Explore Missouri’s trout areas: Blue, Red and White Ribbon streams, the four trout parks and Lake Taneycomo, with MDC’s boundaries and tackle rules, public land, MDC access and river gauges.
Check before you fish. Access, stocking and regulations here come from Missouri's own data and can be out of date. Posted signs and landowners' wishes come first, and private land needs permission. The rules that apply are in the MDC trout regulations, and you need a valid fishing license.
Bold where the stream crosses public land; faint and dashed across private land. Gauges are measurement stations; a nearby gauge may be on a different stream.
Stream types · Missouri
Bold where the stream crosses public land
Trout areas are the Missouri Department of Conservation’s designations, each with its boundaries, tackle rule and a link to its MDC regulations page. Blue Ribbon water holds wild trout under the strictest limits; Red Ribbon is managed for larger fish; White Ribbon is stocked water under the statewide limit; the trout parks (Bennett Spring, Maramec Spring, Montauk, Roaring River) are stocked daily in season and need a daily tag.
A river can carry more than one designation, like the Current and Eleven Point, where a Blue Ribbon section runs into White Ribbon water. Seasonal rules (such as winter catch-and-release at the parks and on some White Ribbon streams) are on each area’s MDC page. Dry Fork Creek (Red Ribbon) is not in MDC’s layer yet, and winter trout lakes are left out.
Highlighted banks adjoin mapped open-access public land, with a roughly 20-meter bank tolerance. Dimmed water has no adjacent open-access parcel recorded in this source. Neither determines legal entry, rights of way or permission to cross private land. Check signs, property rules and the current fishing regulations.
Access markers are source facility locations within about 800 meters of mapped water, not verified parking spaces or guaranteed entry to a particular reach. River-gauge readings describe the gauged location; a nearby gauge on another stream is shown as context.