/2 to TWO. Finally was able to get my John Deere (a green jig pattern) down to them and bang, but as quick as I had him he was gone and that was all for the big fish this day. Also saw a beaver and a nice 6" chub. All in all a great start to the 07' season. Happy fishing.

Sounds like a nice day!

I've got a while to go before I can get started. We've had a warm spell recently but it was so cold for a while and we had so much snow that there's very little open water on any of our streams.

Sirhoops23,

I have fished Crane Creek, many years ago when I lived in MO (ex was from Kansas City). It's a sweet little spot! The first time I went there I made it an all-day trip, and caught about half-dozen rainbows from 5 to 10 inches or so. I also hooked and lost a spectacular male rainbow (complete with kyped jaws) about 20" that came straight out of the water in front of me and snapped off a big black stonefly nymph. I'll never forget the brilliant pink stripe on his side. I'm wondering if this was in the same hole you mentioned - it was behind a big fallen tree about 3 ft. in diameter, and fish were stacked on top of one another, from 8-inchers at the top to some big lunkers at the bottom. I must have thrown about 15 fly patterns in that hole before I finally got that stonefly down in their faces. The current at that location made it almost impossible!

I also caught a 10-inch hornyhead chub there, which grabbed a gold-ribbed hare's ear refused by a neighboring trout. Crane Creek is also the only place in which I've seen a largemouth bass swim by followed almost immediately by a rainbow trout. (I've taken bluegill and rainbows side-by-side in Georgia, but never the afforementioned combination!)

It's been over a decade since I've been there. Good to hear that it's still a great spot!

Jonathon