Two very different floats...

[Al Agnew]

It had been many years since I'd floated the lower portions of the Bourbeuse.  I had always floated it far less than the Meramec or Big, simply because it was farther away.  Probably 40 years ago, I had occasionally floated a couple sections when there was a little outfitter in St. Clair who would shuttle me.  Back then, there were no spotted bass.  I generally had 50-60 fish days, about evenly divided between smallmouth and largemouth.  After he closed, I just stopped floating it.  The only two trips I can remember in the last 25 years were when the Smallmouth Alliance would put on their spotted bass "roundup".  The spots had exploded in population on the lower river, and I always knew I could catch a bunch of them there during the Roundup.  One float I remember was from Angler's Resort or whatever it's called to Reiker Ford, another was from Mayer's Landing to the Union Access.  On that one, I caught a 20 inch smallmouth, though 75% of the fish I caught were spotted bass.

But, now I'm living outside St. Clair, and the lower Bourbeuse is the closest float stream, other than the Meramec, so I decided to get reacquainted with it.  A couple weeks ago, I floated that stretch from Mayer's Landing to Union Access.  And the fishing was, in a word, terrible.  I caught 7 bass, only one a smallmouth, none over 13 inches, in an all day float.  So I was more than a little bummed...what had happened to the Bourbeuse I remembered? 

But, today I decided to give the Bourbeuse another chance, on a different float.  I had Mary shuttle me, and started down the river...and immediately started catching fish, though they were all spotted bass.  And like on Big River the other day, they were eating that flat-sided plopper lure.  About a mile down the river, I finally caught a smallmouth.  Then back to spotted bass.  My second smallmouth came in the middle of a dead pool, blowing up the plopper 20 feet from the canoe, and it was a big one.  I grabbed my net, and felt a sharp pain...I'd grabbed a lure in the bottom of the canoe at the same time.  I dropped the net--fortunately the handle floated.  Paddled backwards to get the net with one hand while holding the rod with big smallmouth attached with the other.  Finally got the net and netted the fish.  I laid it on my paddle blade, which has a mark at 20 inches...it came up a half-inch short of the mark.  I was holding the fish in the water while trying to get my phone to get a picture, and it flopped out of my hand, so no photo.

After that, the smallmouth seemed to come to life.  I caught several soon after that.  Even caught one that tried to take the lure away from a green sunfish I'd hooked, and got them both in, an odd double.  I caught several more in the 14-15 inch range.  And finally caught my first largemouth, a 15 incher.  

The Bourbeuse is an odd river.  It is slower than nearly any other Ozark stream.  I think that's due to its particular geology.  Most of the rivers in the Missouri Ozarks run off the middle of the uplifted dome, either toward the north and the Missouri River, the northeast and the Mississippi, or to the south.  The Bourbeuse, instead, runs kind of sideways to the center of the dome, and it just doesn't drop as much as the others.  That's probably the reason it's also the crookedest of Ozark streams.  When the uplift was just beginning, all the rivers meandered across a low, flat landscape, but the Bourbeuse dropped even less than the others, and thus its meanders were more extreme; the flatter the gradient of a river, the more it meanders.  As the dome was uplifted, the streams all started cutting downwards, but the uplift was so gradual that they retained their meanders.  

I say all this to note that, when the Bourbeuse is low (and it was low enough that I didn't float many riffles cleanly), the only real current is within 50 feet or so of the riffles themselves, and most of the fish are in that zone.  The middle of the long, dead pools is usually almost fishless.  I caught some spotted bass in the dead water, and that big smallmouth was in almost dead water, but I concentrated most of my efforts in the short pools and near the riffles.  It was in a short pool with a big log right in the middle of it that I had another big blow up, this one only five feet from the canoe.  It was my second largemouth, and a giant.  It was an inch and a half past my 20 inch mark.

The fishing really picked up in a short, rocky pool, where I had a strike on nearly every cast, and most of them smallmouth.  I stopped for a late lunch at the bottom of that pool, and maybe I shouldn't have, because when I got back on the water the fishing had slowed considerably.  The rest of the trip was continual strikes from really small spotted bass, and the occasional gar, with once in a while a decent fish.  

Total count for the day...42 spotted bass, 22 smallmouth, 3 largemouth.  A far cry from the way it was before spotted bass, but at least it was a pretty good day, highlighted by the two big fish.

[DADAKOTA]

Always love to read your trip summaries Al.

[Kayser]

Love your trip reports. Grew up fishing that river from a canoe, and the biggest day-to-day factor I’ve noticed is fishing outside of the noon-4pm window. The biggest year-to-year factor I’ve noticed is how high and muddy it stays through the prior gigging season. 

[Mitch f]

The fishing in all rivers now starts sucking the closer to STL you get. A few big ones remain but my opinion is it’s going to continue to get like the area around Fenton. Probably in 20 years everything below Sullivan will suck and it will keep getting worse every year as you go upstream, unfortunately. 

[Kayser]

I’d also note- we’ve started catching the silver redhorse again in the upper river. They were pretty much gone for about 20 years or so, so it’s refreshing to see them back. Channel catfish are doing pretty well again, too. Haven’t seen any gigged gamefish (living, dead, or filleted carcasses) in a long time, and the smallmouth are more prevalent than you might think- even a barely perceptible current is enough for them if they have deep water and shaded cover- boulders, timber, etc. I seem to find more smallmouth around boulders, and spots around tree trunks. Spots are healthy, and make really good fillets- especially at 12x day. Lots of fun on chartreuse mini buzzbaits. 

[Mitch f]

4 hours ago, Kayser said:

I’d also note- we’ve started catching the silver redhorse again in the upper river. They were pretty much gone for about 20 years or so, so it’s refreshing to see them back. Channel catfish are doing pretty well again, too. Haven’t seen any gigged gamefish (living, dead, or filleted carcasses) in a long time, and the smallmouth are more prevalent than you might think- even a barely perceptible current is enough for them if they have deep water and shaded cover- boulders, timber, etc. I seem to find more smallmouth around boulders, and spots around tree trunks. Spots are healthy, and make really good fillets- especially at 12x day. Lots of fun on chartreuse mini buzzbaits. 

How far up?

[Kayser]

On 6/24/2023 at 8:18 AM, Mitch f said:

How far up?

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