I cast my trusty silver/black floating minnow behind the eddy, jerked it under and - wham! I got sledgehammered. The rootwad of a downed tree broke the current and diverted it around a couple of big rocks.

I eased downstream until I found a short, plunging rapid that made a sharp S-turn to the left. We stayed in that area for a couple of hours, but I was amazed at how many fish rose throughout the river on our way downstream.įishing was slow the next day for the first few hours until we stopped at a gravel bar to roast some hot dogs and enjoy some cold sodas. The hottest spot I saw was on the left bank at the junction of the river and the spring branch, where a man and his daughter caught trout hand over fist under a bobber. We tied on small rainbow trout and brown trout-colored floating minnows and had a blast catching and releasing stocker-sized browns and rainbows.Īnglers lined the shore at the park as well as thĮ bank along the river, and everybody seemed to be catching fish. Woods Memorial Conservation Area and enjoyed some good smallmouth fishing, but when we reached the confluence of the spring branch, the cold water caused a noticeable drop in the air temperature. Last May, my boys and I accompanied a friend and his sons on our annual Rooster Fest outing. The profile and appearance of the river changes instantly, and for the next six or seven miles, it becomes prime trout water similar in many respects to the Niangua. When you get to the park, Maramec Spring branch pours almost 90 million gallons of cold water per day into the river, increasing both its size and the speed of its current substantially. Water flows hundreds of miles underground through this fragile, porous landscape until it bursts forth at sites such as Bennett's Spring, Mammoth Spring and, of course, Maramec Spring.Ībove Maramec Spring Park, the Maramec River meanders lazily through narrow riffles and rocky pools shaded by a thick canopy of hardwood trees. Many of the streams and rivers in the Ozarks are fed by massive springs that boil up from the heart of the region's karst geology. There were certainly more fish in the trout park, but none could have been any prettier than these were. When I brought him to hand, he radiated the same sublime beauty that the first fish had exhibited. He had more room to run, so he fought harder and longer. Again, another big trout, almost identical to the first one, hammered the lure. I clicked the bail, jerked the lure underwater and began retrieving it with a frantic, darting motion. As the boys splashed and wrestled in a side channel, I cast my floating minnow at the tail of the rapid and let it wash downstream about 20 yards. As we came within sight of Barclay Access, we encountered a long, serpentine run that emptied into the deep pool in front of the access ramp. I caught a few smaller fish and some goggle-eyes over the next couple of hours.

This was a true river trout, with a physique sculpted from living wild in a freestone current and a complexion reflecting a healthy diet of tasty bugs, fish and other natural morsels. His black spots sparkled like polished onyx, and the red rings surrounding the spots were radiant, almost three-dimensional. Its color was a brilliant hue of burnished gold. It was an impressive fish, 15 inches long with a sleek, muscular body. I moved to the side of the logs and tightened the drag so that it released slowly when the fish surged.Īfter four strong runs, the trout finally came to hand. Stripping line off the drag with a reedy squeal, it fled downstream toward the rootwad. It splashed back into the water and raced into the current. I set the hook, and a big brown rocketed skyward, furiously shaking its entire body. Instead of the mushy, chomping bite of a smallmouth, I felt the lightning-strike throb of a trout. With my 5-foot ultralight rod and 6-pound-test line, I cast a silver/black floating minnow into the current behind the last logjam and twitched it upstream into the swirling eddy. The current had scoured deep holes behind these structures, creating perfect ambush lairs for smallmouth bass. There were small logjams both in the middle of the run and at its end, as well as a big rootwad wedged into the mud downstream of the last logjam. The boys wanted to play in the water, so we beached on a gravel bar bordering a twisting, narrow run that ran beside a steep hill. We paddled hard until finally, just a few miles above Barclay Access, we got away from the biggest part of the crowd. With so many boats and so much commotion in the water, I deduced that not much fishing of any kind goes on in this part of the river - at least, not in the summer.

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