Still in the slump...

[Al Agnew]

Okay, it's officially getting to the point that nobody is going to want to fish with me because I'm guaranteed to bring on terrible fishing.  Sure, I haven't been going for the last three weeks taking care of Mary, and yes, the water everywhere is high and fast and murky.  But geez...

Yesterday I took the day off to drive around the mill dams on lower Big River.  I hadn't been down on the lower river in quite a while and I knew the dams were getting more and more washed out.  I threw in a fishing rod and some tackle...I knew the river would be high and muddy but I had in mind a certain creek that I wanted to try if it was fishable and not crowded and I had time.

I'll tell what the creek is...Joachim Creek in the middle of DeSoto.  When I finished looking at all the mill dams I had a couple hours to fishi it.  I parked in the park and started downstream.  First pool, second cast, I hooked a really nice largemouth, probably 16-17 inches, on topwater.  It leaped about halfway in and threw the lure.  Alright, I'm thinking, I'm gonna catch some fish!  

An hour later, I hadn't gotten a single fish.  I finally took a 14 inch smallmouth off a big rock at the lower end of a pool.  A bit farther along I caught an 8 inch largemouth.  The pools were mostly shallow, bedrock bottom, but I came to a longer, deeper one.  Surely I'd find a few fish in it.  Nope, fished the whole thing, and not a strike.  Maybe it didn't helpt that the bank was lined with double wides?  I gave up.

So today Hog Wally and I decided to fish the somewhat upper Meramec.  Water still more tthan a foot above normal and very murky.  From 9 AM to 3 PM we fished like we were killing snakes.  Tried pretty much every possible lure in every possible kind of spot between the two of us.  We MAYBE caught 10 fish all day.  I caught a 15 and a 16 incher, Hog Wally one 15 inch largemouth.  I don't think that between the two of us we could have put together a limit of legal fish if we'd wanted to.

I'd take up golf but my wrist hurts too bad from fishing so hard today that I don't think I could swing a club.

[cheesemaster]

Sorry to hear about your luck! Keep on casting, your luck will surly turn back around. Still beats working all day like I was doing.

[Hog Wally]

Not at all blaming anything on you al, but it did suck today.  And Saturday when I went with my buddy. I think you underestimated your catch today though.  Several solid fish on your homemade crank, that's success in my book.  

[Mitch f]

A frog with a scrounger head in my subdivison pond is all I can muster...new baby keeping me out of the boat

[jdmidwest]

Yum. Frog legs. 

[Greasy B]

We need some stable water. The upside is the outlook for July is very good, just need family issues, illness, work and weather to cooperate. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

18 hours ago, Mitch f said:

A frog with a scrounger head in my subdivison pond is all I can muster...new baby keeping me out of the boat

Get yourself a sub sound barrier pellet gun.  Heck I even shoot wasps with it.  Keeps you in the game

[Seth]

I fished all day Saturday out of Sand Ford and we managed four keeper largemouth up to 14" and about a dozen short smallmouth. Not a single smallmouth was a keeper. There were a lot of really nice largemouth over 3# caught farther up the river that day, but the smallmouth fishing didn't seem to be all that great overall. Now the Gasconade is a different story. There have been a lot of really nice smallmouth and largemouth being caught in this high water. I'm fishing it this weekend so hopefully I can catch a few of them myself.

[Gavin]

Was slow Memorial Day weekend too. Water levels have been up and down. It will only get better.