If You Were In Charge Of Meramec Springs What Would You Do?

[Flyflinger]

If I was king of the Meramec Spring Park I would:

1. Remove the dam at the end of the park.

2. Remove the sidewalk, crushing it into pieces and useing it for river structure.

3. Make below the bridge a Blue Ribbon trout area.

4. Make above the bridge all C&R

5. Stock more browns

6. Stop mowing the grounds and let the wild grasses take over.

Am I missing anything?

[stlfisher]

Looks pretty good to me. Since we are shooting for the dream scenario I would extend the C/R area below the riffles at the top of the park to where the two branches meet back up. I don't see as many bait fisherman in that water compared to the other stretches. The rest of the stream would be anything goes with a 2 fish limit per person...at least until the fish numbers get back to what they used to be. If the park is in fact stocking less fish then they should decrease harvest accordingly.

I would like to see them work on the stream to add boulders riffles and more pools as well. I would like to see more gravel and less weeds as well.

[eric1978]

King of MSP? Blue Ribbon, top to bottom. Add lots of big browns. Not so sure about the concrete thing...I don't know if I'd want all that crushed ugliness. But since I'm king, I have plenty of disposable cash laying around so I would get rid of all the concrete completely and add a bunch of boulders and rip-rap to the banks. The only other rule would be if you littered you would be shot in the face and turned into fish food for the hatchery.

[Trav]

I think we are forgetting the obvious. If you were king...wouldn't you want to make it private? Just for the king and his friends? Or at least a members only club? I guess I would be a bit of a selfish arse with it. Haha.....

[jdmidwest]

Fire the gatekeeper and replace him with an ICE agent.

[Gavin]

Its not my favorite park by any means...basically a channelized ditch IMO..same can be said about Bennett, or Roaring River.

I have a feeling that dam removal would greatly reduce the amount of water that gets retained in the spring branch and I'm not sure that that would be a good thing. Meramec is set up for mass recreation and bait fishing at the present time....and thats fine with me... Figure it keeps most of the folks who want eat fish in the parks and off the waters that I like to fish.

FWIW, MDC surveyed the habitat between 8 and Scotts when they developed the trout plan several years ago and I had a chat with one of the biologists about it....They considered the habitat between the Spring and Suicide Hill to be suitable for blue ribbon management, but they figured that blue ribbon management would be hard to implement on the entire stretch. 8 to Scott's is a unique piece of water. Decent bass water from 8 to the spring, Blue Ribbon quality trout habitat from the spring to Suicide, and marginal trout & bass habitat from Suicide down to Scott's. Its a long stretch, with only 3 miles of good trout habitat, so I think red ribbon is about the best we can hope for...

Its a tough place to fish thats for sure. Its different from most of our other trout waters because the bottom is mostly fine gravel and there are only a few hard points in the stream...The food base is made of tiny stuff because the gravel is too small to grow lots of big bugs, crayfish, or sculpins. There are plenty of minnows though....I've caught plenty of nice browns and rainbows down there over the years but you really have to be on your game and work for them. Fish early or late, camp on the river, hike up or down in the dark. Cheers.

[stlfisher]

I have couple questions and maybe you all can help to answer them.

Is enforcement of a Blue Ribbon stream really much more difficult than a Red Ribbon stream? Does it require more manpower to enforce a Blue Ribbon stream ? On the surface it doesn't seem to me that it would require much more manpower. It is still the same strecth of water that would need to be patrolled. The regulations would just need to be different.

[Gavin]

Think the concensus was that the Meramec just doesnt have much good habitat or wild reproduction to be a blue ribbon stream...and when you compare it to fisheries like the Current, 11pt, or NFoW...it just doesnt compare.

The biologists wanted the best habitat, and wild fish under Blue Ribbon regs...and the Meramec just didnt measure up. Limited amount of good habitat, nasty floods....might as well close the park, bottle all that spring water, and hope that the smallmouth fishing takes off.

[stlfisher]

I see I thought they just didn't have the manpower to do it which kind of didn't make much sense to me. It certaintly seems to be real hit and miss down there. When the MDC seems unsure how to manage an area it seems to get labeled a Red Ribbon Trout area.

[Paola Cat]

I think we are forgetting the obvious. If you were king...wouldn't you want to make it private? Just for the king and his friends? Or at least a members only club? I guess I would be a bit of a selfish arse with it. Haha.....

My thoughts .... exactly.