This weekend I was supposed to be down on the White River, with Brent McClane and Evan Muskopf; but a basement remodel, a crazy work week, and generally needing to be responsible kept me at home this weekend (and Evan was running in to many of the same issues as I was), so the trip was rescheduled. Sensing that I still needed to get out, even if just for a few hours, Brent got me to skip going into the office this Saturday and run down to Trout & Sons Marine in St. James to look at a new jet boat, check out the put-in and take-out on the Meramac, and maybe if time allowed pick up a few fish for the smoker at the trout park. And with that, the plan was solid.
We met at Cracker Barrel for breakfast and caught up on personal stuff and hit the road by 7am. By 9am we were done at the boat place and on our way over to the trout park for some fishing. Man was that place packed. We almost just took off for the river, but no one was fishing the skinny water up near the cable so we fished for a bit, I picked up 3 or 4 fish pretty quickly and Brent soon followed with 3 or 4 of his own. Mine were not big enough to keep, but I swear that I caught one with par marks and white tips, but Brent caught one that would go about 15″ or so and the others were standard trout park slime rockets; nothing exciting to write home about.
It was a good day to get back to our roots and do some people watching and the sort; and definitely reminded us both of why we like the solitude of the rivers and the winter; people are just plain crazy during the Catch & Keep season. For me, the most enjoyable part was playing with a new piece of photography equipment that I got and hadn’t put to the test yet. I had purchased an underwater bag for my digital slr, but was pretty hesitant in using up to this point; but something was different today and I threw my backup camera in it (Nikon D70 w/ 18-70), sealed it properly and started to snap a few frames. It will take some getting used to, and definitely need to modify a few things with it; but I was pleased with the results for a first effort. You can see the results in the gallery below. Hope everyone else got out this weekend, even if only for an hour or two like I did, it is good for the soul.
Matt,
Glad to hear that your camera is still dry…and that Meramec fishing is still the same! Maybe one of these days we can get together and wet a line! Might need to road-trip back down to the Spring River…lots of fun last time we went.
Take care,
Todd Butzlaff
Holy Crap, Todd Butzlaff lives…..how have you been man. The Meramac is on my rivers to learn this year and next, I really want to get my boat on it though….we will see. McClane and I were talking about the Spring River a little bit on Saturday.
Matt these underwater photos are stunning and have me very intrigued! All the color variations of the rocks underwater blow my mind… thanks for sharing the view of underwater in Missouri!
Mark
Mark….been way too long. Let’s go shoot some photos soon. What do you think? Drop me an email.
–Matt Tucker
Absolutely… I’m living near Pacific now which I believe is somewhat close to where you live. Is your phone number still the 704 number?