Kayak Fishing and Cabin Camping on Table Rock Lake

This past weekend, my friend Brian and I took our Dave Gentry "Chuckanut 12" kayaks and headed an hour south to Cape Fair, Missouri and Table Rock Lake. We loaded the truck and left after work Friday, hitting E's Inn Drive-In in Republic for dinner on the way down. Arriving around sundown, we hung out on the cabin porch and listened to wildlife until it was time to turn in.

Up bright and early Saturday morning with a breakfast of coffee, bacon, eggs and potatoes. We hit the water shortly after. We put the kayaks in at Flat Creek Resort and paddled our way up towards Dry Creek, fishing as we went. Somewhere along the way we stopped and snacked a bit on the bank.

With little biting in the murky lake water we were making our way across, we decided to head up Dry Creek and explore some. It wasn't long until we ran out of water under the boats and had to pull them along upstream behind us.

Dry Creek was running cold and clear. It must be partially spring fed. In the summertime, when you move upstream in creeks like this, fish will dart all over the place to evade your shadow. We only saw a turtle and one lone fish I couldn't identify as we made our way up. After reaching a point where things looked like they were getting into private property territory, we turned back and made our way into the lake arm again.

We then fished our way upwind and back to the dock where we put in. Brian was the only one that landed anything Saturday, a couple smallish bass. I contented myself with exploring and fussing with my camera. When we got back to the dock, several overall-clad good ol' boys were pulling paddlefish from their boats. One female weighed over 90 pounds.

Saturday night, steak dinner with leftover potatoes and biscuits. Good stuff. We hung out on the porch, listening to some largish animals walking over the hillside above the cabin and I sat and smoked my pipe a bit. Can't beat a corncob pipe on an Ozarks cabin front porch to the sound of whippoorwills and owls calling.

Sunday, up early again. Brian knocked breakfast out of the park with corned beef hash and eggs. After three plates of breakfast and a good amount of coffee, we were off and on the lake again. We fared considerably better Sunday morning, landing several bass and a crappie. Brian graciously sent me packing with the larger bass to go with the crappie I caught.

Mildly funny story about the crappie. We were fishing a debris filled bank below the highway opposite Flat Creek, when a fellow in a bass boat motored up and tried to muscle us off of the brush we were casting towards. We held our bit of water and weren't intimidated. He grumpily trolled his way into deeper water around us and I pulled the crappie from a stretch of water he had just passed over. He, being something of an arse, angrily cranked his boat up and sped off around the point when I pulled it in. We had a good laugh about it. It's not the first time that's happened to us.

We fished until about 10:30-11am and then went back to the cabin to clean up. The cabin sufficiently made straight again, we headed off down the road back to town, stopping only for lunch at a great little "mom 'n' pop" in Highlandville, called Double E Burger and Ice Cream Shoppe. It was great. I had a milkshake and a chili burger. Can't remember what Brian got. But I also ordered a fried apple pie "to go" for the Mrs. A great way to end a weekend trip. I fried up the fish with some homemade hush puppies and potatoes that night for dinner, after spending the rest of the afternoon flying a kite with the kiddo in the park.

We saw and heard a lot of birds this trip. Barred owls and whippoorwills calling at night. The cabin property was thick with bluebirds and other songbirds. Purple martins and osprey flew over us as we paddled.