Personal Lake Info Help

[JGarland]

Just moved to Missouri several months ago and am wanting to know about places to fish for Bass in the Farmington area. There are four lakes at St Joe State Park, any personal experience and knowledge of those would be great. I see on the map that there is a Bismarck Lake that is close, as well as the St Francis and Big Rivers. Any personal knowledge of these beyond what I can find from the Missouri State Parks would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Al Agnew]

The main St. Joe Park lake gets a lot of pressure, but can furnish some decent fishing at times.

Bismarck Lake is an interesting but difficult lake to fish. It is really chock full of aquatic weeds and also has huge expanses of lily pads. It's an old lake, and much of it is less than ten feet deep (most of the upper half is less than 6 feet deep), although there is some 15-20 ft. deep spots down close to the dam. In my opinion, the best way to fish it is from a canoe, so that you can paddle around in the thick of the pads and look for little openings to fish. With a johnboat and trolling motor, or a bass boat using just the trolling motor (you can't use a big outboard) you're somewhat limited to fishing the deeper areas and the edges of the aquatic growth. There are some big bass in it if you can find them.

Council Bluff Lake isn't too far away. It's a Forest Service lake on the upper end of Big River. It's a beautiful lake, clear and fairly deep, lots of standing dead timber. Pretty good bass fishing.

The St. Francis River comes out of Bismarck Lake, and between there and the southern edge of St. Joe Park is a small stream with some big pools. Access is difficult at best in that section, but the pools have largemouth bass and crappie. It goes through a "losing stretch" past Farmington, where it dries up completely in the summer. It starts to flow again just about where Farmington's sewage treatment plant dumps into it (not a real pleasant thought), but it's reasonably clean. The Conservation Department Gruner Ford access is just south of Farmington on Hwy. H, and it's wadeable there, with mostly largemouth and some spotted bass. The next access downstream is the Syenite Access, also on Hwy. H farther south. There it is a little bigger, with a lot bigger pools that can be difficult to wade. You can float from Gruner Ford to Syenite in a canoe or kayak in a long day when there is enough water--it gets really low in the summer. You can also put in a small boat at Syenite and go upstream through a couple of big pools or downstream through a couple of big pools with fairly short riffles in between, until you get down to where the upper shut-ins start. The shut-ins are a huge jumble of granite boulders, impassable in anything but canoe or kayak, and heavy rapids when there is enough water. The river down to the shut-ins is almost entirely largemouth and spotted bass, but smallmouth start showing up in the shut-ins and become more and more common as you go downstream.

I don't know what kind of watercraft you have, but both the St. Francis and Big River are strictly canoe/kayak/small, light johnboat type water. Big River is wadeable in many places. There is a Conservation Department access, Bootleg Access, at about the upper end of fishable water where Hwy. 21 crosses the river. Good wading in that area, lots of smallmouth and some nice largemouth. Just about any bridge crossing from there downstream offers decent access and wadeable water all the way down to St. Francois State Park north of Bonne Terre. Spotted bass, which are not native to Big River, have been invading these upper stretches in recent years and taking over from smallmouth. You'll first start seeing spotted bass around the Leadwood MDC access, and they get thicker as you go downstream. The river around Desloge and down to St. Francois Park is highly impaired from old lead mine waste, and the habitat isn't very good, but the fishing can be pretty decent.

[JGarland]

Thanks Al, that is some great information!! I really appreciate it!! Just moved here from Indiana and do not know the area very well, looking for a fishing buddy too!