Jim Spriggs

Yea, I would have released her anyway, but I would have liked to have gotten a weight first

She had some shoulders on her. It was a fun fish to land. And, you might ask why I fished this spot, as I had never done so before. I saw an Eagle fishing for its lunch. That was a good enough signal for me.

I fished the Middle Meramec on a gorgeous Satuday, and I did so with a friend with whom I hadn't fished in a long time. It was a terrific day. The brown and green fish were a bit slow, and we caught a bunch of shorts. However, I did catch my PB Walleye. I don't have an exact weight or length, because shortly after this picture was taken I did a bonehead thing and dropped her in the river. At least, I got this pic, or it would have been just another fish story..

Mr. Wally slays them again. Nice fish.

Al, I enjoy reading about your fishing adventures. The details you offer make me feel as if I had a great day on the water. Keep posting!

Nice!

And, sorry about the hole in your boat. That would suck, but jet boating is jet boating...

Did anyone else notice that in the past few days the Sullivan Gage's CFS readings have been changed going back to sometime in late June or July--the flow as reported on the website has been decreased by about 100 cfs. It appears to have occurred after they physically measured the flow on the river last week. So, flow is lower than we thought, which explains why people have been ripping holes in hulls (I saw a post on the tri county jet forum, where someone else hit a rock in the riffle above Roaring Spring;I saw someone nail a big rock taking the center line in that riffle on Monday, when I was fishing above the riffle; and I hit bottom going to the far right side (right now, you have to be almost on the bank on the righ-hand side and under the overhanging tree to make it through, or you have to carefully thread the needle through the center of the riffle (taking the right hand side channel of the two choices if going down steam) My understanding is that the gage measures height, and the flow is an estimate predicted by a statistical model. I assume they use the actual measured flow taken every so often and correlate it with actual gage height (and, if done properly, they would adjust by seasons, etc). That then provides an estimate of flow, based on a given gage height. So, this is a long way of saying I suspect they tweaked their model of flow based on new data Anyone know more about this than I. Al Agnew? As for catching fish, I was out about four hours, and landed a bunch of smallish 10-12" fish in riffles and caught a few 13-15" fish in the slack water near current (especially off lay downs). They were mainly hitting small soft plastics, though I did ok on crankBaits, too (thank you countdown rapala) Later,

RSD stands for relative stock density, and it's the percentage of fish, for all those fish over 7", that are greater than or equal to a target size. For example, RSD15 is the share of fish (for all fish bigger than 7") greater than or equal to 15". PSD is proportional stock density, which is the ratio of quality size (>=11") fish to stock size fish (>=7")

Smallmouth enthusiasts, The MDC shared the most recent electrofishing data with me, which I provide here. They haven't written the report yet (due out next year), but the figure and tables provide most of the information we would want. The decrease in catch rates per hour in 2015 are due to a change in the method they used for sampling the fish rather than a reduction in the fish population. Also, I went fishing yesterday on the middle Meramec, and I caught only small fish in or near current. It was a rather slow day, though a beautiful one. Fall Electrofishing - Meramec - Crawford & Franklin Co. Smallmouth Bass 2015 Hwy 8 Riverview Huzzah Sapp St Park Sand Fd Plum Fd Redhorse River Round 2015 Average Electrofishing time (hrs) 2.19 1.92 3.32 3.91 5.53 6.09 3.98 3.32 3.53 33.79 Sample size total 35 101 59 50 89 65 51 26 12 488 Size Parameters (%) PSD 52 49 24 43 52 26 31.4 25.0 54.5 41 RSD12 48 34 19 26 38 12 20.0 10.0 36.4 28 RSD15 4 7 5 11 10 0 2.9 10.0 27.3 7 RSD18 0 1 0 3 6 0 2.9 0.0 9.1 2 Catch rates (fish/hr) total 16 53 18 13 16 11 13 8 3 14 >7" 11 45 11 9 13 7 9 6 3 11 Pooled 2008-2012 Shortbend Hwy8 FishingSpring HuzzahConf Sappington StatePark SandFd PlumFd Redhorse Riverround Total Electrofishing time (hrs) 2.05 3.4 4.9 5.53 10.3 12.77 11.15 6.5 9.12 13.9 79.7 Sample size total 92 173 192 182 169 225 167 105 205 158 1668 Size Parameters PSD 30.6% 50.4% 51.3% 30.9% 26.1% 33.3% 29.6% 34.9% 31.0% 34.6% 36.1% RSD12 24.5% 43.1% 38.8% 22.3% 15.1% 20.2% 15.7% 20.5% 16.9% 29.1% 25.2% RSD15 12.2% 16.1% 10.6% 9.4% 5.0% 6.0% 4.3% 4.8% 4.9% 7.9% 8.1% RSD18 0.0% 1.5% 1.9% 0.7% 0.8% 3.0% 1.7% 3.6% 0.7% 0.8% 1.5% Catch rates (fish/hr) Total 44.9 50.4 39.2 32.9 16.4 17.6 15.0 16.2 22.5 11.4 20.9 >7" 23.9 39.9 32.7 25.1 11.5 13.2 10.3 12.8 15.6 9.1 15.5 Pooled 2002-2006 FishingSpring HuzzahConf Sappington StatePark SandFd PlumFd Redhorse Riverround Total Electrofishing time (hrs) 7.4 7.8 11 11.9 14.3 11.8 12.3 14.8 91.3 Sample size total 448 189 267 229 348 207 306 258 2252 Size Parameters PSD 49.9% 32.8% 25.0% 28.0% 33.3% 32.1% 26.4% 25.0% 34.0% RSD12 35.9% 24.4% 13.9% 19.9% 22.1% 19.0% 19.4% 17.8% 23.5% RSD15 9.7% 10.7% 5.6% 9.9% 7.5% 8.8% 7.9% 7.2% 8.4% RSD18 0.5% 1.5% 0.0% 5.0% 2.1% 2.9% 0.5% 2.6% 1.6% Catch rates (fish/hr) Total 60.5 24.2 24.3 19.2 24.3 17.5 24.9 17.4 24.7 >7" 53.1 16.8 16.4 13.5 16.8 11.6 17.6 10.3 17.6

The MDC sent me their 2014 report on the gasconade river in laclede county. While this isn't data on the Meramec, I thought this group would still find it interesting. Here is the figure with the distribution of smallmouth bass by length. Of those fish at least 7" long, 19% are at least 12" long and 5% are 15" or longer.

Thanks for the responses, Al and Gavin. I'm an empiricist by training and temperament, and I enjoy learning about Ozark smallmouth and the rivers they inhabit. Of course, I like being on the water and fishing for smallies even more than reading about them.

Hi, All, I read an interesting MDC report from 2009 that assessed the effectiveness of the smallmouth special management areas. You can see it here https://archive.org/details/2009StreamBlackBass I was especially interested in the electrofishing data. For instance, the data show that,for 1996-2007, there were 10.8 smallmouth per mile in the 12"-15" range on Ozark rivers' special management areas (Gasconade, meramec, Big, etc.). In addition, there were 3.0 and .31 smallmouth per mile that were, respectively, greater than or equal to 15" and >=18". Anyone know if there are more recent data in a report somewhere? I would especially like to see the data separated by river. I wonder, for instance, if the smallmouth population is larger, and if there are more big smallies, today then for the time period of this report? It would also be cool to have a graph for each Ozark river with the number of smallmouth bass per mile on the Y axis and the length of the bass on the X axis. The information in the report doesn't help me catch fish, but it's interesting. Later

You can check the flow using the river gages. Here's the website. https://m.waterdata.usgs.gov/

Good eye, Aaron. I agree about that location. It produces fish.

My nephew and his catch

Sorry, folks, I can't get the other two photos to upload.

I took my nephew fishing today on the Middle Meramec, and he caught two 19" smallies. What is more, I landed a 18" and 20" smallmouth. Photos of mine are below, and his are in the next post (I couldn't get all four pictures to upload at once).

After a six week hiatus due to the flooding, I fished the middle Meramec on Friday. The river was in great condition, and the fish were reasonably active, though they weren't willing to chase search baits and preferred slow-moving, small soft plastics. My dad and I caught a number of fish in the 12-15" range, and the pictured 19" smallie was the largest of the day.

The river is clear where the bridge came to rest. The center section of the bridge was removed from the river

Thanks much.

Has anyone been to River 'Round to see if the ramp is operational? Thanks

Thanks, Al, for those directions. While I hope not to need them, I suspect they will come in handy one day. As others described on this post, it could have been much worse for me had I not put my arm up for protection. I do wear glasses, so I have them going for me (which is nice...)

Fellow Meramec River Enthusiasts, Sunday's weather conditions were not ideal, with the cold front and rain. However, I decided to fish the Middle Meramec. 45 minutes into the trip I caught a big one--myself!--with a worm hook. I, at first, tried to remove it myself, but it ultimately required a trip to Urgent Care. For those squeamish among you, don't look at the first picture below. Once the hook was removed from my now numb forearm (thanks to the inventor of lydocaine), I went back to the river and caught an 18 3/4" bronzeback. We were fishing slow with soft plastics, and this one hit a Z-Man Turbo Craw on a stand-up finesse jig. Was it worth the trip to Urgent Care? Definitely. But, I will be more careful in the future when my line is hung up on shore.

I don't often tell strangers where I fish, but, when I do, I lie... I can tell you I caught it on a finesse jig.