Southern Missouri's Elk River Smallmouth

I learned to fly fish on smallmouth (I don’t think my first efforts with tarpon and a 12-weight really count), so they hold a special place in my memories of discovery. As a counterpoint to yesterday’s piece about Lake Taneycomo, Jim Darnell reminds us that southern Missouri holds plenty of underfished water. He and a buddy float the Elk River in the Ozarks and catch plenty of bass on topwater stuff. “This had to be the essence of fishing. Wilderness and solitude. I still enjoy bass fishing on a big reservoir in a powerful bass boat but now, to me, it’s a distant second place from fly fishing a clear-water, wilderness river in a canoe or kayak.” In the San Marcos (Texas) Daily Record.