The Meramec Red Ribbon Trout Doesn't Have To Suck!

[joeD]

I like to fish for trout too. Unfortunately, they are not in the upper Meramec. Maybe the mdc was wrong in designating this section a trout area. It happens. They are human. If you want trout, go elsewhere.

[Outside Bend]

Joe- I don't see the problem with asking questions. The upper Meramec has been a quality fishery in the past, and folks want answers as to why it's declined- seems reasonable to me.

If it's a habitat issue then yes, there's not much we can do about it. But even MDC seems to think browns can still persist there- it's more a matter of producing enough browns in the hatcheries to stock in the first place. If that bottleneck is the issue, I don't see anything wrong with trying to work around it- getting fish from out of state or private contractors, even upping the length limit on browns or even making them C&R only statewide- reducing the number of browns harvested could knock down stocking requirements on other streams, allowing the Meramec to receive more fish.

[lizard]

get a handle on the poaching and things might be alittle better

[mic]

Great topic. Good fishing on the Meramec in the 80's and 90's the decline is really sad. I wonder if the current MDC individual in charge of the fishery actually fishes it? I know Spence Turner did.

I don't know about the man in charge, but the some of the rangers working the park do. However, the one I talked to was a transplant like me and doesn't remember the good days.

[joeD]

I have no problems asking questions. Geez, that's what I do. My point is, that people think it was a quality fishery (for trout) in the past, and it is (was) just not true. We force fed trout below Meramec Springs in the hopes to create a "trout fishery," banking on the fact that the cold waters of the spring will sustain a population of trout downstream for a few miles, like the Current River. But the Meramec is not the Current. The idea that the reason trout can't thrive below the spring is because of man-made obstacles and environmental issues due to our "negligence" is just plain incorrect. The Meramec is an Ozark jewel, no doubt. But.The Meramec River is not a trout stream, however much we want to wish it so.

[tanvat]

Joe D,

You assert that the Meramec below the spring was never a "quality" trout fishery. I am wondering what you mean by that. If by a "quality" fishery you mean that the Meramec never supported a viable wild trout population, then I agree with you. I'm not going to quibble with one's defintion of a "quality" fishery; I prefer wild trout too - even better native wild trout, but that is just not an option in Missouri. If, however, you mean that that the Meramec never supported a "quality" stocked brown trout fishery, then your assertion is just factually incorrect. The MDC population estimates referred to earlier indicate a strong population in the 90's. My recollection, photo album and fishing journal recount numerous days of magnificent sight fishing with dries and nymphs. When I got my driver's license in 1989, my younger brother and I flat wore out the Meramec and I continued to do so until fishing tapered off in the late 90's - the fishing was, in fact, quite good. Not for wild trout, but the stocked and holdover browns were not pushovers. The long pool below the spring used to be stacked with browns and it was the case all the way down to the long pool below the so-called Suicide Hill.

You also assert that "[t]he idea that the reason trout can't thrive below the spring is because of man-made obstacles and environmental issues due to our "negligence" is just plain incorrect." Do you have any studies, observations or data to back that up? It may well be the case that watershed development, poaching, and any number of other "man-made obstacles and enviromental issues" may be responsible for the decline in the fishery; it was, after all, quite good in the 90's, and saying it was not does not make it so. The question then, is what changed? Its either the river environment or the managment, right? It seems unlikely that the sustained period of good fishing which included the 1988 drought and heat wave and the flooding of the 90's was a unique conflucence of events especially conducive to good trout fishing on the Meramec.