STL Matt

I'll have to try that, Jim. Do you put the spinner in front of the bugger?

Well guys, almost a year later I finally got to try your ideas out. In the meantime there was an unfortunate incident involving probably some beer and poor canoe navigation on the eleven point resulting in a broken rod, and hence another year of mostly spin fishing. But my girlfriend got me a new fly rod for christmas and I took it out to Jefferson Lake in Forest Park and did like you said, floating minijigs and leeches and stuff under an indicator. And sure enough, fish! Thank you! Next step is to figure out how to cast a fly more than 20 feet...

I thought about throwing an actual cicada out there, but they don't take too long to drown, so you might have to bait up every couple casts. Lemme know if it works, me and my fishing buddies had a little debate about it... I'll have to go try for some big guys next time I'm out there.

Went to lake 23 cuz I heard there were bigger bluegills, but the first thing I noticed was that the lake was swarming with cicadas, and every time one fell in, it was only a matter of ten or twenty seconds before some ok-size largemouth would come eat'em. Lucky me, I had my fly rod and had some cheap poppers in the trunk, and caught my first-ever bass on a fly, and would've got more if I weren't dying of heat exhaustion at the time.... They aren't too big (most I saw looked about 12") but they sure are tuned in to big wiggly things on the surface.

MUCH respect to anyone who can work one of these. I have enough trouble when I try the lap steel...

It gets WAY easier after you build the finger muscles and the fingertip calluses. The good thing is, learning a bunch of open chords and progressions takes about as long as building up the physical side, so even though it seems really hard for a while, when you come out on the other end you'll suddenly be able to strum most any tune you can think of. (I figure I'm getting such great fishing advice around here, I have to pay it back by advising on something I know a lot more about, being a guitar teacher)

Thanks for the advice, guys. Will maybe try some jigs and eggs out up at Busch Conservation area next week if it seems like the city parks are all fished out...

So I am a beginner anyhow, and most probably it's my clumsy casting or some other beginner mistake, but I've noticed every time I hit the St. Louis winter trout lakes, I'm not the only one not catching fish. At first I thought maybe it was a matter of showing up too late after stockings, but I went out to Carondelet Park today only two days after they put 1000 trout in (saw a good few dead ones floating around in the leaves) and of the twenty or so guys out there on various rigs I never saw a single fish pulled in. I've tried small nymphs under an indicator, and I've tried stripping in wooly buggers. Been out in the daytime and in the evening. Nuthin'. Any advice how to catch these guys? I thought hatchery trout were supposed to be easily fooled...

Way late to the party here, but I'm a hell of a lot better at guitar than fishing. Which is good because I make most of my living teaching guitar. My fave is a huge old jumbo Kay acoustic, or my unreasonably weighty early 90s not fully American teleCASTER, preferably through a little 60s Fender Vibrochamp turned up to 10.

Hey everyone, I'm Matt. I never really cared too much about fishing one way or another til I went and visited my brother up outside Denali Nat'l. Park in Alaska last summer, where we went out fly-fishing on a little stream, where I caught a little wild trout, and now I am pretty well hooked. Got a starter rod/reel from bro for christmas, and I have taken it out to some little thawed-out holes in the St. Louis winter trout lakes at Forest Park and Carondelet Park (no fish yet, though I did have one on a hook for about three seconds...). Can't wait til it gets warm enough to go learn a thing or two from my Grandfather, who I guess could never get his grandkids interested in fly fishing until now that he can hardly physically manage... what a pity. In the meantime if you see some guy flailing around a St. Louis pond trying not to throw knots into his leader, it's probably me...