Hooking Into a Meramec Unicorn

By Chris Catiller

There have been many times in my life when God’s providence led to events that blew my mind. The biggest one was the time I randomly met a Michigan girl at a church picnic. She eventually became my wife, and that Saturday picnic was the only time and place I could’ve met her—like two comets passing each other in open space. Something like that can only be a God thing. But the craziest fishing story of God’s providence happened when my buddy, Dan, hooked into the most unlikely fish in a Meramec River tributary.

We were bass fishing the lower section of the Meramec out of our kayaks on a mid-August afternoon in 2020. The air temperature was comfortable for a Missouri summer day, and the river was somewhat low and calm. We couldn’t have asked for more pleasant conditions. However, there wasn’t a solid game plan other than tying on the lures we had the most confidence in, such as lipless crankbaits, small spinners, and swimbaits, and hoping for the best.

We paddled into one of our favorite spots on the river: a creek that is loaded with big rocks, submerged timber, and root wads. Just about every fish species love that kind of heavy cover. Over the years, we’ve caught everything from black bass to catfish to buffalo in that creek, and it didn’t take long for us to put new species in our personal Meramec log.

Given the low river level, we couldn’t travel too far up the creek. So, we parked our kayaks downstream of a small bridge and worked lures around some massive boulders that were semi-visible below the surface of the stained water. As we suspected, white bass were present and active. Even the little tykes, whose eyes were bigger than their stomachs, were finding themselves on the business end of our Rat-L-Traps and curly tail grubs.

What we didn’t expect getting bites from walleye and sauger.

What a nice surprise! They weren’t lunkers by any stretch, but catching fish you didn’t know existed in your home water is so much fun. However, that was merely a warmup for what happened later.

When the activity below the bridge slowed down, we began fishing our way back to the river. I took the point while Dan lingered back a bit to fish a stretch where those large boulders opened into a wide flat. With my back to Dan, I spotted a small school of shad getting busted up and hollered back to him to move down to where I was.

I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence before I heard Dan yelling at me, “Oh, Chris. This one’s a monster!”

I turned around to see Dan had indeed hooked into something... something BIG. I started turning my boat around. Whatever was happening behind me had to be caught on camera.

Ten seconds after Dan alerted me to this fight, his yells became screams: “Oh my gosh! OH MY GOSH!”

I couldn’t see what he was fighting, but the beast on the end of the line was violently splashing as Dan horsed it next to his kayak. That’s when every fisherman’s worst fear became reality. The lure popped free from the fish’s mouth, and it was gone.

Seconds after the fish broke off, I asked Dan what it was, and his answer had me thinking, This dude is straight up full of crap. Unfortunately, I didn’t get close enough to see it myself, and the camera footage of the fight wasn’t good enough to be of any help either. After we discussed it, though, I had no choice but to believe my friend wasn’t pulling my leg. He had hooked a NORTHERN PIKE.

A northern pike? This far south? That’s just crazy talk, right?

It’s not as crazy as you (and I, at that time) might think. Northern pike are a cold-water fish very common in the northern United States and Canada, but believe it or not, pike have self-sustaining populations in Missouri. According to the conservation department, their range is mostly in the northern half of the state, including the Meramec River on the range’s southeastern fringe, with their populations increasing in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Consider my mind blown!

Now, am I saying you can expect to catch a pike out of the Meramec? No. When compared to other species, northern pike are a rare catch. Dare I say, a “unicorn.” However, while the chances of catching a pike around here are improbable, it is possible. Not long after this trip, another YouTuber I follow posted a video where he caught a northern pike out of a creek farther south than St. Louis.

But this doesn’t satisfy Dan or me. The knowledge of these fish in our favorite river isn’t enough. We want to land that fish!

That is a trip we will never forget, and it sparked a fire in our fishing bellies that is still smoldering to this day—the fire of putting one of those toothy torpedoes in the boat.

Hopefully, one day the planets of God’s providence will align allowing us to land a unicorn northern pike out of our beloved Meramec River.

Stay connected to what’s happening in Jefferson County.

The Jefferson Review delivers the local government decisions, development updates, and community stories shaping our county every Thursday and Sunday.

Don’t miss what your neighbors are talking about.

Subscribe free to The Jefferson Review