Allenton to Route 66 float

[Haris122]

A couple weeks ago me and a fishing buddy ended up floating the meramec from Allenton to Route 66 State Park. Earlier this year he had got one of the foot flipper paddleboard kayaks so he was trying to go use that more. That thing was really nice. Next time I got some extra money, I think I’ll get me one with the hobie style drive too. He didn’t seem to have issues with shallow spots either which really sold me on it. 
 

Anyway, fish wise I didn’t do too hot. Got 4 small bass. Think 1 smallie, 2 spotted, and maybe a hybrid between the 2. My buddy did a lot better. Think he got 12 or so fish, several bass almost all bigger than mine. Nothing huge but around the 12” mark. He also got 2 nice 18” drum. All in all he did a lot better than me. We hit the big river yesterday and he outfished me even more there though that time there wasn’t any real big ones like those drum peppered in. We both were mainly throwing an assortment of crank/minnow baits both floats. The first half of the float seemed a lot better than the 2nd though we did have to rush through the 2nd half more since we took too long at first. 

[Mitch f]

Those stretches you fished were dynamite 30 years ago. Now they have a few dinosaurs left for smallmouth but they are few and far between. Lots of rough fish and a few walleye that came up from the Mississippi. The water quality there is so bad that they don’t recommend eating any fish from there more than once every 6 months. 
Back then, the confluence of the Meramec and Big was the big fish hot spot…I mean if you wanted to catch a 5 pound smallmouth, that was the spot. Back in the day the MDC used to show up to the MSA meetings and show the results of the shocking survey. It seemed the Big River would always have the biggest fish. I always kind of questioned their shocking techniques and how they came up with those numbers on their surveys. Maybe because the Big River was smaller water than the Meramec, the shocker device was more efficient. Don’t get me wrong, the Big still has huge fish but so does the Meramec. It’s so hard to choose the best stretches of rivers anymore…between flooding,  loss of fertile water, and the Asian carp invasion I don’t see anything improving unfortunately. 
 

[Haris122]

Honestly I’m not too picky what kind of fish it is, Drum, Smallmouth, Gar, or anything in-between as long as I know I caught them fair and square (not snagged by accident). I’m just hoping to get into some bigger fish. I seem to get constantly into smaller stuff but the big ones tend to elude me. I always like throwing shallower crank and minnow lures but haven’t had the best of luck with them for big ones even when the lures are bigger too. You guys get big ones with some regularity with shallow crank and minnow lures?

[Daryk Campbell Sr]

What do you mean by shallow?  I seemed to do ok with DD6's in orange craw.  It's been a couple years, but I don't cover nearly as much water, and can say I was satisfied with the results.  

[Haris122]

Well this particular jointed rapala I was using last time, is meant to dive between 2-4 feet. Realistically it was probably doing closer to 1-3 ft. So let’s say 2 foot and less.

[MOFishwater]

how long did the allenton>Rt66 float take you? Been meaning to hit it one sunday but not sure how long I'd need to devote. 

[Haris122]

Sorry didn’t see your post earlier.

I think we started around 1-1:30 and got done around 7 I think. Though I noticed I have a hard time being timely when fishing. We definitely spent a lot of time on the first half of the float, trying to fish a lot and then the 2nd half we had to speed things up a bit. It’s about a 6 or so mile float I think, so really should be doable probably in 4-5 hours if you don’t get caught up fishing too many spots. That said I think first half seemed a bit better for fishing overall too. I think the Big River flowing into the Meramec is roughly the halfway point, maybe 2/3 of the way so once you get there, that would be a good indicator on whether you need to really speed things up, or got plenty of time left. 

[Haris122]

On 10/2/2023 at 2:29 PM, MOFishwater said:

how long did the allenton>Rt66 float take you? Been meaning to hit it one sunday but not sure how long I'd need to devote. 

I probably should’ve quoted your question so you see that I replied so here goes.

[MOFishwater]

we knocked the float out in exactly 3.5hrs the other day on kayaks with some stops for kid to swim and goof around on beaches. been meaning to hit that for many years so finally had wife dump me and daughter off. First part to 109 bridge is fast and great current, really dwindled and river got wider and flatter. The last couple miles were very slow with wind coming up the river, if you stopped to make some casts you would be going backwards, zero current...very slow and lots of paddling to finish. We were just scoping the route out more than anything but fished the good looking spots. Throwing whopper ploppers, spinnerbaits, swimbaits, buzzbaits, grubs and jigs off and on. Zero bites, zero fish seen other than one gar. 

Other than being able to take out in essentially my backyard that stretch seems pretty worthless, would be worth it to add some drive time if you were serious about fishing I would guess and find a float further upstream... We are going to keep working our way up river when time allows, we'll hit Pacific to Allenton another weekend than Labor Day and then up from there, that's the idea at least.... Water quality is definitely a disappointment compared to what you'll find at Bourbon, etc upriver. Hard to beat any free local float though!