Report 6/12

[jfrith]

Me and a buddy of mine fished the park today and the mile or so of fishable water below. Started it off at 630 at the horn and were able to catch our limit within the first hour or so. I was takin them on everything from copper jons to cracklebacks, and my buddy had good luck on yellow rooster tails. After lunch we headed below the park. Caught probly another 10 myself on soft hackle with a beadhead dropper and then was able to find this one brown on a size 16 crackleback, which I was pretty excited about despite its small size because it was my first brown ever on the meramac. Was there a stocking recently? I was beginning to think they were just a thing of the past, as I hadnt even seen one on this river for 5 years. Also, up near where the spring branch pours in we saw several 6+ lb. rainbows but had no luck with those, wouldnt even look at my black woolly. Anyways, after fishing down stream we decided to head upstream from the confluence about half a mile and found several huge smallmouth, who wouldnt even look at our lures. Also saw several gar that would have went atleast 3 feet, tried for these too with no luck. Anybody know some good ways to try for these? All in all the river seemed a little lower than usual, but not terrible. No wind, few clouds and temps. around 80 made for another great day on the meramec. OH and i almost forgot, we walked the hatchery and saw that one of the raceways was filled with Brooktrout? Never seen this here before and was wondering if they are putting these in the park or below it? thanks.

Joe

[Haris122]

I remember reading of the brook trout being stocked strategically upstream of some other sections of the spring, to filter out some kind of parasite that Rainbow, and maybe even Brown (not sure) trout are susceptible to, in case this parasite is or becomes present in the hatchery somehow. Apparently it's a limited amount of them, and they're not supposed to be stocked for any real fishing purposes.

[jfrith]

Interesting....... well darn, they were some big brookies.