MDC stocks urban lunkers

[oneshot]

7 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Me too, Oneshot.   Doesn't it chap your @$$ that they take a ton of fish that should go into the river, haul them 2-4 hours North and throw them into bass ponds ?  

It does me ! 😅

Guess that is where they are going use to have many more in the river than they do now days. Use to use Small Spinners catch the crap out of them.

But cold weather catch the something out of Goggle Eye.

Interesting they put a bunch of money in Hatchery Expansion and still can't keep up.

oneshot

[fishinwrench]

The only change I've noticed since they upgraded the hatchery is that the fish are fewer, smaller on average, and not quite as pretty as they used to be.

The evolution of trout farming seems to be going in the wrong direction. They are supposed to be so much smarter and have such better equipment now, but I fail to see the expected results of that.   

I wonder what stumbling blocks are present now that were lacking in the 70's-80's-90's-and early 00's ?  Anybody know?  

It's like they all quit smoking cigarettes, started wearing seatbelts, got wireless internet, started vaping and driving Ford's......and ever since then no amount of higher education and state of the art technology can reproduce the yeilds of years past.   

[laker67]

People who did not fish in the 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000 have no idea how pitiful park fishing has become. It seemed for awhile, recently, that things might be headed in the right direction again, only to find the creek full of 8 and 10 inchers again. Why promote the urban areas to gain more fishermen, when they can't handle the situation they have now. I say just buy fish from the private suppliers and forget about trying to raise, ugly, non fighting, faded out dinks.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I quit going to Bennett when the put that hatchery pipe below the main bridge.  It was a ghost of it’s former self even back then.  What a shame. 

[Quillback]

So when you guys say the parks were better back in the day - was it because they stocked more fish and they were bigger overall than now?  Never have fished the parks myself, always thought about giving Roaring river a shot during catch and release, maybe someday.  

[oneshot]

2 hours ago, laker67 said:

People who did not fish in the 70's, 80's, 90's and early 2000 have no idea how pitiful park fishing has become. It seemed for awhile, recently, that things might be headed in the right direction again, only to find the creek full of 8 and 10 inchers again. Why promote the urban areas to gain more fishermen, when they can't handle the situation they have now. I say just buy fish from the private suppliers and forget about trying to raise, ugly, non fighting, faded out dinks.

Ah fish for other like Catfish.

oneshot

[Smallie Seeker]

Went back out to January-Wabash park in Ferguson last night around 8pm and the trout were there and very active. One older fisherman fella who offered me a bucket of 30 dink crappie from Busch lake #33 was leaving and he said the trout were stocked yesterday (Tues.) so the hotline was incorrect with the listed Monday stocking. Said he only saw 1 trout caught earlier in the day. 

My gf came with and I invited a buddy who is former law enforcement. He jokingly declined because he said he didn't want to get robbed. No bites on the jigs and flies I tried, and Ashley got no action on the powerbait, surprisingly. I'm guessing that such recently stocked trout might not be feeding so soon? 

Now at this point we have been the only people in the park and we're fishing near my truck, when a few odd things occurred that didn't seem random.  Several empty parking lots with 50 spots open, and an all black, tinted out mustang pulls in and backs into the spot 1 over from my truck. Just sits idling and no one gets out or cracks a window. 15 mins later, another figure appears on foot in all black, hood up, and after passing 6 other benches, sits down one bench over from us, never acknowledging us. I'm not saying it was a set-up to be robbed, but when there's shady characters on either side of you, in North StL in a park after dark, it's probably time to go. My former L.E.O. buddy said the thugs clock out by 6am, and I don't work till 9am so I may be focusing my efforts to early morning excursions! 😂

Night bite was zilch so hopefully the am will be more productive. 

 

[laker67]

3 hours ago, Quillback said:

So when you guys say the parks were better back in the day - was it because they stocked more fish and they were bigger overall than now?  Never have fished the parks myself, always thought about giving Roaring river a shot during catch and release, maybe someday.  

All of the above. It was easy to find 30 to 40 lunkers in a day of fishing at bssp. Out of those 40 lunkers you would have an opportunity to fish for several. On a good day you might hook 5 or 6 and land 1 or 2.  If you just wanted to fish for numbers, 50 nice size fish per day was not uncommon. Wasn't any of these dinks running around, most fish were in the one pound and up category. Most lunkers averaged 4 to 7 pounds with one or two 10 plus. That was a typical weekend day at bssp.

[Foghorn]

I took a fishing buddy for his first time visit to BSSP in 1986. The first 3 holes I sent him to ,he saw a fish bigger than anything he'd caught in 20 years of fishing. Decided to walk zone 1 and see what was in the stream. It wasn't dredged out like it has been for years now. We fished upstream and counted 27 fish that were easily over 3#.He smoked and was so shook he had trouble lighting his cigarette. Evidently the MCD's plan they surveyed for in 2003 has failed. I took that survey but don't remember if it was a 10 or 20 year plan to grow more and bigger fish.

[fishinwrench]

43 minutes ago, Foghorn said:

Evidently the MCD's plan they surveyed for in 2003 has failed.

It funny that you say that, because when I think back 2004 was the last time I can remember it being like it was.  Even the river fished great with plenty of nice 15-18" browns and bows clear down to below Prosperine.  During the winters of 02-04 I would do a self shuttle float from Redbeard's to Ho-Humm almost every week and always caught a good number of nice fish.   I remember 2005 being a crappy winter season because the river stayed high and muddy all winter.  The following year (06) it just sucked, and it never has gotten back to the way it was in the river, or in the park.