Kayaked at route 66 recently

[Haris122]

Just a quick, pretty boring report from last Tuesday. I took my kayak out to route 66 state park that afternoon, and caught 1 12-13" channel cat on a jointed minnow of all things, and had something else get off of a shallow diving crankbait in the 4 or so hours I fished there. That's the extent of the excitement. I thought of floating downstream and paddling back up, but knowing myself I knew that would get me in trouble as I'd wait too late to head back upstream in time, especially trying to paddle against the faster water around the 44 bridge, and down from the old route 66 bridge. So, instead I got down to the gravel bar there, walked it down to a run in-between the bridges and cast out a roostertail and jointed minnow into it to no avail, before I headed upstream in hopes of seeing the Big river confluence. Sometimes I'd troll a crank/stickbait behind me while paddling, other times I'd try to hone in on what looked like good structure with a roostertail, stickbait, or crankbait, but in short, it was pretty fruitless. I saw a few gar and sunfish along the way, but didn't get the gar to bite, and only got teasing taps from the sunfish. Eventually my slow pace caught up with me and I realized I was still about a mile away from the confluence, with maybe 35-45 minutes left to get back to the ramp and load up the kayak, so I turned around and started hauling posterior back. Essentially I fished until probably THE best time remaining, and then had to forego that to make it back downstream on time. Once I got close to the ramp I cast out a bit more, which is when the bite on the shallow crankbait came, but shortly after I decided I better get packing before they lock me in. 

As an interesting aside, when I got there I saw a boat going back and forth near the boat ramp, and for a moment I thought they might be with the MDC sampling for fish, but pretty soon I decided that wasn't it. Upon asking them, it turned out they were surveying the river around the oil pipeline that runs under the park and across the river around there.

[MOFishwater]

Thanks for the report, it's a tough stretch! Surprised nobody has been posting lately, water looks pretty good right now. Hope to get out tomorrow evening, been a while. 

[go4ducks2]

I heard the river is really low right now....thats from a jetboater I know.

[Haris122]

Seems actually a touch on the high side between Fenton and Arnold at least.