Never Let a Bad Day of Fishing Go to Waste
By Chris Catiller
It’s every boy’s dream to land a monster largemouth bass from his favorite fishing spot. I am nearly 40 years old, but even now, the anticipation of that five-year-old boy—the one who literally dragged a three-pound catfish out of the family pond because he didn’t know how to use a spincaster—is alive and well within my soul. While I have since improved my skills and logged many great memories at my grandpa’s two-acre pond in southern Indiana, those days are long gone.
Now, as a Missouri resident of 15 years, the Meramec River has taken its place. This river never ceases to incite that same level of excitement: the thrill of tricking a seasoned bucketmouth into engulfing a passing lure. Landing such a behemoth is an amazing day of fishing by anyone’s standards. It’s also left me with the frustratingly empty feeling that I spent 12 hours on the river and got skunked. What a horrible day of fishing, right? I don’t think so! A thousand casts without a single strike can still be a good day. To understand why, let me tell you about my most recent trip where I caught nothing yet found it to be very productive.
The battleground for this trip was the five-mile stretch of river between George Winter Park and the Highway 21 bridge. It’s the first week of January, and conditions were primed for a great day of fishing; despite moderate winds, the air was a comfortable 50 degrees under mostly sunny skies. This pleasant weather was a welcome reprieve from the typical dog days of winter, which would have most of us hunkered down in hibernation longing for the warm embrace of spring. I can’t wait for spring though. For someone with a fishing addiction, saying no to wetting a line on a day like this would be akin to Ron Swanson turning down a 16-ounce T-bone steak. That simply wasn't going to happen—I was going fishing.
Armed with two medium-heavy baitcasters, a medium-light spinning rod, and a box of lures, I pushed off from George Winter's banks in my camo-colored sit-on-top kayak, nicknamed "The Aircraft Carrier" by my friend Billy and me due to its wide, bulky 32-inch hull. Paddling toward the main channel, I knew I'd have the entire river to myself; it was staggeringly shallow, easily wadable for long stretches, making any thought of launching a boat here foolish unless one had access to a private ramp by a deep pool. Yet, the most shocking thing I noticed when I reached the main river was the clarity. I could see six or seven feet down through the emerald-colored water—unheard of for the lower Meramec. It was beautiful, and the conditions couldn't have been better. It was time to get to work.
My plan was to drift with the current, casting toward shallow structure where I expected shad and other forage fish to congregate. With the unseasonably warm weather, I anticipated baitfish would be near the surface to bask in the sun; where they go, predators inevitably follow. Even in the heart of winter, fish must eat to survive. If the bait moves shallow, the bass will be more than obliged to join them. Banking on this, I tied on one of my most trusted lures: a white XPS Rattle Shad lipless crankbait. These lures are exceptional on the Meramec, especially when I need to cover large areas of water quickly. The rattle acts like a dinner bell; even if the bass aren't holding tight to the immediate structure, the vibration and sound should draw them in from a distance. Unfortunately, I was in for a slow but rude awakening.
Having fished this stretch of the river many times, I had a mental checklist of "must-hit" targets: concrete, blacktop, and riprap piles, docks, massive logjams, and a steep underwater drop-off. These are the target areas that make any angler quiver with anticipation, waiting for a big bass to destroy a perfectly placed lure, and my cast was dialed in like a sniper’s rifle sights. I routinely threaded the needle dropping my lure into tight pockets or within inches of submerged timber. There was one problem though. Nothing bit… but why?
Such are the great mysteries of fishing. Everything aligns for an amazing day on the water, only for your plans to fall apart in glorious fashion. If I had a dollar for every trip like this, I’d be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. However, I don’t take failure lying down, and I refuse to settle for the old cliché, “They just weren’t biting today,” and hope the next trip yields better results. Hope is not a strategy. There is a scientific reason behind every skunk, and I intend to find out what’s behind this one.
Something that stood out to me after an hour or so was the calmness of the river. My expectation was there would be baitfish boils near the surface taking advantage of the rising temperatures, but there were none. What little wildlife activity I saw included a small school of suckers swimming through an eddy, a random silver carp leaping out of the water, and a heron fishing in a shallow flat (hopefully he had a more successful day than I did).
Another factor I thought contributed to a favorable day of fishing, in addition to the rising temperature, was the steadily falling barometric pressure. Falling pressure indicates a decrease in the force of air pressing down on the earth. These fluctuations often trigger significant movement among fish, particularly baitfish. As pressure drops, a fish’s swim bladder expands, causing physical discomfort or bloating. To regulate this, fish typically retreat to deeper water or thick cover. For river predators like bass, catfish, and gar, these movements act as a dinner bell, usually resulting in an active—or even frantic—bite. On this particular day, however, that was not the case. Obviously, my hypothesis about where fish would be and what they would be doing was flawed. Given what I now know, what would I do differently?
Despite the rising temperatures, dropping barometric pressure, and me hammering the banks with the intensity of an Iowa-class battleship, nothing struck. This can only mean one thing: bass retreated to deeper water. I also noted the bite basically nonexistent, and I suspect the pressure had fallen so low that the bass had become lethargic. Clearly, my high-speed lipless crankbait retrieval through shallow water and the upper water column was the wrong approach. If given a second chance, I would fish low and slow. I’d rig a spinning rod with a Carolina rig and drift live minnows just off the bottom through deep pools. Without live bait, I would use a similar vertical approach; drop a lipless crankbait, blade bait, hair jig, or a Berkley Gulp! Alive Minnow and jig it off the bottom. When bass are deep and reluctant to strike, the best strategy is to meet them where they are and give them some time to commit.
Would this strategy have worked? I really don’t know. Despite a lifetime on the water, I’ve learned that no matter how rock solid a plan seems, you’re never guaranteed success. Fishing is a cruel mistress; even forty years from now, with a few more tricks of the trade in my pocket, I’ll likely tell you the same thing. Some days you feel like you’ve mastered the art; other days, it feels like every lesson you’ve learned was a lie, and fishing is a puzzle that refuses to be solved.
Am I disappointed to go home with a skunk in the boat on a gorgeous day like that? Of course. But a fishing trip is only truly bad if you leave without learning anything. By watching, listening, and paying attention to the conditions, I gain a new perspective with every trip. If I find myself back on this river in similar conditions, I likely won’t waste time burning crankbaits through the shallows, and if my low and slow strategy doesn’t work, I’ll come up with something else. I’m always learning, even if it takes a hundred failed attempts to finally strike gold. When I do, the reward will be that much sweeter, and hopefully, I’ll have a story worth sharing so you can find that gold as well.