Haris122

Yeah. The side of the park by Suson, the trail is a lot shorter to get to the river than that side though.

It’s on Meramec Bottom not far from Suson. If you go from Suson south on Wells Rd to Meramec Bottom theres a parking lot just to the west like fifty yards or so. There’s also an entrance on Meramec Bottom just off of 55, but to get to the river from there is longer walk.

I guess it depends what the current is like. I think if you have a light kayak it’s not too bad to walk the couple hundred yards to the river with it (from the parking lot near Suson). With a kayak over 40lbs though i’d suggest getting a little kayak cart, cause it seems like kayaking from Arnold park is pretty far.

I've been a few times with my kayak. Nothing huge caught yet, but at least 1 of the 2 trips was pretty good. Had a 17" Drum caught, a couple decent sized gar, and a average white bass. The other time only got a smallish drum and spotted bass. The part that sucks is that the parking lot isn't close to the water, so getting the kayak there can take a bit. But yeah it does seem like a real good spot, at least for decent sized catfish and such.

I like fishing Lower Meramec park (usually without much success), but people do trash it pretty good. There's a dude that I see frequently with his kayak, picking up trash around there.

Good luck to you and your daughter too Johnsfolly. I’ll be on public land as well.

I work that weekend, but took the short week following that off, so I'll have all week after opening weekend. Excited and ready, but not quite prepared.

Not to make people's plight seem unimportant, but wouldn't that open up the door to all kinds of use of MDC money for other things. Next, thing you know, any poor management of just about every other area of government funding, would result in someone asking to take another piece of the MDC budget too. As it is, their budget is probably a drop in the bucket compared to that of the government department entrusted, and funded, to deal with such things. I feel like my biggest beef with MDC's attitude is actually that they sometimes seem to prioritize the use of these resources by people, over the good of the resource itself. And I'm not even talking about Deer and Smallmouth, but stuff like non-game fish, or even coyotes. As it is, it's almost a free-for-all for species like that. Granted there's not that many people that do both, but they rely on there just not being enough people that pursue those species, to be what keeps their numbers from plummeting. If even a third or quarter of the number of people hunting deer, would go out and a good chunk of them shoot the maximum number of coyotes that their regulations allow, they'd probably wipe them out as a species inside the state within a short amount of time, all while following regulations. That kind of stuff. I like to go deer hunting and fishing, and all that, but at the end of the day, a species isn't just worth as much as what use I get out of it, as long as they're not overabundant so the rest of ecosystem seriously suffers, there's a value to them regardless of whether I find joy in going out hunting or fishing for them.

Nice, I'm looking forward to getting to see some trout at the local lakes soon.

I can see some points to it. They don't spend all of their money in the wisest sense. But that being said, some of the stuff the article complained about was plain old stupid. The fact that they bought more land that they then turned into Conservation Areas, or that they made more fishing lakes and such than they initially said they would (said when at that too?). Where's the problem in either of that? The food expenses, and BS "training" I can see, but that?

darn. That is some bs. At least it wasn't just $116. $300 is still weak for 40 something extra fish but at least it’s not as much a joke as 116 would've been. But yeah, 2nd participant should’ve got just as much. What’s that come to, about the same price as he would’ve paid buying that many rainbow trout at the store?

First few times I went, in winter 2 years or so ago, I did actually really good. I would get a lot of bites. Not always heavy in trout, but a lot of action. Ever since been hooked on it. Though I guess a lot could've changed with that last flood.

How long did that big rainbow take to bring in? And how long are you thinking it was?

No, I didn't check water temperature. I thought maybe I was too far downstream at first with water still potentially being too hot for them down that far but I thought for sure once I got to cardiac and a bit further upstream I'd run into a few of them at least, rainbow or brown. Honestly even weirder was that there wasn't even any signs of bass outside of that one little area I got them in at first. Certainly once I got around the bend going several hundred yards downstream from suicide, I thought there had to be a few smallmouth in the deeper water there.

I initially thought all those suckers were probably gigged and left there, but after inspecting them more closely, there was no signs of them having been gigged. That's what's so weird to me. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I heard something about gigging not being allowed within the red ribbon section, so they don't mistake trout for suckers or something like that?

Didn't get there until 1pm and didn't do much good. I started at Suicide Access and caught 2 ~11" Spotted Bass (I think), and lost another maybe 13-14" one too, close to where I got down to the water. Then I headed downstream past the next big bend until I couldn't wade anymore, which was near some bluff visible on the opposite side of the river. That way I didn't catch a single thing, even at a deep spot with some laydowns near the bend. Then headed all the way up to Cardiac and then back down to suicide fishing the usual spots you'd expect to find some trout in, also without catching a single thing. Waited until it got pretty dark to climb back up to the car, which was an adventure as always up there. Water in the main river was for the most part pretty low, and just in general it was crystal clear. This was the first time I actually didn't so much as even see a single trout in the red ribbon section. Just in general, there didn't seem to be much in terms of bigger fish moving about in the river at all, and what I found most weird of all, I kept seeing dead suckers of various sorts lying dead on the bottom of the river, with hardly a single one showing any type of wound. It's as if 95% of them just keeled over and died, perfectly healthy looking, sinking to the bottom at the same time. Anyone know what that could be about?

I think nowadays in ocean fisheries that seems to be the big trend, since the fish that grow fast but mature slow, tend to get caught as they reach or exceed the minimum size before they can pass their genes on enough. So the genetics of cod for example, end up trending towards fish that grow slower and reach maturity faster. That way they reproduce more often before they reach the minimum size to be kept. If that similarly affects fish around here though is a different story.

No, both were about the same, and it was pretty much all along the pants, not restricted to any particular spot, or particularly worse in any spot that I know of. Didn't bother me when I was wading, but the ride back afterward, it was definitely getting chilly, without the waders on anymore. If they are leaking, I was first going to take them up to Cabelas in hopes of them fixing it for free, seeing how it's only been 6 months. But it's good to have alternatives. What kind of ballpark figures we talking about for the small fee?

Quick question, how can someone tell if their waders are lightly leaking as opposed to just me excessively sweating or something, from the extra layers under the waders. I went yesterday pretty much all day, and I feel like my pants were too damp afterwards to be sweat. Yet at the same time I did have two layers under the waders, they weren't leaking noticeably, and in addition I've only had these waders for half a year and about 7 or so trips. The type of waders in question are the breathable Cabelas Instinct Accelerator boot foot waders. I really like them, but if they are leaking I want to see if they will bother to fix it somehow while still relatively new, cause I doubt 300 dollar waders should leak within half a year.

Yeah, I mainly just tend to say it as a disclaimer so people can adjust the report to their skill level. Those kinds of numbers are good days as far as my experiences and skill at fishing are concerned. A hardcore bass angler, might get the impression that it was actually a slow day, but if I caught 8 or 9 fish, they might be able to catch 2-3 times that many, and big ones at that. Yeah, it would be nice to get the chance to fish when some of the bigger catfish are probably more active. I wish they'd at least have certain designated nights at places like Busch and local county parks, when you could do that. Seems like more and more, they're turning it into a daytime only activity. Think even Flamm Access in Arnold now is not open all night anymore.

So you're telling me it's some good fishing (by my standards). Hope I can go up there for a day or two soon then. I'd take constant action with smaller fish, over sporadic action with smaller fish.

Haven't heard any kinds of reports in a while from up there. Has anyone on here been doing any fishing up there recently?

Just wondering, but why's that Al?

Floated Friday afternoon from Meramec state park down to Meramec Caverns and then fished a bit around the Caverns and Sand Ford Access too. It was a decent trip number wise by my standards (key words right there) but no real size. I got 13-14 fish, but that's including about 6 Longear Sunfish. I'd say biggest was probably just a 12-13" Largemouth, with an 11" Spotted as #2. All the rest were shorter than 10". Of of the remaining 8 that weren't sunfish, 2 were Spotted Bass, 3 were Smallmouth Bass, 2 were Largemouth Bass, and one was a Rock Bass/Goggleye. I had to be back to the rental place by 6 so the last 2 miles I probably didn't give it the time I should've as far as checking out some of the spots. I did have a nice Spotted Bass on at one point that looked to be at least 15", maybe even more, but my reel kind of screwed me on that, and the line got cut. Water was definitely on the low side.