On 6/21/23, John Muckerman and I, Al Harper, decided to celebrate the first day of summer by floating the nearby Big River and seeing what we could catch with fly rods. The Big originates in St. Francois county and flows north for 83 miles before emptying into the Meramec River near Eureka, MO. The most scenic and productive sections of the river are above and below Washington State Park, which is only about an hour’s drive from St. Louis.
Despite being close to our metropolitan area, the river receives little fishing pressure, has the appearance of a remote and bucolic waterway and it is a first-rate smallmouth bass stream. We decided to engage Augie Knickmeyer for the trip. Augie grew up in Cedar Hill and knows the Big, the Meramec and several other rivers and creeks well. He is also the current president of the Missouri Smallmouth Alliance and a strong advocate of the hard-fighting native bronzeback.
For this trip Augie took us on an ambitious 11-mile section of the slow moving Big which meant a lot of oaring for him but some great fishing and memorable scenery for us. The towering, oddly shaped cliffs are particularly visually striking. Augie not only has a knack for recognizing the type of water smallmouth prefer (often sections that have a nice rocky bottom and some structure) but he is also generous with tips to help anglers hook and land more fish. The info John and I gleaned on the float can be applied to efforts on other waterways and is transferable to other fish species as well.
On our float flashy streamers were the key to success. But the catching didn’t come easily because constant and accurate casting and creative and attentive fly retrievals were required to generate strikes. Smallmouths are lightening fast fish acutely attuned to the smallest details of their environment. While we landed a satisfactory number of fish, sometimes even after flawless fly presentations and violent strikes it proved downright tricky to convert those strikes to hooksets.
And then, as Augie pointed out, as a smallmouth reaches around 14 or 15 inches in length, he achieves some marvelous and often wildly acrobatic fighting skills. One of the best fish I hooked managed to launch itself over a log in a rapid. Augie charged toward him with net in hand and I could feel the fish continuing to pull. But without consistent pressure being applied on the barbless hook, he managed his escape.
Augie, like John and me, is a catch and release advocate. However, we also caught a couple of spotted (Kentucky) bass. They are a fish that biologists say are hindering the smallmouth and removal of that species is strongly encouraged on the Big, the Meramec, the Bourbuese, the Mineral Fork (which feeds the Big) and the Huzzah and Courtois Creeks. An MDC publication asks that anglers “do your part to slow the increase of spotted bass by taking a few home…”. They may be invasive but they are also tasty, so I harvested them for a fish fry.
But beyond bringing home some aquatic food, we enjoyed a great, if somewhat challenging day on a nearby gem of a river. Our thanks to Augie and a strong recommendation for other anglers to hire him as well. He is focused on guiding for smallmouth for a while and will resume trout guiding in the fall I believe. And anyone wishing to learn more about the MO Smallmouth Alliance can jump to its website here: https://www.missourismallmouthalliance.org/
