Hidden Gems

[FishnDave]

I wonder how many of us would choose the same place as our "hidden gem".  Everyone list your spot here, so we can compare. 😜

[WestCentralFisher]

19 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

I wonder how many of us would choose the same place as our "hidden gem".  Everyone list your spot here, so we can compare. 😜

Fine, I hate to publicize it, but there's this little spring-fed creek in southern Missouri that has a shockingly high rainbow trout population. Unlike most streams it's size, I've never once gone there and not found a whole bunch of trout. At times between March and October, you'd almost swear it got stocked every single day. There's a mill dam and some concrete pools alongside the creek that have even more trout in them. There is one secluded pool called the Social Hole absolutely no one knows about and most always holds fish. 

Don't want to tell anyone the name but it's real similar to a famous ocean fishing spot up in New York. 

[FishnDave]

Wait, what??  That's MY super-secret Red-Gilled Salmon spot!  How'd you find it??

[BilletHead]

Serious question,

    How many of you have actually found every secret spot you fish? How many of you especially when you were first learning your chosen fishing equipment choice? Did you ask for help or guidance from anyone. Did they help you? 

   Food for thought. I'm not saying share on the open Internet. Just help someone that is in the same position you once were. I've been helped and I have helped and I have shared. I don't own public waters. 

[Quillback]

12 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Serious question,

    How many of you have actually found every secret spot you fish? How many of you especially when you were first learning your chosen fishing equipment choice? Did you ask for help or guidance from anyone. Did they help you? 

   Food for thought. I'm not saying share on the open Internet. Just help someone that is in the same position you once were. I've been helped and I have helped and I have shared. I don't own public waters. 

I've learned of a secret spot or two from other folks.  The thing is, they'll say to me:  "I'll tell you about this spot, but you can't tell anyone else".  So I end up with a lot of spots that I can't talk about because others swore me to secrecy.  😀

Back in the day when I lived in Washington and there were salmon and steelhead in the rivers, people were extremely secretive, to the level of paranoia.  And if you identified a spot on a steelhead forum, you'd get scorched because by golly it was everyone's secret that you just blew up.

I've found that usually when you run across someone on the water or at the ramp, they'll volunteer stuff they've figured out.  I've always found out you'll get more info if you play dumb (I'm good at that).  

[WestCentralFisher]

21 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

Serious question,

    How many of you have actually found every secret spot you fish? How many of you especially when you were first learning your chosen fishing equipment choice? Did you ask for help or guidance from anyone. Did they help you? 

   Food for thought. I'm not saying share on the open Internet. Just help someone that is in the same position you once were. I've been helped and I have helped and I have shared. I don't own public waters. 

It's a fair question. I do share these things with a trusted circle consisting of close friends and my dad. But it's a small circle, and I know they have the proper degree of discretion, and won't tell me things like "Thanks for telling me about that spot. Those smallmouth tasted great!" Unless they're trolling me for a reaction, which is often. 

To answer your question, most of my current local spots I really did just stumble upon by driving around the hills, looking at maps, and seeing what there was to see. But I've certainly also benefited from the kindness of others too many times to count in the past.

[slabseeker]

Makes me think of the Progressive Insurance "Unhidden Gems" commercial.. one of my favorites.

https://youtu.be/WDcPBIC8P2o

 

[WestCentralFisher]

7 minutes ago, slabseeker said:

Makes me think of the Progressive Insurance "Unhidden Gems" commercial.. one of my favorites.

https://youtu.be/WDcPBIC8P2o

 

It in fact inspired this post, lol. 

[WestCentralFisher]

Visited one of my hidden gems this  evening. Good way to cap a week. 

[Al Agnew]

I can honestly say that I "found" every one of my favorite wading size creek accesses, and every favorite small stream float stretch, on my own except one.  That one was a creek I already knew about but didn't know that it had developed a pretty decent bass population until my brother told me about catching a bunch of fish on it.  But I'm a map freak and love to explore back roads, and I like to float boney streams in the dead of summer when few other people know that they are more or less floatable and wouldn't want to put in the work even if they did.  I've worn out quite a few canoe bottoms over the years.

Yes, it's still possible to find solitude, but it's definitely more difficult.  The internet, and the mind set of some that they are doing people a favor by publicizing lesser known places (when probably in actuality most of them just want to make themselves look good by acting like they "found" this terrific little known spot and want everybody to know they did) have most certainly brought a lot of people to many of the places that were once uncrowded.  My favorite hiking spots are completely overrun since Covid hit.  So many people descended on a couple of my go-to wading creeks that the landowners got fed up and shut them off completely.

And I was fishing the lower middle Meramec the other day.  I started floating this stretch pre-jetboat days, back well over 45 years ago.  At that time, I could depend upon 50-75 fish days, with almost always a 19-20 incher or two in the mix, and the fish were everywhere; you just drifted down the river casting to everything you came to and catching fish consistently.  And I knew a fraction about how to catch good smallmouth that I do now.  Now, you do that and you catch a few bass mostly under 12 inches; you have to know the scattered spots that hold bigger fish and you have to fish them very carefully and efficiently to catch a few.  I used to float this river on weekends, and as long as I put in a little earlier than the 8-9 AM canoe renters, I'd seldom see anybody all day long.  Now weekends are an absolute zoo, with literally dozens to hundreds of jet boats roaring up and down, up and down, up and down all day long, interspersed with the river dorks in kayaks and rafts drinking themselves unconscious.

I've learned to live with the crowds, and still know a few tricks to avoid the worst of them.  But the sweet spots in the Ozarks are a shadow of what they once were.  I'm old.  I don't have too many more years of enjoying it all.  But I'm glad I got to see it all when it was a whole lot better than it is now.