Gasconade River Fishing Guides and Conditions, Missouri

About the Gasconade River

The Gasconade is the long one. It starts near Hartville in Wright County and wanders roughly 280 miles to the Missouri River near Hermann, one of the most crooked rivers in the country, and it is a warm-water fishery the entire way. Smallmouth bass are the headline species, with largemouth, goggle-eye, walleye, and flathead and channel catfish sharing the water.

The upper river above the Big Piney confluence at Jerome is the most floated for smallmouth: Hazelgreen, Riddle Bridge, Schlicht Springs, and Jerome frame a series of one-day and two-day floats with gravel bars for camping and enough current to make a drift boat or raft the right tool. Below Jerome the river grows with the Big Piney and Roubidoux Creek and becomes bigger water where jet boats and bass boats appear, and the walleye and catfish fishing picks up toward Mount Sterling and Gasconade.

The Jerome gauge sits just above the Big Piney mouth. Around 400 to 900 cfs is a good floating flow on the upper river; under 300 the riffles get shallow for a loaded drift boat; above 2,000 the river is high and off-color and the smallmouth bite generally shuts down until it starts to fall. The Gasconade takes longer to clear than the Big Piney and the Niangua after a big rain.

Waynesville, St. Robert, and Richland are the supply towns for the upper river. Because the river winds so much, driving between accesses often takes longer than the map suggests, and a two-day float with a gravel bar camp is often easier to plan than two separate one-day trips. Guides who fish the Gasconade tend to specialize in either the upper smallmouth water or the lower walleye and catfish water, so ask which one before you book.

Access

Hazelgreen Access (Interstate 44): MDC ramp at the top of the popular smallmouth floats.
Riddle Bridge and Schlicht Springs: MDC accesses on the upper river.
Jerome Access: MDC ramp near the gauge and the Big Piney confluence, the usual end of the upper floats.
Boiling Springs Access (below Jerome), Rollins Ferry, and Mount Sterling: middle river ramps used by drift and jet boats.
Gasconade and Fredericksburg Ferry: lower river ramps near the Missouri River.

Seasons

April through June: peak smallmouth fishing with good flows, plus walleye on the lower river in early spring.
July and August: warm water, topwater at dawn and dusk, gravel bar camping floats.
September and October: falling flows, clear water, smallmouth bunching in the deeper pools.
Winter: catfish and walleye on the lower river; smallmouth are slow and deep.