Haris122

Went out after work 3 or so times in the past few days to fish the lower meramec from the bank, and didn't so much as get a bite. Hopefully something will start biting again. Read that the bigger Blue cats at least stay active during winter, provided I can get the bait out far enough. Last winter one day I cut up a dead asian carp I found floating on shore, and actually had something take it good, but then it got off before I could even find out what it was, so I'm holding out hope.

Sorry for your loss. I shot my first deer this year, and I too shot it in a rugged area deeper into the woods than I anticipated going. And even though I'm relatively young, and not in bad shape, it was a very exhausting process bringing that deer out. Think it took me around 5-6 hours over the course of two days to haul it out, and this wasn't a monster, just a good size spike buck. 2nd day I even just wrapped it in a tarp and strapped it to a dolly and it was still very rough going. A few times going up a steep incline while pulling the dolly, I was seriously expecting my heart to just call it quits, with how much it was pumping.

I'm with you there Norm. Once winter really gets underway I consider it a good day if there's one fish I caught. I wouldn't mind more, but unless it's trout fishing, I figure it's asking for much to expect more. Could just be my type of fishing being too quick to be effective.

I've fished at January Wabash or whatever it's called, a few times, and I'm not going to put it beyond all realm of possibility, but the 3-4 times I've been up there no one gave me any grief. Granted this wasn't in 1983, nor these past couple months since that shooting happened. But I fished for trout there a few times while in-between classes at UMSL. I wasn't familiar with what kind of neighborhood Ferguson was first time I went so, I was a bit apprehensive, but it turned out about the same as any other local park. By the way, anyone notice if they started stocking trout at local parks yet?

Well I do intend to go fish the rivers as well some, but I feel like kayaking in a river in winter would be more prone to tipping over than in an enclosed body of water. And if it does get as bad as last winter most enclosed water nearby will have a period of several weeks where the water will freeze over but still won't be thick enough to ice fish. On that note JD what would be the nearest non-trout park water to St. Louis where one can expect to have some decent pace of action, catching Smallmouth's (and other fish in general) in the dead of winter? How far below Meramec Spring boundaries does the warm water from the spring still warm water enough to keep them going regularly?

So then both Baldwin and Coffeen Lakes allow for Kayaks, right?

Do you guys know of any warm water reservoirs/lakes/whatever to focus on during winter, and if so mind giving me their names to read up on? In my case I'd be especially interested in ones reasonably close to the St. Louis area (Illinois side included), especially if kayaking is safely doable and permitted there as well. In years past I've resorted to Meramec Springs, as well as urban trout stocked lakes (as long as they weren't iced over) if I wanted a good chance at catching something in winter from a regular body of water (i.e. flowing water). This winter if it slows down a lot, I'd like to expand my repertoir and check out some of the warm water discharge reservoirs, where one could reasonably expect to catch more than just one type of fish. As of now I know of Thomas Hill Reservoir and if nothing more, I will head out to it at least once, provided fishing with a kayak is legal there. But it is far for me, and naturally if I could find a spot that's less of a drive, it would be better. So yeah, any leads and/or tips on fishing warm water lakes in winter (if there is anything different to it) would be appreciated.

I asked this at another section of the forum but I wanted to span out to improve my chances of finding out about it. In case this winter turns out to be as rough as last year, I'm trying to think of potential fishing trips aside from the usual trout fishing, and ice fishing (provided the ice gets thick enough). I'm wondering if someone can give me some fairly recent information on fishing at Thomas Hill Reservoir. Like what kind of fish you have luck with, how busy the lake gets/if it's fishable from a kayak, how good the fishing is, etc. Also am wondering if someone knows of any other warm water discharge lakes within an hour or two of St. Louis (Illinois lakes work too). Thomas Hill is kind of on the far end of how far I'd want to have to go, but if the winter is rough, I would try it once or twice at least.

In case this winter turns out to be as rough as last year, I'm trying to think of potential fishing trips aside from the usual trout fishing, and ice fishing (provided the ice gets thick enough). I'm wondering if someone can give me some information on fishing at Thomas Hill Reservoir. Like what kind of fish you have luck with, how busy the lake gets/if it's fishable from a kayak, how good the fishing is, etc. Also am wondering if someone knows of any other warm water discharge lakes within an hour or two of St. Louis (Illinois lakes work too). Thomas Hill is kind of on the far end of how far I'd want to have to go, but if the winter is rough, I would try it once or twice at least.

These first two times actually I just fished from the bank (right near that boat ramp). Didn't quite have the time to bother loading up the kayak like initially planned but soon I'll try it out too.

Went down there again this afternoon, and caught a solid little Drum that was around the foot mark, or just shy of it, on a roostertail of all things. Certainly gave a good account of himself, I thought I had something a bit bigger on, judging from the drag and overall reluctance to come to me. Had another bite on a rod I had put out and let sit with stinkbait on, but it didn't take it for good, so I never found out what it was. That sums up the action there was for me. Not the best day to be out there, but it was stil nice.

Cool, thanks Daryk. Today I only managed to get like 50 minutes in, and I didn't have any luck with it, but maybe next time it will work out.

Yeah I meant Common ones. Hmm, I never really gave the hair rig or chumming and returning several hours later a try. Certainly worth a shot. I'll try that out one of these days. The one common one I caught to date was on a corn paste type bait that you can mold around the hook, I figured I'd have at least had bites on it when I went, but I do hear they're difficult to fool.

Thanks Daryk. I'm thinking I'll try my luck at that one that's called Bates Memorial Park. So I did find some mention of it, but on any maps I'm looking at I'm not finding any definitive identifier, so mind pointing me to where Doe Run Access is for future reference?

Can anyone guide me to public spots from which to access Joachim creek? Been wanting to fish (from the bank or kayak) it but there's really not much I have found out about places to access it. So far I've only stumbled into West Festus park, and some mentions of some kind of park that's in Herculaneum. I intend to check google earth and or maps more thoroughly but it would be cool if people that know also chime in, as that's always helpful if my other avenue doesn't work out.

What's the way to fish it right? Have you been there recently and caught common carp?

Went back to Butler Lake again a few days ago, and I still only saw Silver or Bigheads, and a turtle. No luck as far as any common ones go though. I have seen people catch some pretty good chunk common carps on 2 separate occasions at suson. ANd personally I think George Winter still holds some promise.

I know as far as the Meramec goes, I've seen them in good numbers as far up as Pacific Palisades. Can't say I've noticed them (in groups at least) further upstream than that, but then again I don't frequent the Meramec further upstream of there anywhere near as as much as below it. I don't know about the silver carp, but I do know there's at least the bighead carp, in lake of the ozarks. Not too many years ago I remember seeing an article on a sad new state record of a huge bighead coming from LOZ.

Holy cow, that guy hunting hogs with the minigun seemed to have accomplished a lot of nothing. I don't think he killed 3 feral pigs with probably 100 rounds he fired off. Should've waited for them to get together in a cluster before he used that baby. I'll admit, I'm one of the folks that has a couple of the more "assault" like rifles around. I got mine first for "just in case" and for flexibility purposes, and then later on it evovled into a hobby of assembling them from parts kits. Granted it's not great at any one thing, but for someone on a limited budget, I do think it has its perks. There's desireable features for defence (reliable semi-auto fire, no need for immediate reload, and power to stop someone or larger game more so than a lot of handgun calibers), yet at the same time it's robust and has sufficient range for a lot of the run-of the mill missouri hunting purposes. And the ammunition is generally cheap to practice with more than other calibers, and just to enjoy shooting the gun/guns with just for fun. In the end, a shotgun would've probably accomplished a lot of the same, but my particular one is also more easy to manouver than most shotguns, and there's a bit less time and target aquisition lost with the semi-auto mechanism if need be, than with the pump of the shotgun. Plus slugs for a 12 gauge are much more expensive to practice with. Though there's no legality problems as far as taking a shotgun to another state if you move, but oh well. It has it's pluses and minuses. Point being it's not great at a lot of things, but if you shop right, the price it could be a good deal cheaper than buying a shotgun, pistol, and dedicated hunting rifle separately, or even just a shotgun and pistol. Eventually I still got me both of those others anyways, but nonetheless, for a long time it was just my semi-auto rifle and that's it.

It may be growing (though from what I see the actual sea ice (not the landmass of the arctic or antarctic included is smaller than the arctic) but take a look at the table at the bottom of this link http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/difference.html While the antarctic ice sheet has been increasing less than a percent per decade, the arctic ice sheet (which also happens to be twice as thick), has been decreasing by 4% every decade. But let me guess, we'll just throw that out for the sake of convenience yet again, as most of those who want to believe nothing is going on, will continue to do. I didn't check, but it seems to make sense to me that ice in the hemishpere where the most human activity is pumping out greenhouse gases, would be the one doing worse, as it is. Seriously, at some point just continuously finding the exception to the rule, to confirm the view your comfortable with, will bite us in the rear bad. But let's go on and keep doing it.

I've been checked twice so far in about 3-4 years of fishing, if I remember correctly. Once while stopping for a bit at Uehlmayer access on the Beurbouse and once at Pacific Palisades. Both times it was the usual friendly catch anything type discussion. No real problems, though the guy at Palisades did ask me to move my car for whatever reason to a different parking spot. I don't think there was a good reason to have me do that, but oh well I did it anyways. Aside from that it went fine.

So far I've been exclusively using my own bastardized version of the improved clinch knot. Wouldn't surprise me much if that counteracts whatever part of it is improved. I told myself I'd learn more proffessional knots like the Palomar, but got lazy once I found out that this one works good enough not to get undone when a fish is added to the equation. The frequent times I get a snag that I can't undo, the line eventually breaks, but I still feel like the actual knot holds well enough to for a while. I do know it looks neater with braid, but I mainly just fish mono anyways.

Been a couple months since I visited Butler Lake, but I can't say I ever saw any common carp there. I snagged a Silver or Bighead carp, and caught a channel catfish out of it to date. I have caught and seen other dead ones around the two George Winter Parks before though.

This right here is some serious wisdom.

Sweet , I'd take a 16 1/4" fish any day. I also went out this evening and got a little fishing in at carondelet park. Caught a catfish on a crankbait of all things.