Blazerman

Here was the picture I was trying to share.

Since I am running around with my Blazer, I tend to stay on the lower half where I don't aggravate as many floaters. I mainly run from the 30 bridge up to Plum Ford. But I have run from my place by the K bridge up past the Caverns before. It is a great stretch of river because there is not much access between Red Horse and Sand Ford. Keeps the crowds down. Plus when I fish, I usually don’t target smallmouth specifically. I always let the smallmouth go but still like to catch fish to eat. So I use baits that will catch many different fish. I caught all these fish out of one deep hole by a bluff on a fluke type minnow. I tore off about a quarter of the bait so that it ended up about 4” long and rigged it on a lead jig head with the hook exposed. I think it was a quarter oz. Let it fall slowly into the hole and gave it a few jerks as it fell. If I am not mistaken these are sauger not walleyes. Also caught some nice smallmouth at this same spot but they are not in the basket because I don’t Keep them.

Your right. That was easy. Here is a pic of one of the spinnerbait fish from a couple of weeks ago. And the second is my 4lb 20" dandy from last summer.

I wasn't trying to say there is a gap in the size of fish if that is how you took it. Normally when I go, I catch fish of various sizes from 10” through 15” and above. This leads me to believe there is normally a good spawn every year and jet props aren't hurting the population. Of course the bigger fish are harder to catch so I don’t normally catch as many of them. I consider a smallmouth over 15” a decent fish and anything over 18” is a trophy. But they are definitely plenty of 18” fish in the Meramec and I have the pictures to prove it. Last time I went, a couple weeks ago, I had caught a few. Then went a while with nothing, Then caught 4 smallies on about six cast and they were all between 14”-16”. All were taken on a big white spinner bait with a white curly tail trailer. And they all came from an area with deeper water and boulders. And there is also a decent creek that comes in right above the deeper water. Hope that helps.

I am 54 soon to be 55 and have been fishing Ozark streams as long as I can remember. Started out as a kid with a rental just below Meramec Caverns at a place called Twin Springs. Back then there were no jet drives so we all had john boats with prop motors. We managed to get around pretty good though and caught a lot of smallmouth. Plus largemouth and nice walleye too. Didn’t see near as many Spotted bass back then. Seems like the water was deeper then with less gravel too. Once we gave up the rental place in my early teens I started floating in canoes and floated all over Missouri. Use to cuss the jet boaters too, once they started showing up. I have owned quite a few canoes and used to float and camp quite a bit. Now I have a real nice place by the K bridge on the Meramec. Had 5 canoes there for a while and used to do floats for family and friends. But I finely got tired of shuttling the canoes so a few years ago I bought my first jet boat. Don’t know why I waited so long because now I will never be without one. Right now I have a Blazer boat with a 40 jet. With all that said, I think I have a great perspective. And I can tell you Smalliebigs is right on. The smallmouth fishing is as good as it ever has been on the Meramec. And it really isn’t that hard to catch an 18” fish. I based this on the fact that most times when I go, I catch plenty of fish. Many times there are more spotted bass then smallmouth and that is mostly what I fish for. I like to eat fish and I always keep and eat the spotted bass and always let the smallmouth go. But if I decide to fish for smallies I usually have no trouble catching plenty. The thing I always notice is I will normally catch everything from 8”-10” fish to fish a lot larger. To me that means there is always a good smallmouth spawn. If I wasn’t catching small fish I would be worried. But so far, that has never happened. For the record my largest smallmouth last summer was a tad over 4lbs and right at 20”. And I have caught 20” fish each summer for the last three years. If some one can explain to me how to put pictures on here I will include some.