Haris122

I might end up going down there relatively soon again. I went to Montauk recently and did decent Saturday in the Catch and Release Lake, but nowhere else. Then Sunday that continued with another poor showing park wide. I'm really overdue on limiting out. I can't wait for the opportunity of just getting there real early and roughing it out and adjusting in order to get a limit of decent fish. Especially if I can get them with lures. One of these days I will reach that critical mass of effort and proper techniques. Hopefully the very next time I go.

If they're not any easier, maybe the type of fishing I'm better is a lot more doable in the lake rather than the stream areas. Especially the real narrow shallow streams. I got to go there or Meramec Springs sometime soon, real early on, and just fish it all day. I want to accomplish catching to what would amount to be a decent limit of trout for once. Four good trout shouldn't be that hard to accomplish catching in a trout park while spending most of the day but so far it has always eluded me. Hell, so far even a limit of 4 trout of any kind, much less bigger ones, has eluded me.

I went down to Montauk my first time this last weekend. I got there Saturday afternoon and stayed through most of sunday, but missed fishing in the morning on Sunday. Anyways, Saturday I spent my time in the c&r section. First I tried one of the little streams but I'm having a real tough time catching fish out of those small stream type spots. I got 1 bite on a roostertail and nothing more. Then I went to the lake, and actually started getting into them some. Caught 5 of them out of the c&r lake in the couple hours up until the horn sounded off on the roostertails with the bigger ones around 13". Anyways, the next day I started out shortly prior to noon on the bait and artificial section near the lodge. Caught 1 on a roostertail after a while, lost another after a brief fight following a bite of a marabou jig drifted under a float, and got one or two more light bites that didn't amount to a hookup. I decided to try a different stretch, so I ended up in the artifical and bait section near where one of the c&r streams ends (where there's a series of walkway bridges over the stream). Turned out to be a bad move. I barely got 1 more bite but no solid hookup again. Eventually I gave up there, and went to the c&r stream again, only to not catch a thing there again. Finally I tried the c&r lake once more, and hooked into a good one. Drag got some exercise, it jumped a few times, and then on the last jump got off. I was pretty frustrated to not have got to even see just how big it truly was, but what can you do. This leads me to a question though. In other people's experience, have the trout in the c&r lake just been easier to fool than in the rest of the park?

Have pictures for some but most are not high quality so I'll skip the pics for now Anyways this year so far I got White Crappie (one tiny one) Bluegill (few mostly tiny ones) Largemouth Bass (potentially a Spotted in there too, but know for sure on the Largemouth) Brown Trout Rainbow Trout Blue Catfish Channel Catfish Common Carp Buffalo of some sort I think White Bass (little one) Goggle Eye/Rockbass Sunfish of some species

Jerry have you ever fished Lower Taum Sauk Reservoir? And if so, how have you done and what kind of fish can you hook into there?

Way to adapt. I need to learn that too.

I drove by several spots of the Big River today. It looked dingy/brown, but I think by tomorrow you might have some limited luck provided there isn't more rain. I actually tried fishing the Big River today at Cedar Hill Park for 2 hours. I didn't get the bigger and better fights I really wanted but in a small backwater area behind a little gravel bar sticking into the river, I hooked into two small sunfish. The small roostertail at least got me some action. You might be better off at some parks like Suson. They still seemed to have some trout in them along with some warm water species of various types.

Hey Seth where is DJ's or which gas station are you talking about at the end of St. James? I don't know where St. James technically ends. I know a while back I stopped at one that was a gas station/general type store in one, that also had fishing combos and ammunition for sale, would that be the one?

I got a 9 lb one at Flamm on the Meramec on some shrimp of all things, a few days ago. I had to finesse it some with the drag, since I knew some of my line wasn't in the best shape, but good thing was that I got it on the medium-heavy rod, with 20 lb test. After what felt like an eternity, but probably actually amounted to only 6-7 minutes, I got it to shore, we weighed it, and I let it loose again. Later on I had something else take another piece of shrimp on the medium rod with 10 lb test, and the drag started going and the rod bending pretty ferociously, and then it broke the line and the rod popped back up. Got me convinced to at least change out the 10 lb line, cause it's frayed even more so than the 20 lb from constant use in the spincast reel.

I caught a 9 lb Common Carp Wednesday at Flamm. Took me what seemed like forever to reel it in. I hadn't changed out the line on that particular combo since I got it, and I knew it was somewhat frayed, so once it took a few good runs after I got it closer to shore, I figured I loosen the drag. That prolonged it probably quite a bit, but important thing was that I got it to shore.

Not that I wouldn't consider trying it at some point, but for the most part I'm not a minnow or other living bait angler myself. Especially for trout or other fish that should be able to fall for an assortment of lures as well.

Me and a friend of mine drove down there saturday late in the morning. I think we started fishing just before 12 and stopped at the buzzer. I was optimistic that one of us at least, might do good down there but that didn't really pan out. When we got there the water was a bit higher than usual, and with just enough of an extra emerald hint that made me think they might be less wary than on usual days when it's a bit more clear. He wound up catching a nice 14" fish on a roostertail before I even got all my rigging done. That also made me feel optimistic about things but though he got a few more bites, he couldn't bring them to shore for the next hour or so, while I didn't even get any bites. Eventually like an hour into it, I caught my first fish, but not a trout. A decent sized Goggle eye/Rockbass on my roostertail. That gave me a renewed sense of confidence, only to have it wither away over the next 5 hours. I had the occasional bite on a roostertail, and something small eventually biting on a plastic trout worm but nothing more than that. I wound up trying various roostertails. Some rigged with a egg sinker above the swivel connecting the 18" leader with the roostertail, some with just the swivel, and leader. I tried a couple different of those flies with blades rigged up similarly as the roostertails, tried drifting 2 different colored marabout type jigs under a float, drifting and retrieving the trout worm under a float, then went back to the roostertails. Eventually between 5-6 I got a little 11" stocker on a roostertail, followed by some more bites that I couldn't connect on. I finished off the day trying to drift some powerbait under a float, having to resort to it, but in the short time I had to try it, nothing hit on that either. That was it for me. I had brought 2 pound line to use for the leader, but never ended up using it after I saw the water a bit murkier than usual. Figured I could get away with it. But nothing came of it. My friend got another rainbow maybe 2-3 hours into it that he released, and that was it. 2 fish caught by each. He had the biggest, I had most diversity. Guess it's back to the drawing board for Meramec Springs Fishing for me. As much trout fishing as I had been doing lately at the stocked lakes nearby, I would've thought for sure I'd do a little better at least. Was not to be. Several other people were doing pretty good in comparison. I got to figure out their approach to it.

Still have that $10 baitcaster combo? Or any of the Ultra light combos you plan on letting go?

Anyone been catching anything at Unger Park lately (lake in particular, but river also)?

I went out there early this week. Fished the river for an hour. It was high and muddy and I got no bites. Then I fished the actual lake for less than that, which too was pretty muddy. Again no bites. None of the other couple people I saw there said they had any luck either. It's been a while since I've had any luck at that lake or the river there for that matter. Has anyone else been out there lately with any fish to show for it?

Do Brown Trout of equal size fight harder than Rainbows? I've had a few stocker sized ones at Suson Park in St. Louis recently, and it seems like there's a lot more Browns left, than Rainbows, to the point I've kind of forgotten what kind of fights the Rainbows have. Just today I got a 12" brown, and though he wasn't large by any measure, he certainly gave me a good show for longer than I would've expected.I can't recall playing a Rainbow for as long as I had this Brown trout, but that might just have been cause most of them I got to attack the lure closer towards the end of the reeling in.

Nice. Either way better than me.

How many did you manage to bring in? I went there last Sunday at around 4, after having tried the red ribbon section by hwy 8, and scott's ford access first, and I barely got a single fish out of there before the horn hit at 7. Maybe with like 30 minutes left I got my one and only. I had another decent one on earlier, I saw it take the roostertail from 40 feet away, that's how clear the water was, and then I fought him for a few seconds, and when he jumped I lost that one. May have had another 2 bites in that time, but that was it. The one I did catch wasn't too bad though. 12", and I was pretty relieved I caught any. Btw even then there were quite a lot of people. I figured a lot of people that didn't go due to the storm opening weekend, just ended up coming that weekend instead.

I'm not a big politics follower, but it seems to me that regardless of affiliation, these people are just coming up with more and more extreme BS to attempt to pass into law, just so they can both look more marketable to campaign contributors and more die-hard to core members of party A, or party B, come primary elections. At this rate it wouldn't be a complete surprise if they start thinking up laws on who owns the air or atmosphere within a certain area, and who's stealing someone else's property by breathing it. Spineless, opportunistic b#######.

I had heard something similar a few weeks back at Baldwin Lake. We went down there only to find the gates closed. Someone had apparently left some valve open and it dumped something in the lake. I don't know if they opened it up yet. Coffeen lake is much more scenic than that though, so it sucks even more in that case.

I agree, I never got why somebody would toss a perfectly beautiful fish whatever their species, on the shore just cause of some baseless prejudice, not doing anything with it. I still have yet to catch a good chunk of suckers species. I might have got the odd river carpsucker and/or Buffalo of some sort, but that's primarily it. There's still plenty of suckers I want to experience the fight from.

Yeah that's what they told me at REI as well.

Here's my gripes. 1. Don't close 99.9% of conservation areas to antlerless season deer hunts. Otherwise what's the point of antlerless season if you have to either own private land, lease private land, or drive 3 hours or such, just to get to a small, marginal conservation area that probably doesn't even support deer, and is only therefore open to antlerless season. Especially now that they intend to cut it down to 3 days. 2. Whoever came up with the rule that any rifle ammunition that attracts a magnet, can't be used at the Jay Henges shooting range really needs to learn the difference between what an armor piercing round is, and what a cheap bi-metal jacketed ordinary lead core round is. Cause the two are not the same, and frankly it has restricted my shooting enjoyment by A LOT simply because of some poorly researched (if researched at all) prejudiced BS. That one is my biggest gripe. 3. Lower the restrictions for certain species of permissible non-game fish allowed to keep. Just cause some fish are non-game doesn't mean they successfully reproduce in such high numbers that even more limited fishing pressure (as far as number of people interested in catching them) causes. Not all non-game fish reproduce as quickly as say a sunfish. Some of that I feel also applies to other animals too, but can't think of anything in particular, aside maybe coyote since the season for them is almost never-ending. I may think of some more later but those are it for now.

Would that be everything you'd need to have a roof rack or is there any more? You know if it works on an Alero? Cause at the store they told me they didn't have a Thule model that did.

I spent an hour on the lower meramec yesterday. Didn't get anything, wasn't expecting to. But with the water as clear as it was, it helped to see just how the lures swam and stuff.