My Favorite Ozark River Smallmouth Spot

[Greasy B]

After what I witnessed out there this weekend the Meramec is in good hands and the future is bright

What did you witness?

[Mitch f]

The idea of casting everywhere with anything came into focus for me while fishing the MF in its "heyday." Those fish would be everywhere. A little 3 ft stick a half inch wide on a nothing mud bank would produce multiple smallies over 15 inches. Incredible. So, for that reason, I cast everywhere, with anything, all the time. Sure, some spots are more likely to produce, but, given my history, any spot in the stream is fair game. And will be pounded.

Had a great experience today fishing an Ozark stream. Didnt catch that many but the fish were actually being caught where they were supposed to be. Guess they read the book that says " When the boats come by lurk near structure"

[Old plug]

AL---- I have a question since you fish a lot where i used to. I want to know if that deep hole is still in the Huzzah just above the marriage with the Meramec. Coming downstreem the creek sweep left on a fairly steep drop ending in a deep hole about 100 yards above the confluence.I have some fine memories of that place. Caught trout there in very early spring and a smallmouth 4 3/4 by the locale grocery scale in Leasburg. Not to mention a lot of suckers that were the perfect frying size. Used to be a wonderful place. When the suckers were running i used to tie to tree in a little washout on the right side of the bank below the riffle and nap and just have one hell of a fine relaxing day. I can still see it. I have a private painting of it in my mind.

[Al Agnew]

If it's the spot I think you're talking about, the pool is still there but is cut off from the present channel and in fact is several hundred yards away. The Huzzah has changed multiple times in the last 15 years or so at its mouth. It used to come down the middle of the mouth of its valley until it got within about a quarter mile of the Meramec, swing to the right up against a high alluvial bank with all the trees cleared off, then swing sharply right and then sharply left, dropping into the pool I think you're talking about which was deep and was up against a little hill on the right, and at the end of that pool it went through a bit of a riffle area and into the river. Then it cut a new channel at the point where it had made that last sharp right turn, instead going straight and bypassing that last deep pool, and ran into the Meramec about 200 yards upstream from where it had before. At the same time, it was gradually eating away the high bank o that sweeping bend just upstream. It eventually got to where it parallelled the Meramec for several hundred yards, with a very narrow but high alluvial peninsula separating them. The Huzzah kept eating that peninsula away one flood at a time, its mouth continually migrating upstream on the Meramec. Now, the creek has cut away the entire narrow peninsula, and runs into the Meramec a good quarter mile upstream from where it once did. It now runs a lot straighter into the river, and it looks like it will stay in its present channel for a while at least.

You really have to look closely to see where the old channel entered the river, which is right above an island in the Meramec where the majority of the water is now going to the right in a narrow, brush-lined channel. Just a few years ago that channel wasn't there. I stopped a year or so ago and hiked up the old Huzzah channel to see what was left of that pool. It's weed-choked and mostly shallow.

[Old plug]

I googled it. I did not recognize it anymore. Thats the way of the rivers.