STL Matt

I'm too busy/lazy/broke to make it out to points west as much as I'd like, so I end up fishing at Jefferson Lake in Forest Park a lot. Lots of fly guys there who'll give you tips and since it's catch and release til spring you don't have to worry about going right when they stock. I concur with the little olive or brown maribou jigs or the little cream-colored thread things. When they're hitting it doesn't seem to matter what you throw out there, which is gratifying if your tying skills are as weak as mine... Wind is good. They seem to get bolder at dusk, and every time I come home when it gets dark it seems like the last thing I had on was a black wooly bugger. I've caught a handful stripping in streamers, again when it's windy or at dusk. A few times a season when they are rising like crazy I try a few dries but have never had a single take.

Hello, I am gonna come down there and camp at Greer or Turner Mill and do a one day float on July 24. Any ideas on which stretch I should try to convince my mostly non-fishing friends to choose for my own selfish ways? Prefer trout on the fly, but if the water's too high and fast to get anything that isn't crazily heavy down to the fish, I wouldn't mind doing the more smallmouthy part above Greer instead (I broke my heavier rod, and throwing big hunks of lead on a 4-weight doesn't sound too keen). Thanks! Matt

Out at Jefferson Lake in Forest Park for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday, and the trout seemed a little bigger than last year. Weirdly, my first winter trout of the urban trout season ended up being a catfish, and a purring one at that (my first cat on a fly, too). Then my buddy's first trout of the season ended up being a crappie. Neither of us came prepared to keep any, so those guys are still in there. Haven't seen any poaching yet, but it is sure to happen, keep your eyes peeled.

Nice! I just found my first hen this morning. Don't tell any of the fishermen on here, but I secretly believe that hen of the woods mushrooms taste better than any fish..

I am pretty on board with hydropower in general, and didn't mean to start an energy debate. What my buddy tells me the danger of this law is is that it will make it really, really hard for conservation/restoration groups to take down old dams or improve habitat on rivers. His company has done a fair amount of that up in Ohio with really good results for the small towns in terms of tourism and fishing-related business income, and I understand lots of groups have had a lot of success on Pacific streams too (over there it gets all tangled up with Native American politics), re-opening spawning routes and such. All that stuff would get a lot harder to do if this bill passes.

Cool to hear the opinion of someone from the Corps. I don't really feel too educated on the issues on this one, but figured someone around here would...

My buddy is a hydrology scientist up in Ohio and tells me this bill is bad news for conservation and fishing. It's sort of disguised as a pro-hydropower bill, but it seems designed to protect energy interests at the cost of scientific water and fishery management. At the risk of breaking the rule of posting about politics, I just wanted to pass on a couple links where you can at least sign a petition, whatever good that'll do. I figure yeah, it's politics in that it is a congressional bill, but on a fishing forum maybe we can all agree we don't want a law that actually makes it ILLEGAL to tear down an old, dangerous dam or to work on river restoration, not to mention we probably don't want to fund subsidies for new damns with taxpayer money but no input from water scientists or fishery habitat biologists. https://secure2.conv...rAction&id=1341 http://www.wildsalmo...nvironment.html

My buddy is a hydrology scientist up in Ohio and tells me this bill is bad news for conservation and fishing. It's sort of disguised as a pro-hydropower bill, but it seems designed to protect energy interests at the cost of scientific water and fishery management. At the risk of breaking the rule of posting about politics, I just wanted to pass on a couple links where you can at least sign a petition, whatever good that'll do. I figure yeah, it's politics in that it is a congressional bill, but on a fishing forum maybe we can all agree we don't want a law that actually makes it ILLEGAL to tear down an old, dangerous dam or to work on river restoration, not to mention we probably don't want to fund subsidies for new damns with taxpayer money but no input from water scientists or fishery habitat biologists. https://secure2.conv...rAction&id=1341 http://www.wildsalmo...nvironment.html

Yes! I love it. I'm with you on time ceasing to exist when fishing. I can't count the days where I went out in the morning, then looked up and assumed a storm was rolling in, but actually it was just dusk already, and no wonder my stomach was growling...

Hahahaha, hilarious. Snap! Snap! Snap!

That is eerie as hell and really cool, thanks for posting.

Well that guide report makes me feel better about not catchin' any. I can vouch for at least one little rainbow being in there two summers ago, because it was the first fish I ever caught on a fly. Dumb luck I guess, cuz on that particular trip I never got another fish at all. Have fun up there, man, savor it because it hurts to come back, Count me jealous of the fish and the fall colors and say hi to the big ones I let go.

Ok, that was the greatest fishing of my life. I only went three days, and caught all the fish I caught, but man it was fun. My brother and I explored a few creeks down south, the biggest being Honolulu creek, which sure looked fishy but I couldn't find any. Then we tried a couple of the really small streams as you head east on the Denali Highway with similar results. Things changed when we hit the Brushkana river, though. First of all, what a tremendously beautiful place. Second of all, I was with my brother and his brother in law, neither of whom have much experience fly fishing (for that matter, neither do I, but I'm a couple years ahead of them, anyhow), and before I had even tied on a fly my fishing buddies were into the grayling. As I wasn't seeing any rising, I was trying to do it right by dead drifting little copper johns or BHPTs but getting nothing. I went to put on a bobber strike indicator, but accidentally dropped my whole little bag of them and watched helplessly as they found the rapids downstream. Meanwhile my two fishing mates are catching 'em just fine, and I realize it's because they are letting their lines go tight downstream and just sit there for a lot longer than I was. Sure enough, once I figured that out, I could tie on seemingly anything, including some monstrosities from my own vise, and let them swing up and sit in the current. I never could get my eyes to where they could see the fish holding, but it was easy to narrow it down to a rock or two, and they never seemed to get spooked away. The next day there was a hatch of some little mosquitoe-looking bugs, which I couldn't really match but tried the closest thing I had and sure enough the graylings rose willingly, sometimes even jumping out of the water as they took the fly, sometimes rising the milisecond it hit the water. As the hatch died down, I realized they just kept taking them. At least it felt more sporting than the wets, because you did have to get a natural drift with the dries (though occasionally they'd also take one skittered back towards me, too). The next day I spent most of my time fishing elk hair caddis to likely places and sure enough they just kept rising for it, big (like 14") and little (down to fingerlings) both. Must have got 30 fish that last day, which is a ton for me. The locals say they aren't great for eating any time, especially not fresh. Seemed fine to me when we ate some at the campsite, but I was still in that afterglow from feeling the rod bend so many times. For a bit I tried to find the rainbows that I know also live there, but it seemed silly to tie on more weight and search around the rapids when I could fish dries to my heart's content. Unfortunately I forgot pics except these two of one my brother was fighting, a pretty big one for greyling. I wish I had picked up a disposable camera instead of being scared to risk killing my iphone, but those big ones especially are incredibly colorful, with beautiful spots and that giant sail-like irridescent dorsal fin. Anyhow, that's the story, thanks again for the advice. Next summer my goals are to hit a salmon run and to stalk some tiny arctic char (they call them dolly varden there) in the smaller, more bear-anoia-inducing streams.

Yep, I gotta admit, it feels pretty good to check the Angels box score every day and gloat in every Pujols 0-fer and GIDP.

Just spent the weekend at a friend's wedding out by Hermann in a cabin with a big farm pond full of big largemouth. The only rod I had on me was a 4-weight fly rod, so I tied on my one and only sneaky pete and went out in a boat to see what happened. After breaking the skinnier part of my leader (leftover from last trout outing) a few times trying to set the hook, I finally started landing some big suckers. I found the 4-weight plenty strong to set the hook, and plenty strong to fight some 16-18 inchers, but really bad for how sore and tired I got from casting with it. In this particular pond it didn't seem to matter if you let it sit or moved it, either way if you got it anywhere close to the deeper bank you'd get a hit on just about every cast, and some of those fish would let you miss 'em two or three times before they wised up. Man, what a fun time. I love Sneaky Pete. But I'll definitely bring a heavier rod next time I go...

Thanks for the advice, guys. And man, how great is it to have this forum where I've learned so much about fishing around MO, then I ask a question about Alaska and people help me out there too. I'll be sure and post some pics if I remember to take them...

I've caught some really "splotchy" rock bass in the upper Meramec, is it possible there are shadow bass there? I'd just like to know because it sounds way cooler to me to tell someone "I caught the elusive Shadow Bass" than it does to tell them "I caught the weird-looking Goggle-eye."

Cool, gonna have to get out there and try it. Been scratching the itch just barely in the city at Horseshoe Lake in Carondelet park, where you can get bluegill to bite almost anything on every cast, but mostly just the tiny ones, even if you use a bigger fly (in which case they just bump into it with their little mouths). Last summer during the cicada madness I had a fun time with some largemouth on one of those bluegill lakes too, and that was before I learned how to cast a fly rod decently at all.

Hi, So this July I'm going up to the Denali National Park area for a couple weeks, helping my brother who lives up there build a cabin. A couple summers ago I fished in a stream in the wilderness a good ways south and east of the park entrance, off the Denali highway, lots of grayling and rainbows in there, not sure what the stream was called. Anybody on here happen to know any other good places, the closer to the park entrance or Healy area the better? Including lakes, which might be easier on my less fishermanny brother? I don't have the money for a guide trip or to fly anywhere, so it's gotta be within hiking distance of the Parks or Denali highways. Also, while I'm at it, I'm really into taking advantage of the rare opportunity to fish for grayling, any advice on flies for them? Any different from trout? Thanks.

Me and my buddy Blade were planning on trying out Cardiac Hill, but with the river a little high and us being kinda novices we decided to hit the park instead, figuring the likelihood of rain would keep some people away. We arrived at 8:30 a.m. and it was pretty packed. I'd never been so we walked around a bit and checked out the spring and hatchery. Really pretty around there. We started out the only place we could find room to backcast, in the middle of the long slack pool I think people are calling the "pond hole," and gradually elbowed our way to a little bit of current around a big tree where I'd seen a few people catching fish. I tried all kinds of wets in various dropper combos: BH pheasant tails, scuds, eggs, a garish big yellow blob I thought might remind them of food, but had nothing but a couple missed strikes (a dangerous thing when it's that crowded, if you're not paying attention behind you). Blade caught two bluegill there while stripping line back in for his next cast, but after a bit we decided to explore a bit and get away from the crowd. Along the way we talked to a few people, and the overwhelming majority were catching them on white powerbait tightlined or under a bobber. We wandered up Dry Fork a little ways and I scared the hell out of a bass with a popper while Blade caught an unidentified minnow. Eventually the morning crowd thinned out and we started fishing right below that first big pool (I think the one people call the "handicap pool"?) in the swirling riffle where the odd trout was rising. I once again threw all kinds of stuff at them, almost picking at random as I was getting nothing. Blade caught a goggle-eye, I think on a pheasant tail. After a lunch break there were short showers off and on, and lots of people cleared out. Having been all geared up for some river fishing, I swallowed my pride and found a spot in the "handicap pool" to target the fresh stockers just the same way I do the ones they stock for the winter urban trout program in Forest Park, STL: that is, put something small under an indicator, cast, and wait. I chose a copper john and after two or three casts started getting some action. After missing two or three strikes and having one fish escape, I finally brought my first trout to hand. No picture, but it was a slightly larger than average stocker, maybe 14" or so. That felt like cheating, so as more people left in the late afternoon we worked back down to the bathroom hole. I swung that same copper john in the little rapids just above the bathrooms and caught a little rainbow. Just as I brought it to hand the guy to my left must have just heard a splash and thrown a reaction cast. A really accurate one, too, because it just about lassoed my line six inches from the fish, yanking the poor guy out of my hand. At the time I was just anxious to get fishing again, so in the ensuing disentanglement discussion I didn't appreciate the humor in the guy's response like I do now: "Sorry, man, I thought you was a fish." Around I guess 4:00 all the sudden trout started jumping out of the water in a few places, and soon I saw why, as swarms of little white bugs were filling up the river. They were really hopping a little downstream and across from the bathrooms, in a cutbank past a submerged rock. I tied on my littlest whitest fly and eventually remembered how to cast that far and throw a big and quick upstream mend to float it by 'em. Took forever, because I'm not used to tying on tiny flies, and my backcast was squeezed between two trees I'd sometimes prune, and I had to keep a close eye on the path to not snag anybody. Got a few good drifts and the fish didn't care, one of them even jumping over my fly like a barrel in Donkey Kong, so I dug around and found one smaller and whiter and tried again. I'm glad I did, because when one of them took it I killed two birds with one stone: my first fish on a match-the-hatch dry fly, and my first brown trout (I think... he's a little guy and it was kinda hard to tell, pic's a little blurry too cuz he wasn't too cooperative a photograph model). That made my day, and I was getting tired, so I switched to the spinner and cast some lazy rooster tails while Blade caught himself a rainbow on that same white fly right off the dropoff in that same pool upstream of the two grass jetties. After I added the hundredth decoration to the tree across the stream and tied on another, I caught a surprisingly strong little goggle eye over there after thinking I was snagged. The last action either of us got was kinda funny: Blade went to backcast, felt something heavy, and heard a slap behind him. It was a little minnow on the fly, and since the barb was mashed, when he cast forward it just flew off and went back in the river. Hope the litle guy lives to tell the incredible tale... All in all I'd call it a pretty successful day for a couple novices such as ourselves, and we capped it off with some cheeseburgers and beers in St. James at Johnny's, which somehow I'd been driving by my whole life and never gone in, despite the siren call of my beloved cheap beer of choice, good ol' Stag.

Much thanks to all from the original poster. I don't mind the tangents at all, I'm pretty prone to those myself. I'll come back on here and report when I go try some of these places out this summer.

Haha, only if by path less trodden you mean NOT catching fish when I go fishing. Thanks for the advice, I'm thinkin' I'll stick to the shore unless I get enough time to shoot out to the Bourbeuse.

I'm about to start a new job out in Eureka, and wondered if anyone can give me any tips on places to fish from the shore or do some light wading around there. Most preferably for smallmouth, C&R and size unimportant. But really for any action, preferably with fly or spinner, stuff I could kill a couple hours with here or there during holes in my schedule (I'm a guitar teacher, so schedule is always shifting around and leaving me twiddling my thumbs). I've read elsewhere in these forums that Route 66 state park is ok, and the part of the Meramec that runs along West Tyson park is a hike but is ok. I will make the usual disclaimer that if you don't want to give away your secrets to everyone, p.m. me and trust I will treat any spot with respect.

Well, now that February is here, the "bucket brigade" has all but taken over, and all the grandchildren running around make back-casting a bit too trecherous for a beginner such as myself. So instead of hitting the lake, I figured I'd reflect a little on my winter of learning how to use my new fly rod at Jefferson Lake in Forest Park. I first want to say how great the program is for city folk like myself who take an interest to fishing but can't necessarily afford (time or $$$-wise) to explore the obsession out on the rivers more than a couple times a year. In the past, I've spin fished at lots of the urban lakes, and at every one have found nice people and plenty of fish (provided you get there in the first few days after a fresh stocking). Spin fishing at Carondelet Park I recall getting tips from really old Bosnian men, sort of old black men, middle-aged Vietnamese men, and good old-fashioned twenty-something white-bred south city hoosiers, all of which worked. Boathouse Lake being a put-and-take location, I will admit to taking home a few fish from time to time, figuring they could at least die with the honor of having taken a rooster tail over powerbait. When I got (for myself) a fly rod for Christmas, I started going to Jefferson Lake in Forest Park instead, since it's a catch-and-release lake and offers more back-casting room all up and down the west bank. It was a perfect place to go flail around until I learned to get the dang fly out at least fifteen feet or so, which is plenty far for a patient man to watch a bobber (er, "strike indicator") until a little stocker takes it under. Humbly questioning some of the fly guys around the park, I got plenty of advice on what flies to use and how far to float them below the indicator. When I first started, embarassment and actual danger of hooking others in the wind kept me from fishing too near others, but as my technique improved, I started talking to the regulars a lot more. Got plenty more advice, even some gifts of flies that were working on a particular day (of course, being a beginner, I lose flies at an alarming rate due to bad knots, premature forward casts, and over-excited hook sets, so no fly would last too long). It being such a mild winter, the lake only froze over once, and even then the ice only extended about fifteen feet. Actually, this was a blessing for me, because it made me have to get better at casting to clear the ice shelf. During that icy week things started coming together, and I started expecting to catch at least a few every time I went. I started going every chance I had, which was more days than not, since I live the musician's schedule (gigs/rehearsals/lessons mostly in the evenings, days wide open). At first I would bring the spinning rod too, in case I couldn't get it together with the fly casting. By the end of January, even on really windy days I'd leave the spinning rod at home. I jumped on a bunch of fly-tying tools/materials I found on craigslist, and the last two-weeks of January I pretty much only fished stuff I had tied, all kind of wooly buggery or leechy things or just kind of marabou wrapped around a hook sort of things. In lieu of pictures, I offer a few highlights: -one of the bigger guys I caught (maybe 14", just a big stocker) I got on accident, just pulling back to recast and he was on there. Of course I played it off real natural in case anyone was watching. -one day I was killing it off the dock with this little brown jig (I started calling it Lyndon B, after Lyndon B. Johnson, LBJ=Little Brown Jig). But then as evening rolled in I snapped it off on a shitty cast, that kind where you hear the whip-crack sound which for me almost always means goodbye fly. A couple days later I walked up to the dock and happened to see good ol' LBJ laying on the concrete there, tied it back on, and proceeded to kill it again until a bigger fish revealed a bad tippet knot by breaking it. -outfishing a guy using Gulp off the dock. Scented baits are supposed to be illegal til February, but since I never saw the guy catch one, I didn't say anything, but sort of delighted in his growing frustration as I pulled in my usual two or three on an ugly, chunky leech I had tied and he never seemed to get a bite. -one day it seemed pretty slow for everyone, which all the regulars have advised me means you ought to go smaller, less conspicuous, and lower, but I kept catching decent fish on this big, orange, glorified hunk of maribou I had tied floated three feet below the surface for the simple reason that I had been too lazy to tie on more tippet when I got there. So that was my winter. I thank all the guys (and one gal) who helped me out. Never caught or remembered most of your names, but I look forward to chatting more next winter. If any of you are on here, I was the guy in the yellow coat who was there all the darn time, name's Matt. Now, what's next? I have some family in Salem, so I am picturing some Current trips in the spring, if I can get the gas money together and get my hands on a cheap pair of waders. Any advice on some places to start/flies to take? After a winter of watching indicators, I'm ready to cast some dries.