Haris122

I believe I caught a young Smallmouth last summer on the Meramec near Unger Park. Actually happened to be my first fish I ever caught, but lately I've been trying too hard to catch things at Unger Lake, so i haven't messed around on the Meramec as much. Where was this at? Looks a bit like it could be at Lower Meramec Park.

Everytime I used it, I used it as a generic term, and in most cases for the cheap 5 pack ones. Don't know about everyone else.

Got lucky with one today at Unger Park Lake. The fish in that lake don't seem too easy to fool, or at the very least by me, but I finally got one from there. Anyways, let me try to put the pic up. Who: me (Haris) Where: Unger Park Lake, St. Louis County When: Today (4/1/12)

Trust me, other than the trashcan there's no where else I can chalk this one too now. As far getting another one, I don't know if I'm going to make the same mistake twice even if I'm cheap. Then again, I do still have some things that could be used as spare parts if I get another one of those. Hmm. I guess I'll see.

I just got done tinkering with the Synergy Steel Spincast reel I had bought a few days before New Year for the last time, before violently "dismantling" it. So I wanted to see if this design has been as problematic for other people as it has for me, or what is up with it. I know they only cost like $12 but frankly I expected even a $12 reel to hold up to at least half if not a full year of normal use. I frequently had problems with something binding up the line as I was casting, so that instead of a nice distant cast, I wound up with the bind in mid cast, and then the line falling barely 9 yards or so on average away from me. I kept taking the thing apart and seeing the lines cutting into the soft metal on which it would travel when spooling and unspooling, as well as the pins that reel the line in. I kept coming up with momentary fixes, and the darn reel eventually would get back to the same problem. I'm glad I got a better one for my birthday, but it seriously annoys me that this stupid thing cost me so much time and portion of my sanity, on top of the $12 without ever amounting to anything useful. Right now I wish I could've "stoned" whoever designed the stupid thing with it, in process of my violent dismantling. Seems had they heat treated or strengthened the metal in some other way, all these dumb problems would've never shown up.

That mud/silt in some places of the Meramec here near St. Louis I think is the real kicker. You think you're good to go and stop swimming and set your foot down in water otherwise below your head, and all of a sudden your foot follows through and gets sucked up by the mud like there's nothing underneath it and you're knee deep in mud with your head underwater. Moral of the story, don't stop swimming too early. Wading in some of those spots, could turn out real bad.

I know that path all too well by now, myself.

Actually just looked at a map of Route 66 State Park, and found that there's actually quite a lot of the bank on both sides of the I-44 bridge that's part of it, so there's bound to be some good spots my narrow mind hasn't even thought of discovering yet. Next time, I'll check those out too. I've been there like 3-4 times, and I always went just a bit upstream or downstream of the boat ramp. Next time I'll check out some of the stuff further downstream of it. Hopefully it will be easier to find some other portions with access to the bank that's not too steep or has too many trees getting in the way of casting.

Can't really help with anything around Eureka other than Route 66 State Park, though I've been hoping to try out some of the accesses nearby there for a while now, but as far 66 State Park, the parts that I've messed around at seem to have bottom that is too muddy for wade fishing (except maybe if you want to wade only like a foot deep and stay still on the concrete ramp, covered with a bit of mud, from where boats get put on and out).Maybe if the land near and underneath the bridge is part of the Park it might work though, seeing how it seems to have more rock there. As far as from the bank, it can be a bit tough, because there's lots of overhanging trees, but if you go a little toward the upstream side, the trees clear up and you can see some tall grass, if you follow that you can get to a little clearing near a submerged tree by a little backwater. Up there at least you can cast without worrying too much about overhanging trees or having fish spooked by boats about ready to get loaded back onto trailers, but there's still that submerged tree so, you might get snagged on it. As long as you don't mind getting your shoes a bot muddy, and walk around a little bit, you should see find some ok places to cast from. I only got 1 small bass so far, when I cast out near dusk by the boat ramp a few weeks ago, but I'm still a beginner. Btw. in case you were unaware of this, you can check for various accesses near Eureka on the Missouri Department of Conservation website, and they will also have a link to a map that let's you see the general layout of the access and such, and they even have a google earth document that essentially demarks all the accesses and conservation areas in the state. You just have to go to the area around Eureka and I bet a good 5-6 access sites to Meramec and maybe other rivers, will show up. I know I've looked up some up there, like the Allenton, Pacific Palisades, and Catawissa.

Past 5 months I've been using some cheap Zebco Omniflex 10 # Braid because during fall I was told the 10 lb mono I was using is too thick and easily visible for the Trout in the Urban Trout Lakes, so I figured it's as thin as 4# mono, but still has the 10 # strength. Anyways the trout for reasons unknown to me still didn't buy it, but I got to liking it anyways. Occasionally I do miss the slight memory or stretch of mono line when the braid catches onto a hook or during knot tying, but my only real issue is that the stuff barely ever sinks. Somehow whether right or not, I feel the braid not sinking makes it easier for fish to see the line. So with that being said, what are the good and bad of braided line? Of Mono, and any other types as well. Also just from lurking around I see there's a discussion as to the line pound test strength used for Smallmouth in rivers as opposed to lakes, and that got me wondering what's the difference in regards to what the two different bodies of water do, that would give an incentive to change the pound breakage strength of your line if the fish were to be within the same range of strength/size between the two bodies of water. Thanks.

You mean the Unger Park Lake, or Simpson Lake?

I think what they meant is that technically, even the common carp was first brought from Asia into Europe. So even it is "Asian".

I don't know how they got there, but I can tell you they were definitely Asian carp (upturned mouth, low eyes, and everything just like in the recent thread where one was found in the golf pond). They do say every 10 or so years the Meramec rises enough to flood into Unger, but I'm not too sure. Either way, if you want to see for yourself, just go to Unger and walk around the shore. They're tough to miss. I have seen a dead one on the shore also several miles downstream on the Meramec too, but that is closer to the Mississippi anyhow (still 5-6 miles upstream of the Mississippi though). Either way, there's a drainage outlet into the Meramec from Unger Lake so either that small channel/pipe never has water levels high enough for them to reach the meramec through it, or the water up there is too fast for them, cause I haven't seen them or their carcasses in the Meramec by Unger so far, so I'm not all that convinced they came from the Meramec near Unger.

Fish activity, especially early on when the first groups/lone fishermen came there was pretty good though, despite the small number of catches I saw.

Thanks for the tips. I can't say what it's like compared to Simpson Lake as I've never been there, but as for Unger Park Lake, me personally, I've never had any luck in it. I had some bites occasionally (just none in these past 3 trips), and when they bit, they felt like good size fish, but I never succeeded in reeling anything in so I'm not even sure what I had. That being said, I think it's a pretty good little lake for fishing (just one I happen to be even more cursed on, than any other location I fished so far). Some of the fish that surface or even jump out of the water sound huge, from the splash/wakes they make. And on top of that I've had some literally surface 3 yards from where I was standing on the shore (like they were trying to rub it in). There were at least 9-10 groups/lone fisherman there today that I saw, so I'm assuming the fish are pretty conditioned to fishing pressure. As far as depth, I know it gets up to the top of the dead brush on the shore eventually but, that's another 3-4 feet from what it is now, so I don't know if you know which ones I'm referencing. Some areas of the lake egde do have a lot of brush which is good when the water rises for the fish, but also costs you some snagged lures. Today in general seemed somewhat rough, from what I saw. Not a lot of catches that I was aware of. One guy and his 2 kids said each of them caught a small bass. He said he got his on one of those lime green rebel craws. The one catch I did see with my own eyes, was a good 3 foot channel cat. That thing looked sweet. Apparently the same guy had also caught a 12" Crappie. Other than that, I heard of a one other catching 2-3 of something but no clue what. I can tell you one thing for certain though. I don't know if there's a reason to be scared off of a Lake because it has Asian Carp in it, but there's a good 7-8 of them scattered dead along the part of the shore I was at, and not a single one was under 2 feet (my best guess is they got too big to support themselves on what plankton was to be found in the lake during the winter). Anyways, I better stop before I write an entire book.

Let me see if I can get my small ones posted up. Who = Haris (me) When = 25th Feb., 2012 (or pretty close to it) Where = Meramec River in St. Louis County

Where to do you fish, and can you give me some of your skill? Woke up early today, went to Unger Park, and stayed there for over 4 1/2 hours. Nothing. Hail and strong rain from the storm chased me into the car for half an hour, got back out, next half hour nothing again. Starts raining lightly too. Then as if to emphasize to me to stop, it starts pouring again (thankfully no hail that time). Once the 2nd one hit full force, I decided to accept reality and head home. Though I was certain it would stop for good right as I got out of there. On the bright side, I seem to have been wrong. If anyone stayed after that 2nd rain outbreak, right now it seems to be biting them in the rear judging from what it's like outside.

Aren't those in pictures above Asian carp also?

Still did better than me. I went yesterday evening for 3 hours before and while it was raining, and then today evening again for another hour and a half. I know the lake I went to has fish there, and they're active, but I felt like they were just trying to make me feel stupid. Never bit once. Oh well, tomorrow morning I'm at it again.

When you say Rt 66, you mean Rt. 66 state park? I don't know about anything further upstream but I went there last 2 times. First time I had no luck, 2nd time caught a small spotted bass at the end of the day. So I personally didn't have much luck, but I'm still an amateur and I fish from the bank, so I don't know what your luck is like from the boat. I did see someone catch a nice channel catfish though (hooked them on the whiskers too). I also arrived both times around early afternoon, so that might explain my lack of action, as the one I did catch, I got as the day was winding down. Unfortunately can't compare it to the other option as I never fished in either of those spots, or the Allenton access.

Beautiful indeed.

All right. I'll join in too. So last Saturday I went out to the Meramec at Route 66 State Park, and caught a monster of a 7" I believe spotted bass. (Sorry couldn't help myself, but it was right as I was leaving, so even if it was a tiny fish, it made my day) And I know spotted ones aren't most people's cup of tea, but I still let it go.

Don't know much about how obvious the tags are placed on the fish, but how likely is it that it had been caught and moved inside say a livewell by someone at least part of that distance?

Cool. Man how awesome it would've felt to reel something in fighting like that, after it was hooked fair.

Went out today/yesterday (Saturday) again, despite it being kind of chilly, after skunking out the last few weeks (and months at that) and bam. I "willpowered" my way to 4 fish after a long time without success. First one was the craziest fight and biggest fish, taking close to 5 minutes before reeled it in, starting from probably less than 10 yards from the shore. Unfortunately it was also the only one I didn't get the fair way of catching in the mouth (snagged it at the dorsal fin). Turned out to be River Carpsucker, or Buffalo, or something similar to those two. Probably 19-20". Then got me 2 Crappies (one pretty nice, another nice smaller one), and finished off with a nice chubby White Bass. . Feels good to finally get something again.