Haris122

Hi Haris,  it was a very nice talking with you that day. Finally we met in person and hope I can meet more ppls from here. Not much action there. The water temperature was at mid 40's and I think we will have to wait couple warm days for the fish to get active. This is a very interesting lake and I am still learning, especially from Jim...
Cheers..
-Joe
 

Went to Unger to do some walking, as part of PT for the ACL, and towards the end of my walk I ran into a member here. Joe I forgot your screenname, something like riverrun (sorry) but was cool talking to you. How’d you do with the kayak on the lake if you read this?

Got a two-fer on Sat. Caught a new lifer that was also a sculpin 😁. Blue-ridge Sculpin! Love that orange in the dorsal fin. Don't know much about these guys but would have to think that this is a male (both pics of same fish). I orginally thought this was a potomac sculpin but had the ranges and the characters switched between the two. 

Knocked out #2 today with this 22” 4.3# Taney brown

Guess no one on the forum made it there this opener. Once my knee heals up good enough I’m hoping to make it down there and try it out. Haven’t been there in a few years. 

Guess no one on the forum made it there this opener. Once my knee heals up good enough I’m hoping to make it down there and try it out. Haven’t been there in a few years. 

Yeah I definitely can’t say it’s the most awesome place to fish for trout but I still enjoyed going there. Even the few times I’ve been during the opener. Not usually as much as wading downstream of it and having more water to yourself but I did like going there, and seeing what the opener also was about. Not usually my type of fishing but once a year I could do it. I usually picked the less used spots to try my luck in anyway, so I still had a little bit of room.
Last few years I think in general I kind of shifted away from fishing quite as much back to shooting more (I know, kind of backwards with the way the costs have been going) but I will definitely find some more time for fishing this year once I get to better mobility.

Yeah I definitely can’t say it’s the most awesome place to fish for trout but I still enjoyed going there. Even the few times I’ve been during the opener. Not usually as much as wading downstream of it and having more water to yourself but I did like going there, and seeing what the opener also was about. Not usually my type of fishing but once a year I could do it. I usually picked the less used spots to try my luck in anyway, so I still had a little bit of room.
Last few years I think in general I kind of shifted away from fishing quite as much back to shooting more (I know, kind of backwards with the way the costs have been going) but I will definitely find some more time for fishing this year once I get to better mobility.

I'd love to take this dude down to Bennett on opening day, and throw a stick out in the middle of the stream. 
Boy that'd create some chaos!  😅

I have never been to an opener at any of the trout parks. I did hit the PA trout openers every year. Lots of people. Folks that camped overnight in the spots you scouted, etc. But with limited numbers being stocked only once or at most a couple of times during  the spring, it's  a get them when you can situation. In MO most years I would have fished several times for trout outside of the parks and most of the time would have the river to myself.. So I didn't have that same level of "I need to go trout fish" that would get me over the aversion of fishing in a big crowd.

I haven't gone the past two years. My urge to go on opening day has dwindled since I started doing the winter trout tournaments on Taneycomo. I'm taking some high schoolers down for a field trip on March 24. I'm not sure if I will mess with going down before then or not.

Meramec has never been on my go to list of trout parks.  Too close to Montauk and on the way for Bennett Springs for me.
It was the first trout park I ever fished.  But something is never right there for me.

Heal up Haris and hope you get there soon and give us a report. Only got there twice and that was several years ago. Have fun guy.

Hope your recovery goes well.  Stick to that recovery plan. My mom had to get hers done twice when she slipped... she said it was worse second time around.
My gma had both her knees replaced in n her 70s.  She was a tough old bird though, and made it look easy.
I can still get around but just don't trust my right one... doesn't take much anymore for it to just pop out to the right.  No ladders, and any climbing or going up grades it gets squishy. 
 

My oldest grandson caught his first trout in Oct 2015 during a camping trip with my wife.  It was about 2 weeks before my Cancer diagnosed.  We had borrowed a pair of kids waders and he was using spinning gear.  Just a little feller of 6.  We raised him for the first few years as his Mom and Dad got their young lives together and figured things out.  He has been like my son.  We had not been back till now.

 
I had him this weekend.  We took out Saturday and spent the day exploring things in the cold windy day.  We did not fish, just touring and learning.  The mountains of the St Francois chain, the wilderness between Arcadia and Salem, the Huzzah hatchery ruins, and Montauk itself.  Spent the night at Rolla in a motel and enjoyed the Sirloin Stockade buffet.  Sunday morning, we hit Montauk below the place in the campground where he landed his first trout.  I bought him a little blue Cabelas starter rod a couple of years back and we have been out on ponds, lakes, and streams catching warmwater bream and bass.  This was his first trout trip with it.  He pulled this one out on a San Juan worm I tied.  Several more during the day and a chub.
 

 
During those 6 years, he has changed a little.  He wears my stuff now.  That is a pair of my waders and boots.  He can tye some flies.  He can kill a deer.  And I am back up to almost full strength to keep up with him.
It was a beautiful winter day in the park.  Over the two days, we learned again about the trout hatchery and the runs, the springs, the geology of the whole area.  We enjoyed the wildlife and the history of things.  And the experience of it all. 
 

For those putting it off, my suggestion is to do it.  I never realized how much I wasn't doing because of a bad knee until I got it replaced.  You are less active because everything you do hurts. For me this lead to weight gain and generally being out of shape.  
The new knee isn't perfect but it is way better than the one I had.  Big plus is it doesn't hurt constantly.  Went on a 10 day canoe trip to Quetico and the new knee was the least of my problems.
 

I wound up tearing my acl, but then couldn’t do the surgery for half a year due to an accompanying condition that happened at the same time. Started getting around ok but just couldn’t do certain things like crouching and such and finally figured let’s do it. So far post surgery is rougher than I thought but it’s not been that long yet so hopefully that changes quick. Hope you guys are able to get your knee situations squared away without problems. 

I wound up tearing my acl, but then couldn’t do the surgery for half a year due to an accompanying condition that happened at the same time. Started getting around ok but just couldn’t do certain things like crouching and such and finally figured let’s do it. So far post surgery is rougher than I thought but it’s not been that long yet so hopefully that changes quick. Hope you guys are able to get your knee situations squared away without problems. 

I like cheeseburgers too! Yes some days it gets really old.  I woke up at Jigfest with it dislocated, I was pretty sore and wobbly with all the wading we did.
I'm hoping to hold off long enough they can just cut the darn thing off and give me a cyborg leg...

I'm guilty of that too. But at 52 it's getting old. Planning on doing it this fall. Gotta lose a few cheeseburgers I have stored up first. 

Good luck with that and hope you get it fixed.  I'm looking at a full knee replacement at 41... can't climb tree stands, have no faith in right leg stability, and can dislocate knee pretty much at will.  It's in a constant state of pain,  but I'm stupid and stubborn and keep putting off surgery...

I messed up my knee last summer and been having to wait to get it fixed until sometime this or next month. So this year my goals sound a bit simple, but I just want to get that fixed up smooth, shortly, and then hopefully get out and be able to fish with the kind of mobility I had before I messed the knee up. 

I messed up my knee last summer and been having to wait to get it fixed until sometime this or next month. So this year my goals sound a bit simple, but I just want to get that fixed up smooth, shortly, and then hopefully get out and be able to fish with the kind of mobility I had before I messed the knee up. 

I messed up my knee last summer and been having to wait to get it fixed until sometime this or next month. So this year my goals sound a bit simple, but I just want to get that fixed up smooth, shortly, and then hopefully get out and be able to fish with the kind of mobility I had before I messed the knee up. 

I messed up my knee last summer and been having to wait to get it fixed until sometime this or next month. So this year my goals sound a bit simple, but I just want to get that fixed up smooth, shortly, and then hopefully get out and be able to fish with the kind of mobility I had before I messed the knee up.