Fishing forecast for St. Louis, MO

St. Louis sits just downstream of the point where the Missouri joins the Mississippi, and its fishery is a big-river fishery. MDC's guidance for these rivers turns on water level: at low water, normally July through September, channel catfish hold along main channel borders and on the upstream faces of rock wing dikes, while in spring high water the advice is to fish away from the main channel, in backwaters and tributary streams.

Best fishing times in St. Louis this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over St. Louis, MO; minors, half an hour either side of moonrise and moonset. Where those widths come from: best fishing times and how we compute these times.

When these windows are not the right tool

Solunar theory is John Alden Knight's 1926 prediction; the ±60 and ±30 minute widths are convention, not calculation. The times are computed astronomy, the claim that fish feed inside them is not. The day rating follows moon phase — identical nationwide, so every city shows it the same. A moving front beats the moon: apps that read pressure.

Where to fish in St. Louis

This page is built around Mississippi & Missouri confluence, with Meramec River and Creve Coeur Lake in reach — fresh water, about 20 minutes from the middle of St. Louis.

The Missouri joins the Mississippi just north of the city, and the two rivers do not blend at once. USGS sediment sampling found their flows still unmixed at St. Louis, with suspended-sediment concentration near the west bank as much as 2,400 parts per million higher than near the east bank.

Wing dams — rock structures built to keep the navigation channel scoured — are the main structure in an otherwise featureless river bottom. Fishing them safely requires reading current, and they are hazardous in a small boat at high water.

Access to the main channel is limited to a handful of hardened ramps: the banks are revetment rock and the current runs hard against them. This is not a river you launch from a gravel bar.

The nearest grids we publish are Memphis, TN (387 km, Mississippi) and Nashville, TN (408 km, J. Percy Priest). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in St. Louis

State listings put these 6 fish in the water around St. Louis. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

MDC describes the blue catfish as a big-river fish of swift chutes and pools with noticeable current, common in Missouri in the Missouri, Mississippi and Osage rivers, with adults commonly 3 to 40 pounds. It also migrates: on the lower Mississippi it moves downstream to warmer water in winter and runs upstream in summer.

Commercial tows work the Mississippi past the city, and the wake and displacement of a passing tow are a hazard to a small boat. Locks and Dam 27 at the Chain of Rocks, the southernmost lock on the Mississippi, lies just upstream of downtown.

Paddlefish, historically fish of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and shovelnose sturgeon, which MDC calls the most abundant sturgeon in both, come from very old lineages. MDC traces the paddlefish family to the Early Cretaceous, 120 to 125 million years ago, and sturgeons to a fossil record reaching back to the Triassic.

Tackle sits outside a forecast page: start with how to catch catfish.

Water temperature and season in St. Louis

Air here swings 48.3 °F across the year, from 32.1 °F in January to 80.4 °F in July. No gauge measures water temperature here, so the chart below is air only.

Monthly climate for St. Louis, MO. The air line is the NOAA NCEI climate normal for 1991–2020 — the thirty-year average of a calendar month, not the weather of any one year — measured at ST LOUIS LAMBERT INTL AP, MO US (USW00013994), 20.3 km from the middle of town, with 29–30 of the thirty years behind each month. No gauge measures water temperature here, so this chart is air only. Water lags air by weeks and the lag grows with depth — a deep reservoir turns later than a shallow bay — so air is never a stand-in for a thermometer in the water. Read into this site on 2026-09-14.

January averages 32.1 degrees at Lambert, a tenth above freezing, and the normal night stays below it from December through February. Rain over town peaks in May at 4.82 inches, yet spring high water on the Mississippi and the Missouri is set across their basins upstream, not by rain at one airport. The table describes the airport air; it says nothing of either river's temperature.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in St. Louis

The moon window moves daily; the sun does not. Plan a season against this block.

The longest day of 2026 is June 21, 14h 52m; the shortest, December 21, 9h 28m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

River stage is the controlling variable. A rise of several feet spreads fish onto flooded banks and changes how the wing dams fish; a falling river concentrates them back into the channel.

MDC says white bass in Missouri run into tributary streams in March and stay until the middle or latter part of April, spawning over gravel or rock, often in current. On the big rivers themselves, MDC names low, clear water in late summer and through late fall as the best time to catch them.

Cold months move the fish, not just the anglers. In cold weather MDC's big-river guidance puts channel catfish in deep overwintering holes at the ends of wing dikes and along lower tributary streams, and its blue catfish advice is to target deep holes in the coldest months.

License and seasons in Missouri

Rules for Missouri come from Missouri Department of Conservation, and the calculation behind the table is set out in how we compute these times.

Boat ramps and fishing access in St. Louis

Public registries put 16 access points within reach of St. Louis, 16 of them trailer ramps. The nearest is Whispering Willow Boat Ramp, about 5.7 mi out in a straight line.

16 access points within 25 km of St. Louis, MO, from the agency registry and OpenStreetMap — the same records the table below lists. Each dot is a record its source publishes, not a place we have visited; click one for what that source says. The dashed ring is that 25 km circle, centred on the point every distance is measured from — click that centre for its coordinates, even when a cluster sits on it. Zoom in to split a cluster.