Haris122

Will do.

Might get to go up there in early May but until then got nothing to post.

So yesterday evening I went up to Busch and started fishing lake 33. After about an hour of trying to fish it in the wind, I moved over to lake 38 hoping it would be better shielded from it. Either the wind died down, or it really was better shielded but bottom line, I kept casting there without a bite until after sunset. I was within my last 10 casts for the day when I finally caught a bass. So I figured I give it a few more casts. In the end I caught another little crappie too, but in-between those 2 I wound up hooking into something giant. Granted I got it on my light action rod but since I was using 6# braid in the reel, I still had the drag set a bit tight. That fish took off and made that drag sing for what felt like minutes, like there was nothing hooked up to it at all. After a little bit and 2 surfacings (though I still couldn’t see what it was) the line went slack and I realized it threw the hook. So here’s my question, anyone got any of the little notecards from prior years that shows what fish species are stocked in what lake? A friend of mine showed me a current one but if I were to take a stab at it my suspicion would be that I snagged into a good sized grass carp or something of the sort, yet I didn’t see them mentioning grass carp being in any lake on that new card, even though in the past I could’ve sworn they had them listed in lake 38 specifically. Any other guesses what it could’ve been? I hooked into it with a shad colored crankbait, though again, I don’t know for sure if it was foul hooked or not.

Seth do you drift your trout magnets under a bobber or how do you rig them up? I tried some trout magnets about 1.5-2 feet under a slip bobber, with some split shots thrown in to pull the float upright, for a while and had 2 lightbbites on it but most of them would just circle around them and then swim off.

Well, I made it down there by 8, found out about 3,000 fish had been stocked, and by 8:30 I got to fishing, with my usual pumped up mindset of "this will be the day" (when I catch fish after fish, get to 15-20 fish, with plenty of other bites too). As usual though, Meramec Springs pulled me back down to earth, and anchored me there. Because of the crowds and my preferred methods of fishing, I pretty much went straight for the lower half of the park, from the pool by the bathrooms on down, thinking it might be at least a little less crowded, and more conducive to my frequent casting. I had a couple bites by 12-1pm, but after watching countless people come, catch fish nearby and go, while nothing was happening for me, I started thinking that I may end up holding the very unique distinction of having been there almost all day, without catching a darn thing, on opening day no less. I decided at the very least I was going to keep trying different things in hopes of getting something, but by 5pm I still didn't even have 5 seconds worth of a fish on. Somehow in that last hour, I managed to catch 2 fish, throwing some crank/jerkbaits like I had been doing without luck at various times earlier in the day, and managed to salvage a little bit of pride, but man, today sucked for me. How was it for the rest of you guys that went?

Figured I see if anyone else is planning on heading down there on Friday. I took the day off, to try giving it another go this year, and see if I can catch more than last year. Last year I really didn’t catch that many, so weather permitting, I’m hoping this year will be better.

Is there an actual video of the fight? I'd like to see that.

How many more days we got before they close to get ready for the march opener?

I'm not familiar with a whole lot of them but I always liked Bill Dance's blooper reels when he got pissed. It would remind me of my own temperament under similar circumstances.

I finally made it down there yesterday. Almost didn't happen again as I was taking too long getting ready and basically left the house at 1:30 pm. By the time I got down there, I was going to have less than an hour left if I were to fish Meramec Springs, so instead I just tried my luck out at the Highway 8 Access to the Red Ribbon section. I can't tell you much in regards to what would've worked best, as I just kind of stuck with one of the really small shad colored crankbaits I already had on, seeing how I only had a few hours, and most of that was spent trying to wade my way between former "hotspots" without falling in, but I did catch a nice colored up, fat 15" Rainbow. I think I actually caught the same one twice, once going downstream and then again on my way back upstream around the same spot. Both times it gave me a good fight, 2nd time even with a few jumps thrown into the mix. I had another Rainbow on, that got off close to net, and then had another 2 or so bites where I didn't get to see what it was. It wasn't a few hours packed with action, but I was pleasantly surprised to have even gotten that much of it, much less, with a nice strong fish on top of that. On the down side, I found out my aquaseal patch job of my waders didn't really work out, so in some sense I'm glad I didn't stay there much longer or it would've been a rough cold day. One more cool thing to mention, I spooked some turkeys and had 10 or so of them just fly over me to the other side of the river, after they took off.

I've been meaning to, for the past month now, but somehow I always fail at going. Next week I'm really going to try, however, it won't be much help to you as I don't fly fish.

A little hatchery pond or ponds would be a cool attraction up at Busch, no doubt. How they'd find a solution to people sneaking into there to fish those ponds, seems like the challenging part, cause they don't seem to have a lot of people working there to monitor it. Guess if they made the first lake or lakes by the entrance, also fish stocking ponds, as opposed to just a waterfowl refuge, that could work, as they're already off limits.

I've had real poor luck there this year and last for some reason.

Anyone tried their luck at 21 recently?

Any big fish works for me. I don't catch them good enough to get discouraged by species. Just needs to give a good fight, other than that, I'm fine with whatever as long as it's a fish.