A new personal best today....

[Al Agnew]

I was planning on doing a float on one of my favorite river sections tomorrow.  It's a long stretch, so I was going to get on the river shortly after daylight, and planned to float until nearly dark.  But this morning I got up, puttered around the house for a while, and then thought to see what the forecast was for tomorrow.  Ugh!  Warm, but cloudy, and worse, 20-30 mph wind!  Forget it.  So I told Mary I was going today instead...it was still going to be a bit windy, but not like tomorrow.  And with rain in the forecast for the rest of the week, today was about my only good choice.  So...go on the long float, or a shorter one?  I really wanted to do the long float, but it was already after 8 AM, and it's more than a half hour drive to get to the put-in.  But I couldn't stand it.  I was going to do that long one.

I didn't get on the river until nearly 9:30.  Told Mary to pick me up at 6 PM.  I knew I was going to have to keep moving, but I hoped that the fish were doing what they had done just a week or two later last year, sitting in little eddies just off the main current, and eating spinnerbaits.  If that was the case, I could cherry pick the best spots as I went by and surely catch some good fish.

After the first mile with zero fish, I knew they weren't on the spinnerbait pattern.  The wind was already blowing and pushing the canoe around, but I was able to make a couple quality casts at a spot that always holds good fish, a deeply submerged log jam off a steep mud bank just above a tributary creek.  I tossed a swim bait in and came out with a 17 inch largemouth.  But then the wind blew me into it, and there was no chance of getting anything else.  

I really wanted to keep fishing the swim bait, but the wind just made it nearly impossible to fish anything like that on the bottom.  I switched to a Wiggle Wart and fished it for the next couple miles, with only one little spotted bass to show for it.  Then, in a deep, rocky pool, I finally hooked a nice fish, a 16 inch smallmouth.  

But after that, the fishing went back to being terrible.  I caught a few more fish, mostly 13-15 inch largemouth and one smallie that was about 13 inches.  I kept switching back to the spinnerbait, hoping they'd turn on to it, and finally got a good strike that turned out to be a 15 inch spotted bass.  But nothing was working well.

I came to a long pool that is deep and rocky at the lower end.  There was a flat near the head of the next riffle that looked a lot like the kind of spot I have found schools of smallmouth and spotted bass on the Meramec this time of year.  I let the wind blow the canoe into the bank on one side and started making long casts all the way across the flat with the crankbait.  Second cast, bingo...13 inch smallmouth.  Next cast, another one.  Next cast, a bigger one that got loose, a couple casts later, a 17 inch smallie!  NOW I had it figured out!  

Nope.  That was it for the flat.  But I started looking for similar flats as I came to each pool.  Problem was that I couldn't find any more good flats that were deep enough at the lower ends of the pools.  The water was fairly clear, and I was pretty certain the fish wouldn't be on flats where you could easily see the bottom.  

I kept trying anyplace that looked like a possibility, including flats near the heads of the pools and big eddies well off the banks.  Nothing.  The day was passing quickly, and I was having to paddle through any pool where the wind was hitting, because it was almost impossible to fish either the crankbait or the swim bait in such places.  I'd pick up a fish here and there, but not many, and no more good ones.  

Mary called, and I told her that I would be at the take-out by 5:30.  I had in mind a couple spots that I wanted to concentrate a bit more on, so I put down the rod and paddled until I got to within a mile or so of the take-out.  The spots I wanted to fish carefully were just too much in the wind.  I tried, though.  

So I got to the take-out with 15 minutes to spare.  I carried the canoe up the bank, piled all my gear next to it, took the lures off all my rods...except for the swim bait rod.  I walked back down to the ramp...which was at the tail end of a deep pool with a deep flat right there.  My second cast with the swim bait...a strike and a heavy fish!  Smallmouth?  Couldn't tell.  Big, though.  I got it in, and it was a spotted bass/smallmouth hybrid (a meanmouth, but I hate that term).  All I had to measure it against was my rod, but I noted exactly where its snout came to on the rod with it's tail even with the end of the butt.  When I got home I measured it...20 inches, give or take a quarter inch.  

[rps]

Magnificent fish!

[fishinwrench]

That is a fattie!   👍

[DADAKOTA]

Awesome fish!

[ColdWaterFshr]

Gotta love those "last cast" of the day fish.

Anyone else have those conversations with themselves?  One more cast to this pool, or one more cast for the day?  8 casts later, you're still muttering the same nonsense.  🤣

[curtisce]

Never know where you find them but if you don't have something in the water you what find out. great fish way to go.