Haris122

How did it fight?

I'll try to write it in smaller font next time to indicate me whispering it quietly. One weird thing with trout fishing, almost all of us wear some kind of camo clothing from my experience. I was the guy that had 4 of the regular lighter action rods with spinning and spincast reels on, and fished the spincasting ones holding them upside-down (as if they were spinning reels, just reeling it in towards me). I've been wanting to go fish there during or after some snow, but I work this weekend. Maybe the snow will stick around long enough for me to go Monday or Tuesday. If it only were a little shorter of a drive from St. Louis.

I'm not sure what exactly the dam is but if I'm thinking of the same location you are then we might have fished kind of nearby most of the time. I spent most of the day at the upper portion of the park but just on the side by the parking lots. I just made it down to where the bathrooms are for the last 30 minutes of the day just to try a little further downstream as well. I didn't get further downstream than that but it seemed to me like the trout were definitely more concentrated at the upper portion of the park. Yesterday was weird, I usually don't have anywhere near that much luck. I usually struggle most of the day just to get more than 2 fish, and still don't but the last two times I've been pretty lucky.

New Year and my recent trip to Meramec Springs started me off pretty good I'd say for this year, especially with not having caught anything this year up until the trip. None of them were brand new species but there were definitely a couple I didn't catch for a while prior to this. I got 5 Rainbow Trout, 3 Rockbass, 1 Brown Trout, 1 Smallmouth Bass, and 1 Largemouth Bass. Rainbow, and Largemouth aside, it has been at least half a year since I got any of those other ones I think. The Smallmouth especially, I don't think I caught one of, for close to a year if not longer. Last time I got one of them, was also in Meramec Springs, though this one was bigger.

I was just about to make a report for today myself. What time were you there? And what areas did you fish? I thought the water was just mildly dingier from what it usually is. Seemed to work in my favor though. I started a bit after 11 and went until closing time. Started out a bit upstream of the fish cleaning station, Pretty much all day I was fishing roostertails on my 2 light action rods, a moth looking fly under a bobber (not on fly rod, just ultra light spinning outfit), and a black marabou jig under slip float on another ultra light. Actually wound up with 5 Rainbows, 3 Rockbass/Goggleeye, and 1 apiece of Brown Trout, Smallmouth, and Largemouth. Pretty fun day. The roostertails produced the best for me. Think I got 7 or 8 fish on them. Another 2 or 3 on the marabou jig, and just 1 on the "moth fly". Got my first one just downstream of where the little island is and the two stream arms meet back up. Was a 12" or so Rainbow on my best roostertail, a grey-black 1/24th or 1/16th one with silver spoon. Fought pretty good. I'd say it was my 2nd best fight of the day. Unfortunately it squirmed and thrashed around as I was trying to unhook it, and unhooked itself before I could take a picture. Don't want to bore people with too many details so I'll just say this, top 3 fighters were my biggest rainbow at 14" on a roostertail, along with the first fish of the day (the rainbow I already mentioned), and the smallmouth. The big rainbow fought like he was on steroids on the light action rod. Every time I'd think I got it tired out and close enough to net, it would take off on another run like crazy. It did that a good 6 or so times. I just kind of tried lowering the drag so it didn't unhook itself from the violent runs, and just kind of tried to ride it out. I'm really surprised it didn't get off, as much as it shook it's head, thrashed and ran and all. Turned out the hook was right in the top of the snout by the time I got it in. Being the genius I am, I only remembered that I had not took a picture of it, after it was already back in the water and out of my hands. But here's some pics of some of the others. Hey bkb, hope you don't mind me tagging my report along with yours.

Yeah, I was debating going to Huzzah CA, or Meramec Springs and in the end went to Meramec Springs. Turned out pretty fun. Got 11 fish, including 3 Rock Bass, and 1 Smallmouth. Nothing big, but 9" on the biggest Rock bass, and I didn't measure it but probably 12" or so for the Smallmouth. Kind of got what I hoped to encounter on the Courtois and Huzzah anyways. Still, I'll give it a shot there another time. Maybe bring the kayak there during warmer weather and see how things go.

My first fish of 2016 finally arrived, at Meramec Springs today. As well as another 10 first fish of 2016. It was a feisty Rainbow probably in the 12-13" range. However, it continued thrashing and squirming around as I was trying to remove the roostertail from it, and in the process unhooked himself, and swam off before I could even take a picture. It would turn out to be my 2nd best fight of the day. So instead here's a pic of my 2nd fish of 2016. All in all got 5 Rainbows, 3 Rock Bass, 1 Brown Trout, 1 Smallmouth, and this Largemouth. Pretty fun day.

I've been wanting to go somewhere where you can catch chain and/or grass pickerel this year. How do they fight if you don't mind me asking.

Somewhat interesting that that's what the sign you got caught on says. Btw since all worked out, as joeD asked, had anything biting in the flood waters?

Just spent 20-30 minutes writing a more detailed post just to find out I got logged off somehow and the entire thing I wrote just disappeared with the wind. So this time I'll try to keep it short and simple. What kind of success fishing either or both of those creeks would one stand from the bank if they were to go there today/tomorrow(Wednesday). Judging by gauge information water is supposed to be around 4 feet high, and hovering in the low 40's. I plan on trying fishing from Huzzah CA, from the bank with some mild shallow wading, if I go. What species could I expect to catch at this time, and how good would I have to be to coax them into biting a lure of some sort.

Which fought the best? And where did you go?

I checked it out a little bit as I tried fishing today. It looked pretty cool. The spillway at 33 was even crazier today. But not as cool looking. I couldn't even catch so much as a bite.

How much damage do you guys think that sewage treatment plant leak in Fenton is going to do?

I went to Lake 33 at Bush Wildlife today near the spillway, and fishing from the bank there I saw 3-4 fish dead in the marshy grass. Must've got stuck when the lake levels dropped. Pretty sure there were more had I looked really closely. But I guess in that instance the spillway causes the water to recede faster too. Wonder what percent of the fish that venture out into floodplains end up getting stuck there. A few weeks back I saw what looked like a pile of Fish on the Illinois side of the Mississippi in a flood plain that had drained. I would've figured they somehow should know when to head back on time.

Where's this at? Reminds me a bit of the car sales lot just outside of route 66 state park entrance, but I'm not completely certain if it is.

Good topic. I'm kind of curious myself.

I used to collect and eventually take it to get recycled. Mainly stuff like Aluminum/tin cans and paper items before we had a recycling trash can that the county started giving out to everyone (at least they have in south county it seems), and I managed to recycle a bit that way, but nowadays quite a bit of stuff ends up in the recycling bin. My parents and some visitors still don't get what all is allowable in the recycling bin and what's not, but for the most part I think it works, and I think it's good to do overall. I think the link shared a few pages back seemed a bit off. A lot of the time it seemed more focused on the cost of recycling compared to just dumping it. Of course it's going to be cheaper for a municipality in the short term to just toss everything, but by that token it's also cheaper to just dump a barrel of oil or who knows what somewhere as opposed to dispose of it properly. Doesn't mean in the long term it won't bite someone in the rear doing so. If you can actually recover enough of the material at a reasonable cost and quality to be relatively comparable to virgin material, why not. It may take us a while but the bottom line still is that the resource will run out. There's a finite amount of it. I'd even be for multistream recycling if the garbage collectors were on board. Single stream helps still but is also not anywhere near as efficient it sounded like.

Sweet. I'm craving going there again soon.

Of the big lakes in Missouri, it's the lake I've gone the most to, but that doesn't mean much since that means I went twice. It's reasonably close and cheaper to stay by, than a lot of the other big lakes it seems, at least from St. Louis, but still kind of far enough away that I can't go frequently. Btw, what's the latest to go to it, before it turns too cold there to be productive as I'd like to go again this year.

I think the single treble on a regular roostertail they tend to count as 1 hook at Meramec Springs. With crank and jerkbaits the dual trebles is where I assume the real problem would come up. But I feel like the regular roostertails they allowed in the past. I've grown quite fond of the single hook roostertails anyways though. They don't catch on as much grass and it's quicker and less damaging to the fish to get that 1 hook out of it.

Oh I am. They say that lake has a lot of big bass, but this was my first one of those. And it didn't disappoint.

This stuff got me looking forward to trying my hand kayak fishing some part of the Meramec soon

I need to go there soon. After deer season I'll have more time.

Sweet. Never caught a Sauger before. Maybe once, and I thought it was a small Walleye, but still, very rarely do I encounter either of those.

If I remember correctly, you will need the tag and a regular fishing license. I don't think you need the trout stamp, but I could be wrong. Parking was normally free but you still have to pay for the tag.