Big River Smallies

[jdmidwest]

We took the Kayaks out to the Big River near Bonne Terre yesterday. Fished from the gravel pit on Highway 8 to Terre Du Lac. Upper float was poor, water was cloudy and nasty. Had to wait for 2 groups of cattle to cross about a 1/2 mile below the bridge. The water cleared up below the cattle and the fishing picked up. Lots of green sunfish and bluegills, a few smallies and large mouth. No Kentuckies. Largest smallmouth around 18".

[gonefishin]

Nice

[Al Agnew]

The upper part of that stretch has been very weedy for many years. And I am beginning to think that the gravel operation at Mounts must be doing some kind of sneaky early morning gravel washing or otherwise discharging mud into the river, because it seems to often be pretty murky in the morning but clears up during the day. I noticed that it was very murky when I crossed it early in the morning the other day. Either that or somebody is digging gravel out of the channel above there, and it takes that long for the mud from the day before to reach that area. I haven't floated above there yet this year, so don't know whether that might be true or not.

So far, I haven't caught any spotted bass in that stretch, either, but they are now well established below the Leadwood access, which really bums me out. There isn't much of Big River left that is still smallmouth water. My brother and I did a short float below Leadwood the other morning and caught 6 or 7 spotted bass, including a big one of over 18 inches.

[jdmidwest]

I have not floated the upper part this year either, was going to Sunday, but due to the weather coming in, we did the other float. I suspect the cattle operation above the gravel pits may be running cattle in the river or some runoff.

By the way Al, nice carvings, I saw a yard full of them...