Quick trip

[Al Agnew]

After yesterday's action filled day with my brother, I just couldn't stand it and had to go somewhere today, but I knew the Meramec or anywhere else jetboatable would probably be full of motorheads.  I had nobody to shuttle me for a canoe trip.  But I did have a private access on upper Big River that I had permission to use, and I figured that nobody else would be in the vicinity.  Upper Big River is not usually a good winter fishing stream; the bass seem to either leave or go dormant.  But I always remember a day on this little stretch during deer season, when it was unseasonably warm, and the big smallmouth got active and I caught 4 19-20 inchers.  That was a long time ago, before this stretch got overrun by spotted bass, but one can always hope for a repeat.

I put the solo canoe in, put my double bladed paddle together, and started up the river.  It was flowing strongly enough that I knew the riffles would be almost too fast and powerful to make headway with the paddle, but I had my chest waders on, so I hopped out at the first riffle, wedged the blade of the paddle between the little thwart handle at the front of the canoe and the end cap, and walked along the weedy gravel bar pulling the canoe with the paddle.

I hadn't gotten on the river until well past 11 AM, so I wasn't planning on going too far upstream.  I was tentatively planning on stopping at a pool that I'd always figured as a decent wintering pool, though I'd never caught much from it.  But as I neared the pool, I was thinking about another one, almost a mile farther upstream, a long, slow bluff pool that just looked like a good place in the winter.  It was nearly 12:30 when I reached my planned pool, but I couldn't stand it, I had to go on up to that other one.  So I ended up paddling over 3 miles upstream in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I started fishing with a crankbait in the fairly fast water at the head of the long pool, and on one of the first casts, a nice spotted bass followed it in.  Encouraged, I fished the crankbait carefully, holding the canoe in little eddies along the bank and casting downstream parallel to the bank.  Pretty soon I hooked my first fish, a 14 inch spot.  A 15 inch smallmouth came right afterwards.  On a cast out into the middle of the pool where it had slowed, I caught a 15 inch largemouth.  Three fish, all three species.  The fish weren't bunched up, but I kept picking up one now and then.  Toward the lower end of the pool on a big log, I caught a 12 inch spot on a jerkbait, then went in behind the log and brought out another 15 inch smallie.  And then I decided to try a spinnerbait, and pulled my first "picture fish" out of the next log downstream, a 17.5 inch smallie that had odd coloration...its front half was dark, the back half was much lighter.  (I'll post pictures later on tonight, hopefully.)

So I was glad I'd opted to paddle up to that pool; it produced 8 bass, all over 14 inches except for that one 12 inch spot.

The next pool downstream is not one I'd consider a wintering pool, but I fished it anyway, and briefly hooked one fish.  Then I came to a short pool that I thought had a chance of being a wintering spot.  It produced a 14 inch smallie on the crankbait.  Then I was back to the pool that had been my original goal to reach.  It was a disappointment, producing one more 14 inch smallie.  

The next pool is a very long one that is not bad in the upper fourth, where it runs along a low bluff.  Where the rocky bank of the bluff is first encountered, I brought in a 13 inch smallie on the jerkbait, and on the next cast, the biggest of the day, a beautiful, fat 18 inch smallmouth.  On down the pool I caught another 14 incher on the spinnerbait.

From there, the pools get less likely to hold wintering fish, but I continued to catch one now and then.  Only two of them were under 12 inches, a little 10 inch smallie and a 11 inch spot.  In the next to last pool before I got back to my vehicle, I first hooked a nice fish and lost it, and then caught a 17 inch largemouth on the jerkbait.  The sun was down and behind clouds and the evening was well advanced when I caught the last fish of the day in the last pool, a 13 inch smallie.

I ended up with 16 bass, 10 smallmouth, 3 spots, and 3 largemouth.  12 of them were 11 inches or better, and only 2 were under 12 inches.  I was a huge flock of turkeys flying across the river, and watched two redtailed hawks and a dozen vultures riding thermals along a bluff.  I saw no people at all.  Not bad for a spur of the moment Saturday trip in February!