Morse Mill To Cedar Hill

[BassMaster#1]

What can I say, the big river has been tough on me this year. I haven't been able to get out much this year with the honey do list, but just finished up that so I've got fishing on my mine the rest of the year till the second one comes in October. I floated the section from Rockford beach to Twinrivers about a month ago because it was close to home. Moguy and I did well last year on this stretch despite all the rain we ended up getting. Well, it ended up raining 2 days before I went and muddied up the whole stretch. I didn't catch a single fish and decided it was going to be a bad day just by looking at the water and not catching a single fish within the first 2 mile stretch. You could only see in the water about 6". It reminded me of how the lower Bourbeuse river looks, not to mention all the paddle that was involved with this section.

I've been wanting to get familiar with the Big River, so decided to float Morse Mill to Cedar Hill section today and pass on floating the Meramec. First off the float was long, second the float was long, and third the fishing was bad. This was close to a 10 miles float with a fair amount of smallmouth water, but more frog water than smallmouth water. There were some pretty good stretches of nice smallmouth water, but the problem was the water was only a 1.5" deep. I also felt the water was a little murky from the rain on Sunday night. Visibility was about 1.5", but certainly not that off colored green I remember when I floated the lower section last October. I ended up catching 6 smallies and 1 catfish. The biggest was 13" and the catfish was 3lbs. Caught them all on tubes and 1 on a topwater. All were caught in ripples and 4 from one spot including the catfish. It was certainly a rough day to say the least. If I floated this section again it would be with a trolling motor. Some goods spots, but way to shallow for my liking. Next time I head out, it will be the Meramec or smaller tribute streams. If this was a 6 mile float it would be ok, but I’ve decided 10 miles is way too long unless your catching fish all day. Below is the pic of the 20" catfish and one of the spots I had to walk my kayak around the rocks. There are two sections like this, the one at the beginning of the float and this one in the middle of the float.

[moguy1973]

There's his catfish.

And the rocky stretch.