The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Jim Spriggs]

Yesterday, I fished an area of the middle Meramec that was new to me.  

The good--it was a gorgeous day and I consider myself fortunate to have been  on a fabulous Ozarn river on a weekday.

The "bad"--the fish were largely inactive, and I managed to catch about a dozen over the course of an eight hour trip.  All were in the 10"-14" range, and I located them tight to logs in slack water.  I put "bad" in quotes because I consider catching fish (especially big ones) a bonus to the fishing experience.

The ugly--the big fish of the day was a couple pound drum.  No offense to you lovers of drum...

 

[Mitch f]

42 minutes ago, Jim Spriggs said:

Yesterday, I fished an area of the middle Meramec that was new to me.  

The good--it was a gorgeous day and I consider myself fortunate to have been  on a fabulous Ozarn river on a weekday.

The "bad"--the fish were largely inactive, and I managed to catch about a dozen over the course of an eight hour trip.  All were in the 10"-14" range, and I located them tight to logs in slack water.  I put "bad" in quotes because I consider catching fish (especially big ones) a bonus to the fishing experience.

The ugly--the big fish of the day was a couple pound drum.  No offense to you lovers of drum...

 

Did you catch the drum in the middle of the river?

[goosetalk]

What did you catch them on? 

[Jim Spriggs]

I caught them on 3"-4" soft plastics-- zoom craws, lizards, and paddle tail minnows, and a TRD on a Ned rig.

 I had no success on what has been a productive lure this past Winter and early Spring--the trusty Wiggle Wart.

I started catching once I got right next to logs and drifted the lures under them.

The drum was the one fish I caught in a bit of current on a rocky outside bend. 

 

[goosetalk]

I fished the Huzzah and Courtois which was likely much clearer but spinnerbaits around laydowns was      best for me. Also had luck on the Ned with half a ZinkerZ in PBJ color. Tried Flukes and a buzzbait with zero strikes

[Jim Spriggs]

I threw a spinner bait without success 

[ozark trout fisher]

Sounds like a good day to me.

I too have been having the vast majority of my success this year with Ned Rigs, tubes, and other soft plastics. And I much prefer fishing crankbaits, spinnerbaits, etc. and usually only turn to soft plastics when nothing else is working. Not exactly sure why it's playing out that way.

[Hog Wally]

It's a tough bite today.  I'm thinking tomorrow throwing nothing but topwater and crank baits to find if they are in the middle of the river like they were when me n al agnew went the other day.  In which case I will drag a centipede or Mitch craw 

[Jim Spriggs]

Give us a report on your outing.  

I'm painting my boat trailer this weekend, so I'm hoping to get out early next week in the early evening and enjoy some  MO heat. 

[Pat Magee]

I floated the Meremac on Thursday as well but with some different results.  I was able to catch 31 with the biggest being a little over 15".  About 1/3 of those were goggle eye, the rest were all SM with the exception of the one LM I caught.  Fish were actively feeding in the shallow water and they inhaled the Arkie centipede and Zoom Super Fluke in my "special" hard to find color mix, Red Magic.  I couldn't pull a fish out of any of the deep holes to save my life. There seemed to be only gar in the deeper holes. 

I did find a long stretch of the section I floated to be full of this (sorry I can't figure out how to get this pics right side up!)  I really wish I would have concentrated a little more on fishing this area because there were some good sized smallies and largemouth hiding beneath them. I just was running a little short on time.