9/22/13 Fishing Report

[BassMaster#1]

Floated the upper Merarmec yesterday and had a good day. I caught 14 and easily good of had 18 - 20 if they would have stayed on hook and my cousin wouldn't have lost all the lures to snags and trees. Most were small in the 10" -12" and the two biggest went 15" and 15.5" with the biggest weighing 2lbs, which is my biggest smallmouth this year. My cousin caught 19 and could have easily had 25 if he could have kept all his fish on the hook. He would tell you it was because of the M power rod I loaned him, but he did get the front of the boat so he can’t complain to much. Great day and glad we were able to get on some fish. The majority of the fish were smallmouth, but did hook up with 3 trout and a lot of spots.

[Mitch f]

Nice, glad you had fun!

[go4ducks2]

Nice report....looks like a great trip to me...anytime you catch fish and can get out and enjoy the outdoors.

[405z06]

Thanks for the report. I have never actually fished any of the Meramec above Scotts Ford. Also, I have never, ever caught a trout of any kind. What area did you fish? How does it compare to, say, Scotts Ford to Riverview in terms of bassy-ness?

[BassMaster#1]

This was a 9 mile float from hwy 8 to scotts ford, but it's a long float. Half of the streatch is pretty shallow fast moving water and the other half is more of deeper pools like the float bellow scotts ford. We pretty much fished only the rapids, lay downs by rapids and any place small creeks joined with the meramec. The trout came out of all the fast moving rapids. The second half doesn’t have as many rapids, but more deeper pools. We fished all lay down's with some flow and at the end of all deep pockets. You should give this stretch at try some time.

This is one of my favorite stretches of water on the meramec just for the multiple species of fish you can catch. We also saw a doe/fawn swimming across the river as well as 30yrds from a spike buck getting a drink on the river.

[Al Agnew]

I'm curious about one thing...are you sure you caught spots (spotted bass?) I've never seen a spotted bass in that stretch, and theoretically they shouldn't do well at all in it because it's so cold in the summer.

[Mitch f]

For what it's worth Al, I caught one at the confluence of the river and the springs last year

[BassMaster#1]

I'm pretty sure the 7 I caught were spots. Had rough patches on the tongue with rough scales and a continued dorsal fin. They were small, so I guess a few could have slipped by. My cousin didn't check his, so I can't say for sure on his. We caught about 17 or 18, which is the most I've seen in this stretch and we started catching them about mile past the spring. Only one way to find out and that’s to go out fishing the stretch again, but don't think I'm going to be able to get much fishing in the rest of the season because of bow season. I am going to try to squeeze a day on the big in October since I've never floated this stream before.

[Smalliebigs]

If what you are saying is true???? well, that is a very bad sign

I'm pretty sure the 7 I caught were spots. Had rough patches on the tongue with rough scales and a continued dorsal fin. They were small, so I guess a few could have slipped by. My cousin didn't check his, so I can't say for sure on his. We caught about 17 or 18, which is the most I've seen in this stretch and we started catching them about mile past the spring. Only one way to find out and that’s to go out fishing the stretch again, but don't think I'm going to be able to get much fishing in the rest of the season because of bow season. I am going to try to squeeze a day on the big in October since I've never floated this stream before.

[BassMaster#1]

Yes, that would be pretty bad for the smallmouth.