Haris122

Me and a fishing buddy floated that stretch of the Big River last week, the first stretch of days that weather got nice. I borrowed one of his kayaks and I was quite a bit more unstable in it than in my normal one. Had some technical difficulties with it including some water pooling right under the seat. Right as we were about to get to Mammoth, in the last choppy stretch less than half a mile from the take out spot, I went for an unplanned swim. Had a few prior spots where I almost fell in but somehow recovered from those but that last one got me. We put in around 1, then took our sweet time in the first half of the float trying to catch something , basically making a giant loop near the access, so then the 2nd half from the main portion of the state park on down, we tried to speed things up. Surprisingly we still made it out before it got all the way dark, even with my swim and subsequently trying to find some of my ancillary stuff that had went for a swim as well. I caught first fish, towards the latter end of the first half of the float. It was a 12-13” smallmouth near a deeper pool by a big boulder that was by shore. Then my buddy got one just a bit downstream of the “beach” at the state park, evening it out. Pretty much the same size and also close to a stretch of bigger boulders. Then I got the winner, right after we went past this tricky section where a big fallen tree was causing the water to swirl quite a bit behind it, just past where mineral fork entered. Once we made it past that tricky spot the fast water kind of dumped into a deeper pool that looked real good. I cast around there a bit, and caught that last fish of the day. Another 12-13” smallie. And then a bit below there was where I went for a swim. Not a very productive day by some of you guys’ standards, but we were just happy to catch something considering it was still February. Think next time I’ll just stick to my own kayak though. And next time we might just hit either the first 3 mile or 2nd 3 mile half so we can really take our time fishing around. Hard to find enough river stretches where you can just do 3 miles and take out, but this stretch seems to hold some promise for that. When I do 6 or so miles I usually end up taking so long fishing the first stretch, that I then have to rush to make it out by dark, especially cause I’m generally not out on the water until late morning or noon.

1. Fish some more with my dad and hopefully get him to catch some decent fish. 2.Get back into wade fishing some of the red ribbon sections on the meramec this year, and do some wade fishing in general. Once I messed up my knee a few years back, that stuff went completely out the door. I’m hoping now I can do it again without re-injuring the knee somehow. 3. Take the kayak out even more, and fish while floating on stretches of rivers around here, more than I did last few years. I did get back into it some the past year and a half, but I want to up the amount I do that. 4. Just in general make it out to fish more often than I have the previous several years.

Yeah I forgot to give an update but someone I contacted regarding the kayak (think it was either someone from the company selling it or perception kayaks) sent me a link to a place selling polyethylene (I believe) rods/sticks and a youtube video on how to “weld” the rods into the hole. I ordered some of those and got a heat gun and basically once I found the spot that was leaking I just melted some of the rods into the hull of the kayak there and it seems to work. Like you guys said, need to check what your kayak is made out of first. My “weld” doesn’t look very professional but it stopped water coming in. Luckily it wasn’t a difficult shape as far as the hole. Had it been it might’ve given me more problems. I might need to see if I recently got another hole though. When we went kayaking the Big River several weeks back, my kayak dragged a lot and at the end when we lifted it up, we were getting water dripping on us from another spot. Didn’t seem as big a leak as the other one but I should plug it too one of these days.

Yeah if I can find it I’m thinking of getting one like my friend has. He’s got a rope to his that allows him to lift it up and back down somehow when he needs either option.

I probably should’ve quoted your question so you see that I replied so here goes.

Sorry didn’t see your post earlier. I think we started around 1-1:30 and got done around 7 I think. Though I noticed I have a hard time being timely when fishing. We definitely spent a lot of time on the first half of the float, trying to fish a lot and then the 2nd half we had to speed things up a bit. It’s about a 6 or so mile float I think, so really should be doable probably in 4-5 hours if you don’t get caught up fishing too many spots. That said I think first half seemed a bit better for fishing overall too. I think the Big River flowing into the Meramec is roughly the halfway point, maybe 2/3 of the way so once you get there, that would be a good indicator on whether you need to really speed things up, or got plenty of time left.

How much do rudders help in casting? My kayak doesn’t have one and my kayak frequently ends up turning in an inconvenient direction as I’m retrieving a cast. Noticed my friend’s kayak didn’t do much of that and he has a rudder so for those that have one does it make a big difference?

Well this particular jointed rapala I was using last time, is meant to dive between 2-4 feet. Realistically it was probably doing closer to 1-3 ft. So let’s say 2 foot and less.

Honestly I’m not too picky what kind of fish it is, Drum, Smallmouth, Gar, or anything in-between as long as I know I caught them fair and square (not snagged by accident). I’m just hoping to get into some bigger fish. I seem to get constantly into smaller stuff but the big ones tend to elude me. I always like throwing shallower crank and minnow lures but haven’t had the best of luck with them for big ones even when the lures are bigger too. You guys get big ones with some regularity with shallow crank and minnow lures?

Wow, nice one. I guess I didn’t explain what I meant though. I was asking if you catch any big ones with shallow diving minnow/crankbaits?

Yeah I need to. For some reason I just really like fishing shallower diving minnow/crankbaits. You catch any big ones with those with any frequency?

Floated yesterday again with my fishing buddy that has the hobie drive paddleboard. We decided to try the Big River from Mammoth to Merril Horse access this time. We hit it around noon and fished until it got dark. Again we took a bit too long at first so we had to rush through the 2nd half to make it before it got too dark. We ended up at Merril Horse right as it got real dark. We both mainly fished crankbait/minnow lures. My fishing was subpar again. I mostly threw one of the jointed shallow diving (2-4ft) shad colored Rapala’s, with a few other ones thrown in from time to time but it wasn’t happening for me. I got one small smallmouth, and a 8” or so goggle eye, and that was all I got the whole float. I don’t remember exactly what my friend threw except that he had most luck on the one that was blue with orange/yellow belly. He wound up with 14 fish including maybe half of them being bluegill/other sunfish, and the other half being a variety of bass of different sizes, with biggest being a 13-14” smallmouth. Float was about 5 miles and some change so I averaged less than 1 per 2 miles, haha. Was hoping I’d at least hook into a big bass to add a silver lining to being so outfished, but no luck. I would say the 2nd half of the float actually seemed a bit better water but there was a lot of decent looking spots throughout. Just sparse on the fish for me. Plenty of really shallow spots too. Guess the dry summer really showed as we were dragging on rocks with some regularity. Hopefully I get out of the slump soon, with a nice catch out of the yak.

A couple weeks ago me and a fishing buddy ended up floating the meramec from Allenton to Route 66 State Park. Earlier this year he had got one of the foot flipper paddleboard kayaks so he was trying to go use that more. That thing was really nice. Next time I got some extra money, I think I’ll get me one with the hobie style drive too. He didn’t seem to have issues with shallow spots either which really sold me on it. Anyway, fish wise I didn’t do too hot. Got 4 small bass. Think 1 smallie, 2 spotted, and maybe a hybrid between the 2. My buddy did a lot better. Think he got 12 or so fish, several bass almost all bigger than mine. Nothing huge but around the 12” mark. He also got 2 nice 18” drum. All in all he did a lot better than me. We hit the big river yesterday and he outfished me even more there though that time there wasn’t any real big ones like those drum peppered in. We both were mainly throwing an assortment of crank/minnow baits both floats. The first half of the float seemed a lot better than the 2nd though we did have to rush through the 2nd half more since we took too long at first.

So I sent an email to perception and I’m currently waiting to see if they respond, and I talked a little bit with someone from the company under who’s brand the kayak is sold, (“field and stream”) and was suggested to try something called “Marine Tex Might Repair Kit”. Anyone have any experience with that stuff? If so, what’d you think of it?

I’m currently in the same boat. Last time I took my kayak out floating on the meramec I wound up noticing it getting pretty unstable when I was turning. After making it to the access we checked it out, and my suspicions were confirmed that the hull was somehow getting water sloshing in it. I’m having a hard time finding out what type of plastic it is to figure out what type of patching kit would be good. All I know is it’s a “Field and Stream Shadow Caster”. Any suggestions on a couple different “good” patching kits to try out?