Haris122

I fished the Meramec from the shore Sunday evening for a few hours. Had two rods with some type of sweet corn carp bait out on the bottom, hoping I'd get something, drum, gar, catfish, whatever, but secretly hoping I'd finally hook a carp. Anyways, I had a few probing bites fairly early on, but nothing that committed and eventually it died down completely. The bait also kept falling off a bit too easy after just a few casts, so I kept on tinkering with stuff. Anyways, eventually I returned to the carp bait on trebles on the bottom. Anyways shortly before I'm about to pack up, I'm attending to my medium rod, when the bell on the medium heavy one goes off. First I see the rod tip bend a few times, then it stays bent, and just keeps on bending further and further down, until I'm thinking it will outright snap. I'm wondering just how huge a fish I got on, right as I run towards it to start fighting it. All of a sudden the rod holder gets pulled out of the gravel, and the rod simultaneously falls out of the holder, and slingshots into the water. I spend a second wondering what to do, until I decide to just go for it and run into the water after it. Just in case whatever got hooked hasn't dragged it halfway to the other bank of the river. After feeling around in the shallows for a few seconds, to my surprise I find the rod still near the shore, pick it up, and start reeling. Several minutes of back and forth later, the fish finally goes into shallow water and I pull it in the rest of the way. To my surprise what do I have? A common carp, just slightly over 2 feet. Now don't get me wrong, for me it was a hell of a fish.Certainly one of my biggest, and I'm certain it was the heaviest I've ever caught. Even though it was just over 2 feet, it was one wide stocky fish, but man I'll be honest, I almost didn't know if I wanted to reel it in at first, cause for a while I thought it had to be at least a 50 pound cat if not something bigger, easily capable of pulling me into the Meramec at night, the way that rod bent. I'll see about posting a few pictures from my phone later on. Man that was an awesome experience.

Been down there a couple times. Mostly just fished, but want to swim around a bit too when the water warms up. Can't say I would've wanted to hang out right beneath the dam, but you never know where all it can hit you I guess.

I went to Emmenegger this afternoon and didn't have much luck. Left one rod sitting out there on the bottom, for catfish, carp, drum or what have you, while actively fishing (and frequently losing to snags) topwater, then some soft plastics, and then crankbaits on the other rod for actively searching predatory fish. Even on cut bait sitting out there, it took a while to get some action, but as I'm trying to free up a crankbait I snagged merely feet away in the water on the other rod, I hear the bell on the big rod go crazy, so I break the line and rush to it instead. Ended up being a nice fat 18" channel cat. One thing I don't understand about Emmenegger is why Kirkwood has that stupid sunset restriction. Most other parks and accesses give you at least another 30 minutes after sunset, and that's the official time, most of the time they're even more generous on chasing you out of the park than that. Kirkwood parks, apparently not so much.

That right there is time well spent driving out to St. Charles.

Good information, thanks. I'm going to try out my first several kayak fishing trips at some local lakes first, and then head out on the river. See what that brings me.

I might need the rod holder since my kayak is the regular sit in type. Might be too much of a pita to try to pull the rod out from the bottom every time I'm ready to fish. Though it certainly would be hard to lose when I got it in there. As far as the anchor, so what's the basic method to river fishing out of a kayak then? I imagined something like paddling up to a slow backwater portion of the river or something, lowering the anchor and casting around to where you can get to, then pull up the anchor and rinse and repeat someplace else with reasonably calm water. Otherwise I don't see how I'd even have the time to pick up the rod, while paddling just to stay in place.

Sweet man. What a fish. You're inspiring me to try to kayak my way upriver too, once I finally get me an anchor and the rod holder installed. I've been really dragging my rear on getting it set up. How important of a tool do you think the fish finder/sonar, you got in the top picture, is? And how much do those go for?

I guess I've just grown a bit apprehensive about setting it past the initial light set I get from quickly tilting the rod to keep tension tight, cause I expect it to just rip out of it's mouth much more often than not. I guess I got to get over that fear some time. Its an assortment of them. A few spinning reels of various kinds, as well as some spincast reels like the abumatic, and Zebco 33 Platinum for example.

Normally I can't say I really "set" the hook with roostertails (or crankbaits, and most other baits I mainly get hits on the retrieve on). It's more of a matter of the fish setting itself I feel like. Sometimes the bite can be subtle enough that I'm not even certain that it is a fish or just hitting against some kind of structure, until I'm already in the thick of the fight. How hard it hits the roostertail and how quickly the roostertail is being reeled in by me at that moment, is what primarily determines how good it gets hooked. Afterwards I'm wary of really setting it any more than it got set naturally for fear of ripping it out of it's mouth instead. I just try to keep tension on the line, by having the rod bent high or to the side and reeling in fast, which kind of cuts down on the time to set the hook. How should I approach it instead?

About 2 days ago I ended up fishing Upper Fabick Lake for a couple hours after work, and though it turned out good, it could've been better, and I think the drag may be partially to blame. I caught 5 fish that evening, only 2 of them weren't real small. One was a 8" Bluegill or Redear, and the other a 13" Largemouth. Now to the problem. I hooked up at least another 5 times on top of those 5 when I managed to bring the fish in. 2 of those times it was another decent Largemouth (maybe even same one). Both those times I had the Bass on for 5-10 seconds or so, and even saw it take the lure on the 2nd occasion. Both times the Bass managed to shake the roostertail close to me bringing it in. So now my question is, what are some symptoms of having a drag set too low when you end up loosing a fish during such a fight, and what are the symptoms of too tight a drag? How can I tell if I lost the fish to a drag that had too little resistance, or too much? In the first case for sure, and I'm pretty certain in the second as well, the Bass started putting the drag to work shortly before it got off. Later when I got that 13" to shore I had adjusted the drag to be pretty stout and essentially horsed it to shore, but I feel like I lost a lot of fish to this problem in the past and there's bound to be plenty good ones I can't just horse to shore.

How do you guys prepare small 7" or so Crappie? I caught 9 of them and a Bluegill last Friday, and of those 9 I kept 5, and when I tried filleting them it really didn't go smooth. I wound up with barely any meat to show for it, and kind of felt like I wasted 5 perfectly good Crappie that I could've just released instead.

What species is that? And what did it bite on?

I'm curious though, what exactly is the mechanical detriment to using them that way? Is it like moguy1973 said, that the bend of the rod is supposed to be the opposite way and that this may cause it to break if let's say you're fighting a strong fish? Cause I feel like the way I use it now, the actual act of casting is just a lot more controlable than using it the traditional way when you push the button as you cast. Now I just push the button, hold the line to the rod and release it as I cast it out. I tried a few times the way it was designed, and with most of those reels, the line would start to unspool and then hang up on something, resulting in a poor cast. Not that that never happens the other way around, but I felt like it happens less frequently this way, on top of being more natural to me.

I don't know exactly. Every one I've had has had some problems, if not outright been a complete pain in the rear. Yet for some reason I still gravitate towards them. Currently I'm trying out the newer design Zebco 33 platinum reel, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it so far, but I've only had it for a few weeks.

Feels actually more intuitive to me that way. I can live with that if that's all.

What about a spincast combo used upside down (with the reel, and guides facing the ground, like the norm for a spinning reel), any mechanical restriction of the design, with that? Cause that's how I fish with my spincast gear.

Hell of a day right there.

I found it to be a real pain in the rear to post pictures on here with the i-phone. As far as pond fishing stories, I went to a pond that belongs to family of a friend I've fished with, and on the way there I thought they were seriously overstating how good this place was, or at least the part where anyone can catch fish there. I thought for sure I would buck that trend. I was even more certain of it when we got there and saw that it was fairly small. Then when both of them caught fish within minutes of getting there, I was certain I wouldn't, since I was still waiting and I was not a stranger to watching others catch them like crazy while I watched. But man, when I started catching them, it started going crazy. They were still catching fish, I was making my way to a new high personal fish count (just 6-7 but nonetheless, by far better than my average). Just an awesome day all over. No huge fish were caught, but they were stocky little Bass, and it was pretty awesome to get that kind of luck going from a place that small. I couldn't believe there were anywhere near that many Bass in there.

I went out there yesterday and for most of the day nothing was happening. Water was somewhat dingy and choppy, and the constant gusts of wind didn't help me any either. Started out fishing from the dock casting out between the trees, and paid for it with several lost lures from the wind picking up slightly and blowing the line over a branch where the lure would then get stuck on the retrieve. Was beginning to lose hope of catching anything, when towards evening a short rain shower swept over the area and afterwards the wind and water calmed down. At that point I got that feeling that it was now or never. Shortly after I caught 2 of them, and lost a 3rd one. All Largemouth Bass. I also had stuff out there to test for catfish and panfish too, but the setup I had for Bass and agressive Crappie was what produced. First catch was the best one. Nothing really big, but a solid fish around the 12" mark. In other words, bigger than most I recently had caught. 2nd and the 3rd one that got off, looked both to be my usual size the past few trips, not topping 8". Didn't see much action for the few other folks that I saw out there either. I liked what I saw of the lake, even just from the bank. Not a lot of people using it that day, nice looking structure in the lake, liked the location of the dock near some stump fields, and just the general secluded location of that conservation area all made it enjoyable even with the handful of lures I lost. I don't know how good the fish population is in there currently, since I didn't get much action despite fanning out for different species, but I'm hopeful that the fishing was slow just cause of the weather conditions that day. I'll try to make my way back there when it gets warmer to see what it's like again at that time.

I spent a couple hours at Lake 33 today after spending another few hours on lake 7 without any luck, and I couldn't buy me a bite on 33 either. Was kind of hoping to catch and release a nice Bass or a Carp, but then I saw the brush labeled crappie beds, so I kind of tried focusing near them, but nothing came of any of it. I was really surprised nothing took the sweet corn carp bait I had got at "the outpost", cause that stuff smells so good I was tempted to eat it myself, haha. Like a sweetcorn version of nutella chocolate spread. But yeah, I didn't switch it up much. First went at a couple of the crappie beds with a roadrunner with a plastic worm attached, then switched to a roostertail, then switched up to a bigger roostertail, and also had a spoon type lure fluttering around. Not the best options to really get in those beds, but I got there too late to use the boats, and the water was really dingy so I wanted something I could cast a good distance with, so something, bass, crappie, whatever, would have a better chance of noticing it on a longer retrieve. Unfortunately it didn't pan out. I think the really dingy water coupled with the weather being cold and windy earlier in the day just shut them off. Otherwise I'm sure I would've got something go for that carp bait at least.

What happened with the racoon?

I don't know just how little you know about fishing, but I may be able to help some. I've tried fishing from near the boat ramp there before (wasn't there for long, and had no luck). I'm thinking there's plenty of ways you can catch fish with around there, but I think a simple set-up that should work is something like a plastic trout-worm threaded onto a smaller size hook (so the tail half of it is loose and can wobble from side to side as it passes through the water) with either a bullet type weight on the line near the hook so it keeps hugging the bottom, or attach the weight 15-18" or so up the line so the trout worm tends to get more suspended while the weight keeps bumping the bottom as you cast and reel it back in. Maybe lift the rod tip up every once in a while and mix it up with a reel and stop, reel and stop pattern. I think that would work good for someone new, and I've gotten both smaller size fish like Bluegill and such, as well as somewhat bigger fish such as smallmouth and trout with that. You will get snagged on bottom structure probably quite frequently but most of the time it should get loose again if you keep at it, and if the line breaks, you won't have lost a lot of money as the troutworms and weights are fairly cheap. As far as gear, an ultra light 4'6" rod and reel combo should be sufficient. Granted you might feel better with something sturdier and longer if you get a good fish, but that style combo with even 4lbs line has worked decent for me in the past. Another good lure in my experience has been inline spinners like roostertails tied to a leader and attached to the main line with a barrel swivel. I don't know just how new you are to it, so this might be too basic for you. Other than that the good old worm and hook and bobber work fine, just will have a hard time from keeping that setup from moving around too much due to the flowing water. Eventually the current tends to push it off someplace where it stays fairly calm for a while, so that could still work.

I went to Perry County Community Lake today to give it another try while the weather is nice. Man, the amount of shad that have died off at that lake was amazing. I didn't think they had 1/3 of that many shad in the entire lake, as they had on just the shorelines that I checked out. And it's a pretty safe bet to assume there were plenty more spots only accessible by boat, where there were many more. I'd have thought somebody detonated several good sized bombs throughout that lake with all those dead fish. I had never seen anything of that scale. Hard to believe a harsh winter alone did all that. It's like every last shad in that lake bit the dust. Stench was like something out of the worst-smelling exhibit at the Zoo, all over the place. We still stuck it out near one of the boat ramps, and I managed to get 2 small bass out of it near twilight. Also think I snagged what looked like a solid carp but only got to see it long enough to kind of have an idea what size it was, before it took off, and the lure came out. No doubt would've been one of the biggest fish I've landed to date. Not huge but a good solid fish for sure whatever it was.

I'm wondering if some of the backbone defects might not have been from something like it falling off a hook and on rocks or something while trying to get away. I remember hearing something of the sort about other fish on here getting back bone damage from being thrown or tossed onto the shore, and then somehow making it back into the water and healing up but with permanent marks of damage to the backbone.

I think MDC actually stocks Simpson lake to some extent. Normally I take it as a tell-tale sign that when they have those yellow MDC placards with limits and regulations on them and it's a lake, that those actually get stocked. I know I haven't seem such a placard at Unger Lake, and I think I haven't seen it at Butler Lake either. And both of those are lakes that just get natural stockings from flooding, as far as I'm aware.