I didn’t plan on going fishing this week being so close to Thanksgiving and all. But Jim Craig baited me with a trip to the Meramec river. And with Mike Oldani going and Patrick Gallagher driving up from Ft Leonardwood, how could I resist. I’m glad I went! The four of us hit the Meramec river about 8am and first fished the bend. A few nice fish were caught there but we really wanted to see how the rest of the river was fishing all the way to Dry creek.  It seemed the morning fishing was better with P&P midges, blue copper johns, egg patterns and some nymph patterns doing the best. The water is clear so you may have to drop down a size in tippet, for example from 5x to 6x.  The biggest thing was to make sure you were at the bottom when dead drifting.  When the sun got higher it seemed the bend shut down so downstream we went.  The riffles held some nice browns that you could see if you knew what to look for – movement and blue silver color.  Best to target these fish – don’t just throw flies blindly. We fished all the way to Dry Creek. The fishing was fair, I think do to the time of day and the sun.  In the late afternoon the fishing, with the sun hidden behind the trees, got better again. Mike discovered that scuds worked well and caught three nice browns in the riffles. And thanks to Mike, I switched to a gray scud and caught the big rainbow. Patrick had to leave early to vacuum sweep his house before his wife got home from work 🙂   Mike, Jim and I ate Mexican food before heading home.

So thanks to Jim for baiting me into going or I never would have caught two 18″+ trout on this beautiful afternoon!