8 bridge to scotts ford

[top_dollar]

       Floated from the hwy 8 bridge access (woodson woods?) down to scotts ford over the weekend. Temps were in the upper 20s in the mornings, up to mid 50s in the afternoon.  Bluebird skies both days.  Water was very clear, i guess that's typical though.  I didn't realize you weren't supposed to use soft plastic baits on that stretch....i guess because of the trout?  Anyway...the sign didn't say anything about jerkbaits, so that's what i used, hopefully they aren't against the rules too.  My fly fishing friend sure caught a bunch of trout.  I caught a couple of browns and a rainbow, but mostly smallmouth.  It seemed like kinda slow fishing, but i didn't really know what to expect out of that stretch.  I caught 12 fish the first day, and 13 the second day.  1 fish was a real beauty of a smallmouth, just shy of 19 inches.  I caught it just below where the spring enters the river on an x-rap.  An x-rap 8 and an 110+1 style jerkbait in natural colors were working well enough for me to not change.  Id throw the x-rap in the riffles and shallow wash outs, and the 110+1 in the deeper pools. 

[ness]

What's that speckly looking fish in the 5th picture?  

[Gavin]

They caught the last brown trout! Did it have a transmitter protruding from its backside?

[top_dollar]

We caught several browns actually.  I caught 2 on a jerkbait, and my buddy caught 4 on a fly and tiny jerkbait.  Here is my second.  I didnt see any transmitters on any of them, but i did see an MDC boat and the folks in there were looking for tagged browns they said.

[ColdWaterFshr]

41 minutes ago, top_dollar said:

We caught several browns actually.  I caught 2 on a jerkbait, and my buddy caught 4 on a fly and tiny jerkbait.  Here is my second.  I didnt see any transmitters on any of them, but i did see an MDC boat and the folks in there were looking for tagged browns they said.

Congratulations, you caught 2 of the 9 that are still swimming around down there! 😂 Should of just hollered out to the MDC folks, "put yer radio's away boys, here they are"

[45acp]

2 hours ago, ness said:

What's that speckly looking fish in the 5th picture?  

That's one of them suckerfish the natives like to catch on their frog stickers.

[ColdWaterFshr]

In fairness to MDC, I think these days the habitat is really poor, and the floods are epic, and the summertime water temperature is too high on those wide shallow, uncanopied expanses like shown in the picture above to sustain any long term put and grow program.   It may have been better fishery once upon a time, before most anyone wandered outside the park, and before otters and the eagle population rebounded to what it is.  Between 8 and the Spring branch a few years ago, I must've counted 20 eagles.

I think giggers take a few.  Poachers certainly do.  Sure, tickets should be written.  But lets be honest about our expectations.

[Mitch f]

39 minutes ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

In fairness to MDC, I think these days the habitat is really poor, and the floods are epic, and the summertime water temperature is too high on those wide shallow, uncanopied expanses like shown in the picture above to sustain any long term put and grow program.  

Umm, the water in said pic is directly below the 2nd biggest spring in Mo. the spring area is 52 degrees year round

[ColdWaterFshr]

9 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Umm, the water in said pic is directly below the 2nd biggest spring in Mo. the spring area is 52 degrees year round

True, but consider the fairly large watershed above and immediately below the spring branch.  Dry Creek is a pretty long warm-water creek, and what is there, another 30 miles of Meremac above the spring branch?    Granted, much of that is spring-fed, but I wouldn't call that water frigid through the long dog days of summer.  So combine those inputs and that 7 mile stretch of "red ribbon" isn't anywhere near 52 degrees year round.  I think Jen had said only the upper 2 miles are really conducive for any hope of put and grow for trout, but that would be dependent on minimal flood events. 

[ness]

11 hours ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

In fairness to MDC, I think these days the habitat is really poor, and the floods are epic, and the summertime water temperature is too high on those wide shallow, uncanopied expanses like shown in the picture above to sustain any long term put and grow program.   It may have been better fishery once upon a time, before most anyone wandered outside the park, and before otters and the eagle population rebounded to what it is.  Between 8 and the Spring branch a few years ago, I must've counted 20 eagles.

I think giggers take a few.  Poachers certainly do.  Sure, tickets should be written.  But lets be honest about our expectations.

Good post. It's human nature to dumb things down and blame everything on a single cause, and it drives me nuts. Can't watch or read the news without being swamped with examples.