I have said this many times but of course we forget. But I can not stress how important this is. Always check the water conditions of the river you will be fishing BEFORE you go. Yes, this is a trip report but one that has a good ending.
On Tuesday, February 22nd several FATC members headed to fish the Cardiac Hill area on the Meramec river. It is a great place to fish, especially in the early Spring. The guys “walked” a long way to reach the Cardiac Hill area and unfortunately many of them were “unfamiliar” with this area. But they heard great things about it so off they went. To make a long story short, they found the river hard to cross with the current moving much faster than they thought. And one individual almost met with disaster.
On Thursday, February 24th three FATC members were planning to fish Cardiac Hill too. Smart move number one – they knew about the Tuesday trip and contacted the lead of the trip and asked him how the Cardiac Hill area was. The report was as above – “not good” – not only the fishing but the water conditions. This immediately put the second trip guys on alert. With the snow melting and filling the river they would research and decide if Cardiac Hill was the place to fish on the morning of the trip – smart move number two. The second trip meet at 6:30am, read the water condition charts provided to everyone on our website and immediately decided they would not even attempt to fish Cardiac Hill. From the charts they saw that the flow and depth of the Meramec river was continually increasing from the Tuesday chart numbers.
Lesson learned is this, again, always check the water conditions on our FATC website – Education section – Water Conditions before you make ANY trip. An explanation of what is fishable and not fishable is on the website. Be familiar with it – it could save you time and maybe even your life.
As far as the Thursday trip is concerned, the second group headed to the Montauk area and fished “below the cable” and the Tan Vat area. Catching was tough as only 8 trout were caught among the three fly fishers. But several nice browns were caught, and their colors were amazing. One fly fisher lost a 20″ plus rainbow – would have been his biggest trout ever he said. As the water starts to warm the fishing will pick up. The water temperatures were slightly below 50 degrees. Once above about 54 degrees the trout metabolism will keep-in big time. Hope to see more of you on the water as the temperatures increase! But always check those water conditions as the Spring rains increase the water levels and speed.
