St. Louis Area Walleye

[WHARFRAT]

As far as the Meramac goes, I never have really targeted Walleye, but I have caught them on numerous occasions, but not a lot at one time. When I go on the river, its usually between Castlewood and I44 near Fenton. Put in by the Ballparks on Marshall Rd. There are a few deep spots in that stretch and that's where they seem to come from. Like I said before, not a lot at one time. I think two is the most I hooked up on. No keepers, but would be great eater size if they'd let us keep them (13"). I think I've caught everyone trolling cranks behind the boat, I don't think I ever caught one there casting. From what people have told me, this is the time of the year to fish for them here.

[Kayser]

Upstream, or downstream?

[Al Agnew]

I've done a lot of winter walleye fishing, but only on Black and Current River, farther than you want to drive. And I've caught walleye on the Meramec, Big, and Bourbeuse, but only by accident while fishing for bass. But if I was going to target winter walleye in the Meramec, the first thing I'd do would be to get a portable fish finder and figure out how to use it with your kayak. You want to have a good idea of depths and bottom structure in whichever pools you find to fish. Then I'd just start checking out accesses, paddling around and upstream to explore for possible winter walleye pools. Although this certainly doesn't always hold true, as a general rule the bigger and deeper the pool is, the more likely it is to hold some walleye. I'd be looking for pools with considerable expanses of water over ten feet deep. Once I found such a pool, however, I wouldn't concentrate on the deepest water. I'd look for the first place below the riffle where the depth drops off from a fairly shallow bar into water that is at least 8 or 10 feet deep. The quicker it drops off the better. And I'd check out the lower end of the pool to see if there is a fairly quick rise from water over 10 feet deep up to shallow water. Feeding walleye will cruise along the deep edges of these bars in the daylight, looking for baitfish. At night they'll come up onto the submerged bars to feed. If you find a spot that looks really good, you might want to fish it with good sized live minnows, but otherwise you can prospect the deep pools with the lures you mentioned.

One other thing...sometime around the last of February or the first of March, sometimes a little sooner, sometimes a little later, the walleye will begin vacating the big, deep wintering pools to head for good spawning riffles. They'll stage in the first deep water below spawning riffles. I've never fished for them at that time in the Meramec system, but I do know that every year in very early spring, walleye are caught below the mill dams on Big River as they run up the river to spawn. On Black River, the walleye spawn early, and usually by mid-February they'll mostly left the wintering pools, but I believe they spawn a little later on the Meramec.

[joeD]

Targeting walleye on the Meramec is like targeting a super-model at Pop's at 2:30 am on Wednesday night. Odds are about the same. Might happen though. Just ask my transgender "wife." (at least there are no children involved in the divorce).

PS: The riffle below the Simpson Lake outflow (Meramec River, Valley Park) has produced walleye in days of yore, on Shad Raps.

[Kayser]

Thanks for the advice Al, I'll see what I can do for a depth finder, and start exploring some accesses on the Meramec. I think I'll start going upstream from the Allenton Access to see if I can find any water- it's the only access close to STL that has walleye actually listed as a species.

On a side note, I was able to hook up with a walleye today in IL thanks to the help of siusaluki. Unfortunately, the hook pulled and left me with the goose-egg for the day. Try again some other time.

Rob

[kevthebassman]

Kayser, that area is my stomping grounds. Not for fishing, mind you, though I have certainly fished most of that stretch of river, but if you'd like a shuttle or something and can let me know a week or so in advance, I'm sure we could hook that up.