Sometimes better to be lucky

[Al Agnew]

I had to go out to our land on the Meramec to mark a construction site for the whole DigRite thing where the utility companies locate any lines that might be in the way.  So I hooked up the jetboat, figuring it wouldn't take long to do the marking, and after all, if you're gonna drive more than an hour for 15 minutes' work, you might as well make it worthwhile.  There was a chance of thunderstorms, but I figured I could get in a half day of fishing, anyway.

There were four boat trailers in the parking lot when I got there.  Dang, were they all fishermen?  Which was should I go...head upstream and fish back down, or start fishing at the ramp and fish downstream as far as I wanted and motor back up?  Right after I put the boat in, here came a boat downriver.  Looked like they were taking out.  Well, that's one boat less, anyway.  I started up the motor and headed upstream.  Got about 500 yards, and realized I had left my hat in the truck.  Turned around and headed back down to get it.

When I came back down to the boat, the other boat had gone up the ramp, and I was looking at that rocky bank at the bridge pilings.  Dang, that looked good.  I had thought to leave it until last as I drifted back down, but for some reason I decided to fish it before heading upstream.  I grabbed the rod with the HD Craw.  Second cast, I set the hook into a heavy fish.  At first, weirdly, the smallmouth didn't fight much.  I got it up to the surface, close to the boat.  NICE fish.  I reached down to lip it.  THEN it totally freaked out.  It took me a good five minutes to get that thing in, it just went nuts.  Had to dig out the net and net it, finally.  Just under 19 inches.  Not bad for the first fish of the day, and had I not forgotten my hat, I wouldn't have fished that spot.

Rest of the trip was routine.  Mediocre fishing, mostly topwater, missed one other really good fish that blew up on the walk the dog lure, caught a couple in the 15 inch class and 25 or 30 altogether, most 10-12 inchers.  At one point, the river got somewhat more murky as a slug of almost muddy water came down, probably from rains on Dry Fork the day before.  Didn't affect the fishing.  

[Flysmallie]

Always some good fish that hang out in the busiest areas. 

[goosetalk]

I'll be floating Monday from Scott's Ford.  I was curious to see how the water color was so thanks for the report.