Meramec Springs State Park 12/26/2004

Where: Meramec Springs State Park The park allowed free parking over the holiday weekend! The morning was about 22, but sunny. Multiple times I had to dip my rod to free ice from the guides. Fished an olive mohair leech almost the entire day. Nothing big but nice 16 an 17 inch fish every now and then. Did see some hogs. also fished a size 20 griffs gnat to a pod of fish that seemed to be holding very close to the surface. I landed two fish that took the gnat as a dry and the other three came in during a slow strip back with the fly just under the surface.

Montauk State Park 12/05/2004

Where: Montauk State Park Met up with Matt Tucker of Ozark Chronicles and Mark Kutcher also from the disscusion board. That area had recieved a lot of rain in the past week so the spring was pumping pretty hard. The water was up about six inches, but that was a decline from previous days. I had heard reports of it being up a foot. With the high flows the water was very cloudy which made site fishing difficult. The fish were also not holding in the same areas as the previous trip. It was also a lot colder with the morning temp below freezing. We had to occasionally dip our rods under to free ice from the guides. The day yeilded fewer fish than before but the fish of the day was a 20 inch rainbow Montauk above the bridge to the campground Riffles above campground bridge at Montauk. River is up 6in. to a foot.