MOFishwater

I live in Eureka and saw a lot of complaints...Brookedale Farms says the lanterns are rice paper and should dissolve after a rain fwiw. ANy idea specific location? Apparently there is a # you can call for their cleanup crew on each lantern's tag. I could let them know where this spot is if you can provide the location.

nice fish! I'm gonna guess it was either just in front of a big hole, in the big hole, or just past a deep hole, maybe upriver or downriver from pacific. I need to have a morning "dr. appt" soon and hit the water for a bit after dropping off the kids at school. River always looks amazing in the morning hours.

Did the lower Meramec Mafia badger you to edit your post? Bummer, nice to see a throwback to when I joined this place and people didn't get harassed for sharing relevant info. God forbid we get a real report on here! I already had my MO Paddling guide marked up with all the spots you mentioned and placed my order for HD Craws ... some of you take this forum way too seriously.

Had a hot minute to toss the kayak in the river after my daughter's soccer game on Saturday and decided to give the same small stretch of my 'backyard' another once over...decided I'd hit the usual spots and switch things up next time I can get out and start picking apart the opposite bank. Got the last parking spot in the lot, beautiful afternoon and the boats were taking full advantage. Only mustered one thump but finally got the bass skunk off, sure isn't anything special but felt a little vindicated after coming up empty on the green fish time after time. Fish was hiding WAY under a big blowdown and sucked in a green Chomper. Crankbait, ned rig, spinner, plopper were of no interest. I didnt see any movement on the water, no boils or jumping fish, no wildlife of any kind. Pretty dead afternoon but perhaps the steady stream of boats had something to do with it. Beers were nice and cold though! Headed back to the house after an hour and change to fire up some venison tenderloins. Probably should have been sitting in a treestand instead:)

Did our annual work outing @ Blue Springs Ranch yesterday. I'm the only one in the group that does any fishing so it's sort of a different trip than I'm used to but you wont ever hear me complaining about the boss giving us the day off work to go floating. Weather was perfect, river was a bit choked up with all the falling leaves, especially in the slack water areas. We ended up having another canoe tandem head out in front of us and a gaggle of kayaks behind us along with one small raft. We had 5 other canoes in our group so we were not exactly a stealthy bunch, my brother and i quickly settled in at the back of the pack and he kept me in position to make quality casts most of the time. Topwater started off quite slow so I was mainly sticking to a fairly heavy Chomper rig in a darker green color and a brown/orange craw rig. The dark green was def the ticket yesterday, ended up with 6 smallies by lunch on Chompers and one that came unbuttoned on the craw. While we stopped on a gravel bar for lunch I was wading and casting to some deeper holes. Had a small largemouth following every cast but not ever taking any pops on the craw...I spent 3 or 4 mins goofing around with it and couldnt irritate it enough to strike. I went over for a sip of my beer and swapped to the chomper rig. The small bass was still finning around in the same spot, so I tossed the chomper out in front of it and it it immediately dove on it and I quickly landed it and threw it back. Kind of funny how a simple color change can make all the difference. As the day went on the small whopper plopper started to produce quite a few fish (sorry for not taking a single photo, had my phone in a dry bag and didnt feel like messing with it). I had one big bruiser follow all the way to the boat and come blasting up when I lifted the lure out of the water, wish I could have hooked into that one. Had a number of small fish on the zara spook puppy as well until I lost it and didnt have a backup. Tied on a smaller green plastic popper and it was working more on bluegill than bass but provided a bit of action. Normally have a good day with the buzzbaits on that stretch but they just weren't interested in any size or color i had in my limited tackle selection. The leave litter on the water surface made the treble hooks a bit of a pain but the fish seemed stacked up under the spots with lots of leaves so it was worth dealing with. Always a good, easy float from Blue Springs. Close to home and scenic enough to 'get away' for a few hours. Saw a bunch of bald eagles, a very late dropped fawn that was laying about 2 ft off riverbank thinking it's spots were good camo for the dirt I guess, some noisy kingfishers... River never really produces much size for me in that stretch but there's always a good number of fish to be caught if you just want some fun action. Be sure to bring some green/pumpkin plastics and some topwater lures. This post has been promoted to an article

getting deeper

Go back thru his 33 posts, nothing but a troll (on a fishing forum of all places!?). I'd rather be fishing on the river than trolling on a friendly fishing board, personally.

Nice! I only got out for an hour yesterday from the Route 66 boat ramp but it was a nice respite. The gar were hot on a whopper plopper and craw colored spinnerbait. Had a nice visit from a spotted fawn that came down for a sip of water which was enjoyable.

Thanks for the report, it's a tough stretch! Surprised nobody has been posting lately, water looks pretty good right now. Hope to get out tomorrow evening, been a while.

I reckon I need to get some of those fancy crawdad thingamajigs everyone whispers about on here.

we hit it Friday and Sunday for a few hours. River was insanely busy yesterday as it was perfect out (albeit windy). Still no bass, lots of gar and a big drum. Gonna need to hit up some newer stretches of water. Planned to float down from Allenton yesterday but we nixed it and just checked out some new spots close to home. Kinda funny, I caught a lot more from the bank the few times I was down goofing around. go figure.

Finally got to dust off the new (to me) kayak and take a little spin on the river. Wife took the kids up to visit the inlaws so I had a long afternoon to get out and explore. Never fail to be amazed at how we can have such an awesome resource next to a main artery of the state and there's literally nobody using it much of the time. Sitting there watching a couple kingfishers rattling up and down the river, mature bald eagle cruising by, deer drinking from banks while thousands of cars zip by a few hundred yards away oblivious to what's going on outside their vehicle's windows. Not complaining, I thoroughly enjoyed the serenity and alone time! I can be loaded up and down on the access in minutes so I plan to take as much advantage of it as possible. Only thing that would make it better would be having a friend upriver that would let me dump in there and float down instead of having to get a workout in to float back down all too quickly. Had one small spot hit an inline spinner and come unbuttoned, other than that it was pretty slow, more just getting in tune with the new boat and adjusting to the space limitations. Still a wonderful few hours of having a river to myself, hard to beat. Never been much of a river fisherman so it's going to take some patience to find some success, I'm quite sure I'm not in high % water either but that makes it all the more fun to try and figure out. Threw jigs, spinners, whopper plopper, cranks, swimbait, buzzbait. Mebbe next time! This post has been promoted to an article

FWIW Dick's Sporting Goods has most of their kayaks on sale 33% off. Had I not already picked one up I'd be all over it. Cheapest I've seen them since I started looking a couple years ago. The Field and Stream one is $399 right now, $549 was the lowest I ever saw it go. Good time to blow some cash if you have been thinking about finding something to take up valuable garage space:)

well this sure is boring. finally have time to fish and nowhere to put in. i guess if the last few years are any indication we'll be complaining about drought in a few months.

still need a lot of help in eureka, we got a bunch done yesterday but still a lot to protect.

Good times. This was the scene right behind my house, a side by side comparison of dry>wet. Thanks god they had that warning sign there, lol.

Sigh...was really hoping to get out this weekend, sure looks like a doozy week ahead for excessive rainfall. Time to scope out some new ponds I guess, she's gonna get really high and muddy real fast.

river has def cleared up but (for me) still a bit high. we took a peek at it yesterday afternoon (Route 66 ramp), had plans of taking the canoe out for an hour but decided against it. It'll be sky high again after this weekend it appears, maybe we'll get out in June;)

dude. now everyone knows there are good fishing spots near Cook Station's gage. You're gonna ruin it, expect some angry notes in your inbox.

she's creepin' up on street level at 270/44 once again.

Even if i had a big boat I wouldnt fathom going out on the river right now after driving over it this morning, even before all the extra rain we've gotten today. I'll take a pic on my run today if the trail isnt washed out. Just below the boat ramp is a massive tangle of trees from the flood jammed up on the piling. would probably be a bad day if your motor wasn't up to the task of fighting the current at this level.

nice feesh

Mind sharing where you caught it and the lure? Thanks in advance.