Smalliebigs

I have been fishing the Lower Meramec from my house very near the Green Tree Park ramp in Kirkwood to HWY 44. The other day to my wonderful suprise I caught three Hybrids??? The river is extremely low and the pools are at levels I haven't seen since I was a kid.The other big bummer is you get to see what disgusting pigs of human beeings can do to a river as there is trash abound.It's stupid to think about but, if you can get around the industrial part of it the fishing is interesting to say the least....I also caught some nice Drum. I gave the biggest one to a frreeaaak that was fishing close by and saw me fight the fish for a few.He put it on a stringer and since I didn't have my camera or phone on me.....I know fish story...I ran to my car and got my phone to get a pic of at least one fish.This is the biggest Hybrid??? I estimated it at 5 1/2 to 6, the other two I threw back were a solid 3 pounds. The Meramec as it is right now there is very low as I was able to walk across the river to the Soccer park, I can honestly say I can never remember ever beeing able to do that. I have never caught Hybrids down there before either so I was wondering if anyone else has ever caught a hybrid of any size above George Winter Park???? kinda of a bummer how low the water is right now across Missouri on on our rivers but, I am down with Hybrids beeing right in my back yard......As shity as it looks down there I will be hitting it now. I am also going to go down there and pick up alot of other peoples trash....loosers!!!!!!!!!!

cool you guys caught some smallie on a fly????? any carp???

wow......we really need to go fishing

Blaze, All I was saying is fishing with minnows or recomending some of the people that frequent and lurk on this forum would be detrimental to smallmouth fishing on rivers.I have fished with minnows and have seen the results. I'm pretty sure you are older than me and have fished the Meramec longer than I have but, have you fished more, well I don't know about that???? Keep fishing with minnows and if you tell enough people to do the same see how good your fishing is in your favorite holes above Redhorse.After what I witnessed out there this weekend the Meramec is in good hands and the future is bright

Thank You Wayne!!!!! or as the Libs on this forum and Emril would say.....BAM!!!!!!!! Wayne, I'm starting to like you more and more......thank you stating what most want to say without getting pissed by the Liberal tripe spewed by some here. Thank You and I hope you are really hitting some fish this summer.

I'd have to agree with ya there.....didn't say he was the cleanest

I love how you guys blame your poor fishing days on Jet boat fisherman......we all need a scapegoat for our bruised egos. I haven't seen good fishing many places right now so make all excuses you want.......I do the same thing.

wow i just realized how messy my basement is......doh!!!!!

Thanks for the very nice report Champ and sweet Smallie Donna. It seems like the Baxter Area is fishing good right now, I had good sucess over Memorial Day there. I can't wait to get back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet BredMan, a 16 with a 9.9 is one of the best overall fishing platforms you can get for many reasons. I use a 16 foot square stern canoe on the rivers and I put this on the back it has a Macks River Runner on the skeg and I can go upstream fairly quickly.When I come to something too shallow I just pull the canoe thru the ripple and move on.Running a canoe with a motor is not the safest thing in the world but, I have fun with it. Sometimes the floaters look at you funny when you cruise by them upstream at about 12 mph....it can be a little dangerous as my wife will not get in the canoe with a motor anymore.

My buddy called me and said screw work and lets go hit the river for a few....so we did.This guy is one of the best at handling a jet boat I have seen and one of the best fisherman I have fished with so any time out with him is way better than work.We only fished 3 hours or so and threw everything from a jig to topwater and we runned and gunned to try to find something but, just a bunch of dinks from 12 to 14 inches.The water was pretty low and gin clear for that section of the Meramec, which will make the true big Smallies a little spooky.......at least that was our excuse. We saw a friend at the boat ramp who is one of the best river fisherman you will ever meet and his report was the same as ours ......no big ones.That made me feel much better, hearing that it made me feel less of a bad luck charm for my buddy.We really need some water bad, there were some real low spots for this time of year. Since I have no pics of Smallies as none were really picture worthy by our standards and this report is really lame I'll post a vid of the river that day to show just how low shes getting. ] look for the logs sitting in ripple near the end only about two inches deep......yikes for the anti jet crowd my buddy doesn't even run his boat after Memorial Day because he feels it's too dangerous....he only jets in the Spring,Winter and Fall when the party floating drunks aren't around

fist bump from me Andy......hire more game wardens and field officers.....the yellow radio collar looses it for me......way to synthetic

I still think fishing with minnows siened out of a body of water is too easy and will result in more gut hooked fish than not. There is really no skill involved but, thats cool fish with minnows and keep 5, 15 inch smallies everytime out and see what the rivers are like for fishing in ten years you will love it.........we'll all be fishing for Carp like they do in England

me luvs TackleWharehouse!!!!!!..........me wife hates them!!!!!

Well, I guess we can all agree on something.........we needed more rain than what just fell. Oh well maybe next Tuesday we will get some more.....I hope. I have some river trips planned that are coming up real fast.......we need some more WATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Over Memorial Day weekend I saw one pleasure boater and one bass boat actually run over no wake buoys.....obviously were not very familiar with the lake and or stupid. I also had a guy see me nailing schooling fish just busting shad in the back of a cove in Big Creek and he trolled right up to where I was.At first it kinda put me off but, it was the third day in a row I had been hitting these fish so his visit prompted me to go try to catch fish somewhere else. The guy was actually pretty cool and very considerate for a dude in a wrapped boat and we talked a bit and I could see his face getting real anixous to throw some baits at the fish busting the water everywhere.I told him they had been in there since Thursday and he looked at me a said yeah okay....lol I NEVER cut in front of anyone sitting stationary and fishing and stay as humanly possible safe distance away when I motor by and am always thinking about their front end where they're fishing.......I would hope everyone is like that.

Harris those would be Bigheads.......I like the Gar though. That area can produce some really nice fish....some would disagree with me but, as I said before the lower Meramec is a puzzle. The bass specificly feed in schools and in very short spurts when the time is right. If you are in the right spot at the right time you will score bigtime.......I have. The area itself as you said if you don't have an attitude about it will reveal natural beauty, if you just sit back and be quite that you will not find in the city. As with everything it's a matter of perspective. I'm realistic it's not what it used to be but, it is still a cool river and I explore it any chance I get.If you are fishing from the bank try the access at HWY 141 at Fish Pot creek, there is a very visible gravel bar right where the creek flows in.The area there has a few more spots to fish from the bank, you can walk out on the island and hit the main channel and if you know what you're doing there are Walleye there.....also in the late evening it is a good area for topwater. I have also caught Blues and Channels between the 141 bridge and the Railroad bridge just downstream.....the cats will stage there before proceeding upstream I presume. The lower Meramec is whatever you want it to be

Sweet Phil!!!, I knew when you said you were going with Bill you at least had a shot a nice one. It sounds like it was about as windy as last Thurday??? bummer wish you guys could had you fish fry. Thats a sweet smallie though

rps,abkeenan,Tfsh.......I truly love reading your guys reports on the Rock and always enjoy any pics, it's gets me thru to my next visit. The Table Rock thread on here is my favorite and just wanted to contribute, I hope I wasn't to precise with the locales.....don't want to mess anyones spot up. Reading some of rps's reports about chasing eyes puts me right on the upper end from my office computer....can't thank you guys enough. You guys have a great open exchange of valuble info if someone were to pay attention to your reports.....keep it that way....it's very good stuff for me.

Hey Jeff L here is a way to avoid jets and people plan your trips sometime other than the weekends. If you fish weekends and expect solitude and nobody else to be there well.....your dreaming it's not going to happen

Blazer, I respect your knowledge of river fishing and jetting on the river, I really do but, I have to burst your bubble bud.You don't need a crowd of people on a sand bar to catch Smallies on live minnows on any river. Live minnows will pull bass right out of deep wood and rock anywhwere and they will more than likely swallow the hook unless you really know what you are doing. Two guys and a minnow trap and the gumption to keep could kill a section of river or creek real fast.......it is not very hard to catch smallies on minnows at all anywhere, I can only imagine some of the monsters I could have yanked up over the years if I used minnows. I wouldn't recomend it to someone who is not keeping the fish they are catching or at the very least using Octopus hooks and on that note I wouldn't recomend keeping smallmouth on rivers anyway but, each to there own.

Sounds like a very sweet time to me OTF....very envious.....lets just let people think the Bourb sucks and the smallie population has plumeted to just about nothing.The accesses suck and are far apart, also the landowners are very mean there, so lets just stay away from the olde Bourb....it's nothing more than a dirty, barely moving ditch.If you want some Smallies go to Huzzah Valley and ask for Corey stay away from the Bourb it's dangerous and dirty and has a ton of Leeches if you like that sort of thang.

I hate to say this but, it needs to be said.....it's getting to the point if you care about fishing for bass on rivers you might want to consider waiting to fish until we get some rain. The fish with the water temps skyrocketing way too early and the extreme low water conditions for this time of year will kill alot of the fish that you release back into the river. Most guys wont even consider giving the Smallies and Largemouth a break when conditions like this come about.......and that's too bad....soapbox over continue to pound the rivers even though we are about to be in real bad shape if we don't get some rain.

Simply awsome!!!!! great job OzarkFishman. I can't tell you how fun the pics looked.....he's got a great dad.

Jim, in fear of offending anyone who fishes that lake way more than I could dream of....... the length of that smallie is what sent my heart racing. I have caught them up to 21 inches and those were on rivers. This fish was bigger than that for sure....no doubt and just Black and Brown and beautiful.The vision of that lady jumping right in front of my face will be burned into my brain until my soul gets some rest. I really have no idea on weight but my friend showed me a pic of a Smallie his daughter in law caught that would go up to 23 inches and she let her go.In looking at that pic of her fish and the person who was holding the fish and how she wasn't holding out in front of her at all it could have been pushing 7 lbs......there's no doubt in my mind or her Father in law's ......my friend. TRock didn't have much of a shad kill this winter and the population is crazy with all kinds of different size shad you don't normally see down there. This could make for a Lake Castaic effect where those bass get to start feeding on some big shad instead of trout????