mreed81

We surely will sometime. In the middle of a dry spell the creek becomes very, very small with crystal clear water but since the beginning of this year starting with the flood, and a decent amount of rain and small snow storms since it has created a lot of color to the water. Where you see deeper water with a green tint now will be crystal clear when we do not have precipitation for a long period. The color helps hide yourself and your approach. If you do startle some when approaching, or even if you think you don't, it doesn't hurt to sit down on a log for 5-10 minutes and let the fish come back out.

Don't overthink being stealthy. Just walk slowly, don't kick a lot of gravel and don't splash a lot of water. Anytime that you can be out of the water the better, but don't pay attention to those people who say the only way to catch these fish is by crawling on your hands and knees while sneaking up on the fish. I have caught a number of large fish on that creek and have never done anything like that. Those people are either completely full of it, or they ride in a short bus(not that here is anything wrong with that). Don't get me wrong, this isn't the easiest habitat to fish by far but it isn't impossible. Honestly some spots, despite how fishy they look, you will just have to pass up because odds are you won't catch anything but a tree, rootwad or rock. There are tons of places I pass up while on that creek, and sometimes with the next rain it opens up that spot for me to wet the line there. Hopefully we can meet up sometime on the creek, and just remember, if you are catching fish there you are doing something right!

Awesome job! Yeah, walking around BSC and casting around all the root wads can be frustrating, but also very rewarding. Go there enough times and you just begin to laugh when you get snagged on something. It's pretty much a mandatory experience while fishing there!

Awesome catches! See any redds or does it seem that a lot were washed away with the flooding earlier in the year? I have only been to Crane once, and absolutely loved it. The habitat there in my opinion is by far the best in Missouri for larger sized, Blue Stream Trout. Wish I lived closer to go there more often.

Let's continue to scroll or find other research as well, and not go off of the first thing we find on the internet as being the truth, because there are other studies that show different evidence. Fish do feel pain. Just because they don't yelp like a dog doesn't mean a hook doesn't hurt them. I have an actual first hand experience that fish do feel pain and I will share that with you. I had Piranhas in an aquarium when I was a kid. I couldn't afford the cost of gold fish every week so I began to breed Convict Cichlids which are basically the easiest fish to breed without tons of maintenance. Once the fry grew to 1/2" or more they would be placed with the Piranhas for food. Well, two of the convicts were able to stay away from the piranhas long enough in order to become mature and spawn. These two, roughly 2" fish guarded their nest with their lives and ripped half of the fins off of the Piranhas which were 8" or larger! The piranhas stopped eating and stayed hunched down in a corner of the 6' wide aquarium to the point that I had to remove the Convicts. Tell me how without fish being able to feel pain the Convicts were able to control an entire aquarium, and dominate two Piranhas that were multiple sizes larger and also had razor sharp teeth? If it didn't hurt then why would the Piranhas basically shut down and let two small fish make them not eat or swim? And when it comes to fish not being able to experience or be aware of fear? How many fish have you ever scared away when walking on a stream or up to a pond? If they aren't afraid of being eaten or attacked then why do they swim away so fast? I am not saying that fish feel pain the same way that we do or experience emotions like us but lets not act like they are some retarded animal that can't physically feel anything or have a somewhat keen awareness to their surroundings.

Now wait just a gosh darn minute. Are the poaching giggers who are doing illegal things liberals or conservatives? This could definitely impact their fines in a positive or negative way.

Ah come on Small Fry aka Smallie Bigs. I was being sarcastic. I was more or less responding to the person who posted before me, and the president reference came from someone who said you were Donald Trump earlier in this thread, which was just down right funny. Not too many words that you could say will offend me. I'm not sure if the other guy was joking but I was. Lets all settle down and bro hug it out lol.

Since Smalliebigs became the president lol. He gets away with all sorts of nonsense.

I'm pretty sure he would have went after a large streamer. The only reason a streamer wasn't mentioned is because my fly box does not have any streamers! All in due time. lol

If you want to take care of dirty, poaching giggers for good you have to take extreme measures like the guy in this video suggests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSFZktZNySg

My friend in Sullivan had some people back out on helping him move this afternoon so he asked for my help. If I have to go that far West then you know a short morning trip to the Blue Ribbon stream is in order! I gave myself between 3 and 4 hours to hit the water before I helped my friend. Within 5 minutes of hitting the stream I noticed a very large trout in a pretty big pool. I threw everything I could at him including midges, two different nymphs, and a wooly bugger and it acted as if it didn't even notice them. I then moved up stream and started to tie a midge on and heard a lot of fish jumping at a small hole I was about to hit. There was a decent sized hatch of some very, very small white colored flies. If anyone knows what they were, please let me know. Changed my approach and tied a 14 parachute adams, no luck. Then a 14 caddis, still no luck. I then went with the smallest white colored dry fly either 18 or 20 (don't know pattern) I could find to get as close to what was hatching. For the next two hours the hatch remained thick and I caught a lot of small Trout with this pattern, largest being 8" that put up a great fight. This was especially fun for me because dry fly fishing is what got me interested in fly fishing in the first place, and I have not had the opportunity since I started in the fall to try the top water approach successfully. When I was finished and got back to the car I had a little time to kill and didn't like the taste of being skunked by the large fish I saw earlier. I assembled the spinning rod, tied a small crank bait to the line and went back to the first pool. Within two casts he took it and boy what a fight he put up! Probably the largest fish I have caught at this particular creek. Overall great day, wish I would have had time to fish more but between the first time dry fly action and the big one it felt like a full day of results. I also found a "fishing tool" by the red gate. If you are missing something from your last trip pm me, and if what you are missing is what I found I will mail it to you.

Awesome day! I sure love that little creek. Do those little ones usually feast heavily a lot in the winter? last two times I fished all the little ones I caught were fat little pigs.

Crane Creek female caught back in November. 19"-20"

Pictures of the springs from Camp Mihaska's facebook page. Hopefully the majority of the fish in the creek are able to stay hunkered down during all this.

My friend took this pic and sent it to me yesterday. Hi camera lens was soaked so don't mind the poor quality. This was from yesterday morning when the Meramec was 2 ft above flood, and it was flowing about a foot above the bridge. He says they need to remove the culverts and put a proper bridge in (I know; money, money, money). This would make the road passable for all cars and keep it from flooding at this part, and also make it easier for fish to migrate up stream. Funny thing is below the culverts he said it's not as bad. A lot of flow and the water is still up, but the water is lower than what you see here from all the backpressure built up at the entrance to the culverts.

I had a 4 day weekend and planned on fishing Saturday and Sunday but then I saw rain in the forecast for those days. My wife and I had to head to Indiana to celebrate Christmas Eve with her family so I begged and pleaded for us to leave later on Thursday so I could get at least 4 hours of fishing in before we left. Luckily for me she is a great catch and was understanding. I took the hour drive out West and arrived at the creek around 7:30. It was chilly out and a lot of fog was rising around the stream which made for some good sightseeing and pics. The morning started out slow but within 45 minutes I caught two creek "specials" (fingerlings) out of a hole. Things were looking up and the green tint from Wednesday's rain in the water really helped out with sneaking up on the fish, especially considering I am still learning on the fly rod and can't cast very far in these tight spaces. I have caught bigger here but only with a spinning reel, and the past three fishing trips whether it be Meramec Springs, Urban Trout fishing or wild trout streams I have used the fly rod exclusively and I am having a ton of fun with this learning process, and also dealing with the learning curve of catching a lot of trees, bushes and logs in the process too. Here are some pics of the larger catches of the day. All were caught on a Bead Head Prince Nymph. Merry Christmas everyone!

The creek sure has changed a lot. I have only been down after the first big rain this fall and right as the rain was falling in the last storm, but the time I was fishing after the first big storm I had a lot of luck, especially considering it was my first time only using a fly rod down there. I am a total noob with the fly rod but it sure is fun! Here is a funny video that speaks to using top water flies during winter months. Matt

No problem, happy to give info. If it wasn't for the 5" of rain we received the other week I think conditions would be better but once that little spring got recharged, this only adds more to it. Last weekend I went and the water was starting to clear up pretty good, caught several fish, but the water was already up from normal levels and there was a pretty steady flow coming out of the spring. Good luck!

I was in Sullivan, MO this morning and went down just to take a look. I walked around for a bit and the creek wasn't flooded around 10 a.m., there was a very decent flow, water had good green color to it, but the water was rising VERY FAST. To give you an idea there was a small gravel patch that washed up middle stream in the last rain we had that was about 10 inches above the water when I got there. Within a half an hour it was completely submerged and the creek was starting to widen out. The water was rushing into the culverts below N when I left as well and the springs at the camp were gushing out a ton of water. It's really hard to say what it will look like tomorrow since I have really only been there a week after a big rain and the water had somehwat settled. If I had to guess with the amount of rain we received today and what I saw it will be somewhat blown out with the fish hunkering down. If you live within an hour of the creek it may be worth the trip just to check it out. Matt

They stocked numerous lakes yesterday. The fish aren't biting at any of the lakes. Don't bother going and wasting your time. Gosh, all my secret spots are getting blown up by the internet. lol Of course I am joking with this post.