Well, the truth is you don’t have to decide. You can find them both in many Ozarks rivers. One of the best fly fishing rivers for trout or small mouth is the Niangua, near Lebanon, Missouri. The entire length of the Niangua is known for smallies, but the portion of the river from Bennett Spring to Barclay Conservation Area is stocked with rainbows and brownies and provides some of the most enjoyable dual species fly fishing in the Ozarks.

A few years ago, my brother and I floated the six miles of river below Bennett Spring. As soon as we put in, at the state park access, the fish started biting. I made my first cast in the pool where the spring branch flows into the Niangua and hooked what I imagined was a rainbow, but as soon as the fish jumped, it was clear I was fighting a nice smallmouth bass.

All day long, we caught smallies and rainbows. It was really about half and half, and we lost count of how many. We caught a lot of fish in the runs along the islands just downstream from the Bennett Spring access. This area probably gets fished a lot, but there are still a lot of them in there, due to escapees from the trout park and the influx of fish from downstream who might be coming upstream for the cool spring water. I caught the only brown trout of the day less than a mile below our put in. He was hiding beneath a downed tree beside a swift run. That fish was actually my first brown.

My brother and I took turns steering the canoe and fishing. One of us would sit in the back of the boat to steer and play the role of guide, while the other sat in the front and did the majority of the fishing. This worked well, especially in those swift runs where someone needed to control the canoe. It seemed like every run held a trout or a bass. They were down deep along seams in the current, or beneath logs, or behind rocks.

The Niangua is a nice, easy float. Canoe rental businesses along the river work to keep it free of obstructions, and landowners tend to take good care of their frontage and keep livestock out of the stream. The only big drawback about the Niangua is the crowds of rowdy floaters it draws on summer weekends. I only fish it on weekdays or during the off season. Though fish can be caught during busy days, you’re more likely to hook a drunk floater.

So, if you can’t make up your mind, and you’d like to catch a lot of smallmouth and trout, grab your rod and head for the Niangua River.

All the trout fishing literature and advice I’ve come across has always asserted that you should fish for trout by casting upstream and reeling your lure back down keeping it at about the same speed as the current. This advice is for the most part correct being built upon centuries of fishing experience passed down through generations.

The typical reasons given for fishing upstream are that trout feed facing upstream, the lure will go deeper if moving with the current, reeling downstream creates a more realistic presentation of the lure, and if wading your presence may be more apparent to the downstream trout due to scent or the disturbance of the stream. This reasoning is sound, and more often than not this is the approach to be taken for trout fishing streams in general.

Single spinners, such as Mepps and Roostertails, work best for casting across or downstream.

However, I have often found it too tempting to cast my line downstream into a likely spot that I may not have noticed as I waded upstream. I have also found that caving to this temptation is often rewarded with a strike. Here lies my exception to the rule that one should always fish for trout upstream.

In my experience this approach has worked best when I cast across the current, or slightly downstream, at the beginning of a run. I then let the current sweep the lure further downstream and back across into the main current. When successful, the strike usually comes as the lure reaches the end of the sweep, or just as it faces directly upstream with the main current. However, I find it is sometimes necessary to give a couple of quick tugs in order to induce a strike. I’ve done this enough to know that it’s not a freak occurrence, though it may not be as successful as the typical upstream fishing. And, sometimes this approach is the most effective or perhaps the only possible way to reach a particular section of river.

In some circumstances positioning one’s self downstream from a likely spot may spook the trout. There was a particular stream, a tributary to the Deerfield River in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts – Cold Creek – where I used to fish and used this approach quite consistently in a specific stretch. There was a large waterfall flowing into a deep pool, which then gave way to a relatively deep, swift run. The stream was narrow and did not have any type of cover downstream from the run. However, there was a large boulder at the beginning of the run around which the water passed. I found if I approached upstream from the boulder, kept myself concealed, and cast my lure across the current letting it then be swept into the main channel I would get a strike on the first cast nearly every time.

Another benefit to this approach is that you can keep the lure in the trout’s strike zone for a longer period of time. While it may not be efficient to simply let the current hold the lure indefinitely, I have found that if I don’t receive an immediate strike to wait a moment and then give a few quick tugs, which does often incite a trout to strike. This ability to play with the lure in the trout’s feeding lane is not always possible when the current is pushing the lure downstream to you.

Using this approach one can also use the current to deliver the lure to a particularly troublesome, but very trouty, looking piece of cover. Casting upstream may allow you to reel the lure next to a likely eddy or a submerged root wad, but casting downstream and using the current to hold the lure in a likely spot can sometimes be more effective.

Overall, the basic advice that you should fish for trout by casting and wading upstream is correct and this is how I usually proceed. However, if you try giving a cross current or downstream cast a try you’ll probably find it pays off in specific circumstances.