Chris Morrow is the man. You might call him the fish whisperer. He can find fish and coax them onto a hook like no one I’ve ever seen.
My fishing trip with Chris was given to me as a gift from wife. She had won the trip in a raffle that was a fundraiser for the Missouri Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. The river has been high all year, but Chris assured me that he had adopted a new fishing technique that wasn’t dependent on water levels.
We put the boat in at the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, which is located at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. It was about 20 minutes downstream, and we were in downtown St. Louis, just out from the Gateway Arch.
Within a couple minutes of getting a line in the water, we had a fish hooked. While I was fighting to reel that one in, we caught another one. So within our first five minutes, we had two fish in the boat.
The whole morning was much like that. Occasionally I caught a little break as Chris was moving the boat, but most of the morning I was struggling to hold the rod up and cranking for all I was worth. Those big blue cats are a load to pull up to the boat.
I had at least one fish that was more than 20 pounds. I had several in the mid-teens.
Chris said the meat isn’t as good when the fish our more than about 10 pounds. He let me keep five of the smaller ones, all of which were bigger than any other fish I’d caught in my life, ranging from about five to ten pounds. Chris filleted them, and sent me home with an impressive bag of meat, and even more impressive photos from the trip.
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