Meramec River 8/20/2004

Where: Meramec River, below Meramec Springs State Park Fished from 2:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Walked out past the park and into the river just below Meramec Springs Park. It was raining and drizzling all day, and contiuned. I had left my waders at home, which turned out to be a mistake. The air temperature was rather brisk. I ended up wearing swimming trunks and a wading jacket. I had heard that the "white flies" had been coming off the river lately. I didn't expect to hit the hatch because of the weather, but I was hoping the fishes would be enticed by the dries. I didn't catch any fish until the first set of riffles. The Meramec is a much different trout stream than most in Missouri. It has lots of gravel and fallen timber/root wads. It makes for some interesting fishing. Fish always tend to hang around the root wads and fallen timber in the stream. Another great place to catch fish on dries is under one of the many overhanging trees on the river.

Meramec River 8/14/2004

Where: Meramac River (Ceadar Ford to Hwy 8 Bridge) Another smallie trip goes down on the Blog. Unfortunately it wasn't a great trip to say the least. There is a reason why the local canoe outfitters do not put in that far upstream. Reason, It's too dang SHALLOW and SLOW. The trip started out with meeting a college buddy and regular fishing partner Faz at my parents home in Rolla. We both arrived at 10:00 pm on Friday night. Faz was courteous enough to purchase a bottle of Crown before arriving. That made for a good night of drinking and made sleeping easier. The plan for Saturday was to float the upper Meramac from Cedar Ford to Hwy 8 Bridge. I thought it would be good smallmouth fishing. Thought was the key word in that sentence because I thought WRONG! I woke at about 7:00 am on Saturday morning. We ran some errands and finally left my house at around 10:00 am. We stopped at the Hwy 8 bridge access and transferred the gear and canoe to Faz's car. We left my truck at the take out. We then drove upstream to Cedar Ford access. We were a bit skeptical about the size of the stream. Little did we know we shouldn't have put in that far upstream. We finally put in at around 11:00 am and proceeded to fish fairly heavily. At around 2:00 pm we realized that we had yet to float two miles. We proceeded to make a little ground. Which turned in to a paddling, canoe getting in/out of Marathon. We must have gotten in and out of the canoe a good fifty times. We did manage to boat three decent smallies during the entire NINE MILES! I vow to never float a stream that small again. We finally got off of the river, which shouldn't even be called a river (more like a stream or drianage ditch), around 6:00 pm. TightLines CanoeFlyGuy

Little Dry Fork 7/31/2004

Well this is my first trip report. Where: secret creek near Rolla, MO. Species: Lots of great Smallmouth Not quite sure of the name of the creek I fished. Met up with Seth, an old high school buddy. He had the low down on a great small smallmouth creek. I recently got my canoe outfitted with a motor mount and anchor mount, so I had to try it out. Earlier in the week the Ozarks got a fair amount of rain. Consequently all of the bigger streams looked like the river in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Seth had previously told me about this great smallmouth stream and I had to check it out. I called him up Friday night to go fishing and he agreeded, so away our venture began. After a little fighting with my new canoe rack we were off. Mopar does not make good canoe racks. The access was a familiar low water bridge, a popular party spot in high school. Low water one, low water two and pink bridge(actually painted pink). I guess we weren't very creative with names, but everyone new what we were talking about when planning parties. Anyways we pull up to Low Water 2 and start unloading all of our gear. I should also mention that it is better to load your boat while it is close to shore. We opted for the hard way and loaded the canoe with everything but the kitchen sink and attempted to carry it down to the water. We did eventually get the boat in the water. I've spent a great deal off time outfitting the boat. It's got a trolling motor and anchor system on it so we were set for adventure. Once we were both in the canoe we headed upstream through some rather swampy and un-smallmouth like water. I was starting to have doubts about this great smallmouth stream. We rounded the first bend and only then did I see what we were actually going to fish. Imeadiately after the bend was a smaller feeder creek. The water was fairly clear and slightly colder than what we had come through. This was smallmouth water. I had brought my fly rod, but becuase the creek was up a bit and a little off color I opted for spinning gear. We fished 7 inch powerworms Texas rigged. This little stream was picture perfect. Cold and clear with great structure. The smallmouth hit like they had never been fished for. We fished up stream with good success. The big fish award definitely goes to Seth. The last pool that we fished he landed a nice 16 inch smallmouth. That fish put up a great fight and when it exploded out of the water Seth let out a shirek like a little girl. He didn't see me but I was busting a gut behind him at the sound of that scream. All in all the short trip was a great success. Did I mention we only fished from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. A good day fishing is only icing on the cake and when you can spend it with a good friend, well that makes it all the better. Little trips like this are really what it is all about. Tightlines CanoeFlyGuy