jibro

awesome thank you sir!!

if it was just me i would be there in a second but being that im taking my 12 year old niece whose parents have concerns about the weather and i have a wife who is also concerned, ill save my battle for something else

"Man I know of a ton of creeks that hold fish but, not to sound like a dick the knowledge acquired on these creeks took years of walking/wading/exploring. I really doubt anyone is gonna give you a creek or a spot to go to, they are just too precious and fragile. You have to do the dirty and truly fun work on your own of finding the best creeks that hold fish." I expect that answer to some degree. People dont want their fishing spots blown up or poached, I get it. My problem is i dont even know where to get started here and i certainly dont want to piss any land owners off by wandering somewhere i shouldn't have. Sure i coudl just go drive down the road hop out of the car over any bridge over any creek and jump in there. But again whether they hold fish and if i should be there are not are 2 concerns.

i only know of 2 and i dont know if they are fishable or what. Joachim creek which looks like you need to float from what i can see of it from 55. Little Mermac i think is what i drive over going down 30 to get to red horse. again not sure if its worth fishing and if so how can i access it. where else could one find a creek that i could spend the day wandering up and down catching fish? looking for an adventure this weekend since we have to bail on our Jacks Fork trip

well im sad to say i think we may have to bail due to the storms. ill still be watching the weather tomorrow before time to leave but its not looking good right now. looks like there maybe some severe weather. i can do rain, snow, sleet, hail but lightning is another story. Unfortunately i have one sad little niece right now who is dying to go fishing

going off the guage at akers you should be fine, river looks a little low right now according to it

thank you all for the suggestions. I will be sure to give a report when i return. As it stands right now i think we will put in at Circle B and take out at 2 rivers.

yeah i have been watching the weather carefully, at this point looks like about 30-40% chance of spotty thunderstorms which isnt enough to keep me from going. Temps looks fantastic. I am taking my niece who is dying to go fish/float/camp so I think we will literally be there through hell or high water LOL

how long is the float from Eminence to 2 rivers?

haven't floated this is river in about 5 years. How are the water levels right now? I haven't settled on a float yet so if anyone has any suggestions on a good stretch to fish that would be helpdful. How many people should i expect to run into on the river? We will be camping at Circle B but i have my own canoe we will be bringing

We only saw 3 people in 'yaks on the river. Only one of them was fishing. He came by us in that good quarter mile stretch and told us he wasn't catching much and asked how they biting for us. I told him unusally good, catching decent sized fish. Apparently he had been throwing a rooster tail. when he found out we were working the bottom he was bummed as he didn't bring any jigs at all.

I usually float this river 10-15 times a year. This is the first time i have floated it this year. New job has kept my fishing to a minimum this year. Put in around 7:45. River is up about a foot, a little murky but still 2-3 foot of clarity. Cool and overcast really couldn't have been better weather. Started catching smallies right away. 3-4 ten inch fish. Got about 2-3 miles in and hit a section of river that was really producing. 3 14's, a 15.5, 23-24 inch cahnnel cat all in about a quater mile stretch. Was throwing a 3 inch kalins grub in pumpkin with green fleck and a 4-6 foot sexy shad crank. My buddy was throwing a rubber minnow on a jig head and some creature baits. All morning the smallies were just nailing that grub. Toss it in, let it sink, and just start hopping it through the rocks and they would whack it. The catfish hit a creature bait on a jig head. Afternoon came around and i had run out of grubs. I only brought a handful. So i started throwing the crank. Wiithin the first 5 casts i had a 14 inch spot on. Not long after a 10 and a 12. Once the sun finally broke through the clouds around 1:30-2pm. It was over. As usual like hitting a switch they just stopped biting. Didn't catch one from 2:30-till we took off at 4:30. Hard to complain though by that point. Big river is a good float. We dont usually catch that quality of fish but genenrally enough to keep us busy all day. Today was quite a difference. We probably caught 16 fish between the 2 of us. He had 3, i had the rest. But when you're catching them that size on Big River that consistently as i said its hard to complain.

Yes. That is what we use on the river. The traffic really isn't that bad surprisingly. 4 thof July weekend and i think we saw 2 other boats the whole weekend. There are still plenty of walleye in the river. I have never been down there and NOT caught walleye. When we find one we ususally find 5. 9 times out of 10 we catch them on crankbaits

My wife's family has a place on the lower Black and we head down there every 4th of July with the whole family. Friday evening we got out for about an hour. River was up a little and really murky. Threw a crank, my father in law was throwing a buzz bait. Caught 2 fish. 12 inch smallie and 16 inch 'eye. Sat. evening got out again for 2 hours. 3 fish. 12 inch smallie, 11 inch spot and 17 inch eye. Smallie and the eye came on the crank, the spot hit the buzz bait. Sunday morning out for 2 hours and caught 3 spots all on the crank. 1 was 13, the other 2 were 10. The river got a little bit clearer each day not a lot but a little bit. The fish seemed to bite the slower i reeled the crank. I was throwing a 4-6 foot deep sexy shad. The eyes both came out of the middle of river. 2 of the spots hit it right when it hit the water as if i hit them in the head with it. Probably the only way they could see the bait was if it was right in front of them the water was so murky. All the bass came out of slack water right on the edge of the current. Pretty slow fishing. Father in law caught a 19 inch large mouth on a texas rigged worm the day before i got down there. If the water has been clearer im sure we would have done better. The 'eyes were the highlight. Now i usually catch one or two 'eyes while we are there but i have never caught one over 15 inches let alone 2 that were both nice thick fish. Overall it was a great weekend on the river, the whether could not have been better. we saw very little boat traffic which is strangely the norm for a section of river that has quite a few homes on it.

First time floating the Big Piney. Put in at 6:45 little chilly and overcast. Started out using a topwater pop-r and caught a blugill and a 7 inch smallie right away could still see the put in. Threw that for about an hour catching very little. Once the sun came up started throwing a shad crank and a brown grub. Crank caught zilch and had a few small fish on the grub mostly goggle eye. The first 2 miles of this strectch has very little fishable water. Either good current and extremely shallow or deep and stagnet as all hell. Once i did find i nice section 1 cast in a finally had a decent bite. However something didn't seem quite right. This fish wasn't fighting like a small mouth. I could see it in the water mouth wide open, pulling back its head and shaking. I thought this is looking and fighting like a trout. Sure enough it was a trout, 12 inch rainbow. I thought well thats odd i have never heard anything about trout in this river, as far as i know there are no regulations on trout. I knew the Little Piney flowed into the Big which is where the fish had to come from but i really had no idea where it dumped in at. It was caught from where a spring was running into the river. I figured probably not as rare of occurence as im thinking. The rest of the day held much of the same not much fishable water producing very small fish. Took out around 3:45 at Mason and talked to two people, one was the guy shuttling us back to Boiling Spring and another local who was puttting in his john boat as we were taking out. Asked both about the frequency of trout in the river. They both said they had been fishing the river between 20-25 five and had never seen or caught one. Strange. Overall it was a beautiful float, ran into a total of 4 people (2 kayaks and 2 canoes) on Memorial Day weekend which was amazing to see that few but if i was going to fish i would pick a different stretch of river

i do have my own canoe, however i spoke to a lady at boiling springs who was extremely nice and was willing to shuttle me for the Mason to Salbtown float. just told me talk to her about it when i arrived and if she suddenly had a bunch of people floating boiling spring to mason that she would put on the mason to slabtown float cause there would be less people. now which of these floats if any fish better?

would it better to do Mason to Slabtown?

we are going to go down friday night and float Saturday. really im looking for a float with least amount of people and best fishing (like we dont all look for that everytime we head out) yes i realize its Memorial Day weekend and there are going to be people but the Current and Meramec will be packed and i was hoping that the Big Piney is little more remote and plus i just wanted to fish a new river

slower water doesn't sound too promising for smallies

HAve never floated the Big Piney and was wondering how the fishing was in this strech. Is there a better strectch to fish?

by the looks of the guage you want to choose another weekend

We are supposed to be doing a 2 day float next weekend now we are hearing that Akers can not put anyone on the river. That is not a problem for us we have our own canoes but now we are hearing we may not even be able to park a car at Cedar Grove or float the river at all. Apparently some decision will be made today and we were told to call back later this afternoon and someone should have some answers for us. Just thought i would let everyone know since im sure some people were planning on heading down this weekend. May wanna give a call before you head down.

Put in about 8:30 pretty chilly, water was fairly clear for the Big but still high not unfishable. 1 goggle eye right at the bridge didn't see much else till about 10:00. Started pullin smallies just off the current in deeper water. Caught the last fish of the day at 1:00pm. That one was 15 1/2 caught on a Rattle Trap. Didn't see anything else the rest of the day took out at 4. Could have been a better day only 7 smallies 2 goggle eye and handful of bluegill. Smallies ranged from 10 to 15 1/2 inches most of which were caught on 3 inch brown grub with 1/8 ounce jig head. Tried multiple things but nothing did as well as the grub.

Well this isn't really a fishing report. Friday nights rain blew out the river completely. Unfishable Sat and Sun. Managed to get 1 smallie that was 12 inches. Water was really high, really fast, and I can't remember a time it looked so dirty. At least it was a beautiful day to float. Temps in the Mid 70's not a cloud in the sky. Can't believe im sunburned and its the beginning of April! Didn't run into 1 single person on the river. Talked to some other folks when we took out who had come from the Jack's Fork and they said a conservation agent had told them the river was completely closed and no one was putting in anywhere on it.

Its a beautiful stretch of river. Lot of nice riffle runs. As far as fishing, i have talked to MCD guys down there and all of them say dont waste your time fishing above Welch Spring. I have NEVER found that to be true if you only fish from Welch to Akers you have wasted your day. I fish this section every April and we have always had good days. 3 weekends in a row last year we had 40+ plus fish days. Fishing is definitely dependent on the conditions water levels cant be high or you most likely wont catch a thing.