FlyFishinFool

I have it on good information, that the the rain will not hurt the fish. It is OK to go ahead and catch them!

Definitely thinking about it. I am going pheasant hunting on Thursday, and IF the knees are not too bad I will probably head down to BSSP on Friday for a couple of days.

That is correct.

That's strange - several folks on the forum said you were already twisted!

rcguy, I agree with your comment - this is a twisted leader versus a furled leader. If it works OK for your fishing then it is a good deal. A friend told me that the twisted leaders did not work for him when he was aggressively stripping wooleys because the bottom portion of the leader occasionally had a tendency to untwist if he did not use a micro-swivel in front of the fly. A furled leader will not untwist as it is constructed differently than a twisted leader, usually with 3 or 4 step downs instead of just one, and no knots in the middle of the leader. Building a furled leader requires the use of a furling jig due to the number of strands in the butt end of the leader. Usually twisted leaders are quite a bit stiffer for the poundage than the same material used in a furled leader. BTW - I don't make either kind, I just like to fish them! Don't get me wrong, I am not knocking twisted leaders - just making the statement that they are different than a furled leader with different properties. As rcguy said - if it works OK for you, then it works!

Well, this thread has not been updated for some time, but I thought a brief update on the Simonton's Spider-wire furled leaders was in order: I installed the Spider-wire 6' 4wt and the Spider-wire 7' 5wt on their appropriate rods (both TFO Jim Teeny rods) and have proceeded to fish them as much as possible. I have fished a total of almost 30 days at Bennett Spring and have caught literally hundreds of trout since I received the leaders. Both leaders have basically been pretty indestructible - no significant damage, no fraying, no un-twisting...in other words - they have worked simply great! I thought I would fish the spider-wire leaders until they wore out before I posted an update, but I can see that may take a while (or even a couple of years)! As I mentioned before, I have noticed after a bit of use, when the leaders dry out they appear somewhat lighter in color, not white, rather a very light green; but the interesting thing is when they get wet again, they immediately return to the medium-dark green color - just an observation (not an issue). I actually thought I was done with the endurance test on the 4wt spider-wire furled leader this last week. On Tuesday I hooked a big fish and (apparently with a defect in the fly line) he broke my fly line and took the first 4 foot of the fly line, the spider-wire leader, etc., etc. - so I tied on a new fly line loop with Amnesia line and hooked up the Simonton's Bennett Tinge thread leader and proceeded to catch a whole bunch more fish. The Tinge leader was not a perfect color match as the water was absolutely crystal clear - however, it still did an admirable job (I certainly have no complaints about all the fish I caught). Anyway...as I was leaving the river Thursday evening I actually found the end of my fly line floating in a small backwater, with the spider-wire leader still attached and about half my tippet (no fly - guess the trout decided to keep that!). So.....I had my 4wt spider-wire leader back and I put it back on and proceeded to fish it all day on Friday - still working like a charm! I guess my final recommendation is - the Simonton's Spider-wire furled leaders work great, last for a very long time and most important - they catch trout! When the Simonton's thread furled leaders are 1/2 the cost of Feathercraft's furled leaders, and the Spider-wire furled leaders are less than 2/3 the cost of FC's furled leaders - you just can't go wrong. I highly recommend the Simonton's furled leaders over standard tapered mono leaders, or FC's furled leaders. I plan to order a couple more as backups! You can find the Simonton's website at this link: http://www.thesimontons.com/Fishinggear.html

FYI - The 2 individuals in question were also fly fishing. Lack of courtesy is readily available in fishermen with all types of equipment, e.g. - idiots use everything!

Would be interesting to know what kind of pepper spray you were using.....Bear pepper spray is very different from the pepper spray used on people. According the the Alaska DNR, people pepper spray (oleoresin capsicum - ONLY) will NOT stop a bear - you have to buy the stuff for bears - MUCH stronger. Bear spray also has oleoresin capsicum PLUS other Capsaicin and related capsaicinoids. The active contents of bear spray are higher concentrations that people pepper spray. I wonder if it is possible for bear pepper spray to permanently damage or even kill a feral dog? Either way - if it truly a feral dog you have the right to protect yourself with firearm or pepper spray.

I have to comment that I accidently hit someone with my fly line while fishing at BSSP this last week. On a weekday and with the cooler weather and some issues with the wind, the stream was basically not crowded at all until Friday mid-day (lots of folks coming down early for the last weekend,with nice weather too!). In the middle of the week, while I was fishing a hole, a couple of guys waded down the stream and passed behind me and proceeded to set up directly downstream of me - now I realize this is a trout park, but there was no one within 150-200 feet of me; one guy set up 18-20 feet below me and the other guy was in between us, about 10 feet directly downstream of me. I politely said "Watch the wind guys it is making casting a little challenging". I got no response from either of them. Well, on my next backcast a gust of wind came up and as I cast it blew my line downstream and I unintentionally hit the closest guy in the face with the fly line. He yelled "OW" and I said "Oh, I'm sorry about that, I thought I shortened my line enough so I would not hit you with this wind when I cast." Again he never said another word, but the two of them did work their way down stream another 10-15 foot or so each and then they set up camp there and fished a while. Hitting this individual was totally accidental, but when the wind is blowing 10-15 mph and gusting 20+ at times, failure to use some common sense (not to mention common courtesy) makes this accident his problem not mine. Needless to say I did feel particularly sorry, nor did it bother me as I continued to fish. Just my opinion.

No - it is not the wood smoke issue - I like that smell. I am an ex-smoker, and simply do not care to be buried under tobacco smoke smell. As I said, I skipped buying a vest because it smelled like it had enough cigarette smoke in the fabric to have been in an all night poker game! Unfortunately I usually only get over there on the weekend, so if they are still smoking on Saturdays, I will have to wait until they begin meeting the letter of the new no-smoking law mentioned above. Thanks,

Really? I was not aware of that change. I will have to stop and check out Tom's place again. Thanks for the update.

So when I get up in the wee hours of the morning, eat on the road, and hike in 1-2 miles to get to a great fishing hole at first light...you suggest that when someone else shows up a couple of hours later, after sleeping in, eating breakfast at a restaurant, and then motoring down the river in a boat - - I should be willing to give up the hole I am fishing so they can have some fishing time?? Not very likely - let them go find another hole, or get up earlier and beat me to the hole I am fishing, and then I will find another hole. What you are recommending is that people should be able to wander into any another persons fishing hole and I should gracefully leave so they do not have to 1) wait until I am done fishing, or 2) actually do some leg work and find their own fishing hole, or 3) just stay at home and play an electronic fishing game. Good luck with that! On the other hand, I actually do not know anyone who camps on a single hole for 5 hours - usually the coffee makes them move long before that time!

I have been to both shops, but spend most of my time & $$ at FeatherCraft. The staff at FC has always been very helpful to me when I ask about tying materials, and they have a lot more materials on the shelf that Hargroves. When I had a furled leader from FC break after only a couple of days using it, I called FC and they replaced the bad one with 2 new ones - and mailed the 2 new ones to me where I was fishing...that is good service. While Hargroves is a smaller shop and has less stock available, the only real complaint I have is that the entire shop smells like an over-filled ashtray! First time I went to Hargrove's I did not buy a vest from Tom because it smelled like it had already spent the weekend sitting in a fish camp playing poker all night. In a small shop that stresses personal service and advice, smelling strongly like smoke when I leave is an issue! If Hargrove's would cut out the smoking I would definitely return more often.

Well I managed to work out all the details and went down to BSSP for the Monday through Friday of the last full week of the regular season. Of course, the weather decided to do some really strange stuff - with the lowest sustained low pressure system rolling through the Midwest, lots of gusting winds and the temps ranging from 82 on Monday sfternoon to 27 on Friday morning. Both Thursday and Friday mornings were fairly brisk, with Thursday starting out at only 36 at the whistle. The advantage of the cold weather was that it scared off all the normal crowd for a while - I had the stream from the disabled access piers down to the dam totally to myself for 1.5 hours on Thur and for almost 2 hours on Fri, and even then on both days only a few folks drifted in over the next couple of hours - talk about no crowding!! Of course Friday morning you did have to clear out the ice in the rod guides every so often, but not really a big deal, just swish it in the water (which by the way, felt really warm when you stuck your hands in it (water was 54 degrees, air was 27 degrees) until you took your hands out of the water and the wind blew a little bit! The water was about normal depth, with a slightly below average flow rate; but was almost gin clear - truly the clearest water conditions I have seen all year at BSSP. This would drive the need for light tippets and small flies (at least for me it did). Now, on to the fishing - Monday morning was the hot day until the wind came up in the afternoon, then the fish got a bit picky. Still, I caught quite a few mostly on size 18 beadhead midges in dark colors. I tried shifting up to size 16, but they would not take them until the wind started to blow. Mon through Thur there was a small black caddis hatch around mid-morning, and with the wind it was fun - every time another gust of wind would hit it would blow a bunch of caddis back into the water, and you would see 12-20 fish all hitting the surface at the same time. I fished with size 16 and size 18 renegades and caught several on the dry flies. When the wind got too bad I switched over to stripping a size 12 crackleback just under the surface and took several in this manner each day; in fact I even took several on top while it was very windy when I was throwing the crackleback, before it would sink and I started stripping it - lots of fun. By the way, when I say windy, on Tuesday it was blowing 15-20 gusting 25 and higher - you really had to pay attention to the wind to get your cast to go where you wanted it to land. On Wed & Thur there was apparently a small callibaetis hatch in the mid-afternoon - I did not see this hatch but several people who did see it said with the wind, the hatch worked just as I described with the caddis - you just had to use a very small white colored dry fly. Bottom line, I still did the best drifting the small midges. One minor exception to the midge success was at the whistle Thursday morning - for about 30 minutes there was not a breath of wind and the surface of the stream at the head of the island was like a sheet of glass - I threw the smallest Renegades I had (size 20) and caught more than a dozen fish on the top - just an absolute blast. I saw people catching fish on several different patterns, from glo-balls to soft-hackle flies - only complaint was that at times the size of the fish was a little disappointing. A couple of us decided that if the BSSP hatchery folks were telling the truth about the average size fish being about 11 inches long, that we did not seem to be catching many of the 16 inch ones required to balance out to that average length! In fact at one point someone said to get back to the average the next fish they caught would have to be about 28 inches in length! ;-) Of course no trip is ever complete without at least one issue. When I said it was windy I was NOT kidding. On Tuesday I took a brief break and went back to my truck. Knowing that leaning my rod against the truck would be futile in the wind, I laid the rod on top of my truck bed camper shell (level with the truck cab roof)with the tip extending across onto the roof of the truck, then I got into the truck to get something out. Of course that was when Mother Nature decided to have a little fun at my expense - a particularly hard gust of wind came up and 1) blew the rod and reel off the roof of the truck (I told you it was windy!) and 2) at the same time blew the door of the truck closed. Yup! - you guessed it....old Mother nature timed it perfectly for the door to shut on the rod as it was falling off the roof of the truck and neatly clipped off about a foot of the end of the rod. Of course it had to be the 5wt which I was using for the times when it was windy (i.e. - almost all time that week)- this is the rod I just had replaced earl;ier this year due to a defective (broken) snake guide. Other than the loss of the rod for most of the week, not a big issue - it was a TFO Jim Teeny rod, and I called TFO and they said it is covered in their lifetime warranty, so all I had to do was send it in with a check for $25 and they will replace it - no hassles (cost $8 to ship USPS). So overall, a great week of fishing - as a bonus, I ran into a lot of old friends on the stream and got caught up on their lastest happenings. Now I am itching to head back down for the Winter fishing season - looking forward to throwing a few flies in Zone 3!!

Buy one of the many styles of "Croakies" eyeglass retainers and you will not have to worry about sunglasses (or even regular prescription glasses) flying off as you run down the lake. The Croakies also allow you to take the glasses off and quickly drop them on your chest if you need to see something close up without the sunglasses dimming your view. I have not lost a pair of glasses in many years since I started using Croakies.

BrittsnBirds, Reviewing your comments I get the impression that you work in law enforcement at some level. Based on your statements, the Park Ranger would be the correct person to contact to report a vehicle break-in and property theft - correct? Well, my personal experience is that did NOT happen - The PR was not interested in taking the pertinent information, and never contacted me at a later time as promised. I was at BSSP for the entire week and the PR never made one effort to contact me. I am not recommending contracting out the patrolling of BSSP to the Dallas or Laclede County Sheriff's offices; unfortunately I was FORCED to contact the Dallas County Sheriff office to report the crime and to get a police report on file for insurance purposes, because the BSSP PR refused to respond to a report of vehicle break-in and theft of personal property. If your understanding of the PR job is correct, then the PR at BSSP is failing to address a serious portion of his job. By the way - after I called the Dallas Co. Sheriff's office, the individual that came to take the report was Mike Rackley, the Sheriff himself! All of his deputies on duty had more critical issues to handle, so he came out to take care of my problem. If the Sheriff himself can make time to follow-up on a break-in & theft report (driving from Buffalo to BSSP) then why can't the PR who lives on the BSSP property make time to respond? or for that matter even pick up the phone and return my call as he promised?

Overall, I believe the Park Rangers provide a good service, trying to keep the cheaters from breaking the basic rules and regulations at the parks. Many times I have seen people creel their last fish and keep on fishing, or clean a limit of fish in the morning and then you see them come back down to fish in the afternoon. When I spoke to a PR a couple of years ago, he said they usually find folks everyday who are fishing on the prior day's tags - I guess they just can't afford that $2 tag every day! Regarding the PR at Bennett Spring, well I have a less than positive experience with him. My vehicle was broken into earlier this year and I had gear stolen early one morning. I called the PR and when I tried to tell him the information about when, where and what had been stolen, he interupted and asked for my name and phone number, saying he would call me later in the day to get the detailed information (I guess I called too early in the morning!). However, he never called me at all - apparently investigating an actual crime is not part of his duties. He obviously had no desire to be a first responder, or any kind of a responder for that matter. I had to call the Dallas County Sheriff's office to report the incident, and the Dallas County Sheriff himself came out to inspect my truck and fill out the damage and theft report.

Took the family and spent a week down at BSSP - definitely HOT, HOT, HOT !!!! Temps hit 96 on Monday, 99 on Tue, Wed & Thur, then 101 on Fri, 100 on Sat, and finally cooled down to 95 on Sun. What this meant is that on Mon-Fri lots of folks fished a couple of hours in the morning and then the streams were almost empty - a couple of days I had the entire island in zone-1 to myself by 9:30am (I could see people up by the disabled access piers, and I could see people down at the hole above the hatchery dam, but not a soul in between. On the weekend is was a bit more crowded as expected, but still thinned out pretty fast once the sun cleared the trees and the temps started to spike! Again, the only problem was it was HOT! Fishing was OK for an hour or two, but with the low water and the bright sun and the heat, fishing for most of the day was slow. I did my best using small midges (size 18) in brown, black and grey. A few folks had good luck sight fishing with very small scuds (18 & 20) and with small glo-balls. One guy had good luck a couple of mornings with dry flies using very small Renegades (sizes 20 and 22)but I personally had problems with size 22 Renegades - the fish would hit, but I kept missing the hookset! As always, stripping a crackleback under the water worked pretty well after 5pm or 6pm, but the folks stripping full sinking lines during the day said it was pretty slow in the heat. Size of fish? - a few pretty good sized ones, but the majority were 12 inch torpedoes - skinny and not much color (mostly just silver). One of the hatchery guys said they were stocking from their last pool of 12-12.5 inch trout, and they would have to start stocking from the oldest 11-11.5 inch pool before too long. I thought when they went from a limit of 5 fish to a limit of 4 fish DNR stated that with the reduced catch limit we would see larger fish on a regular basis - seems to be going the other way! My daughter fished 3 days at the whistle bridge and caught a limit every day. One day I finally got her to try a new flyrod using midges up in zone-1. She not only caught her first trout on a flyrod, she then proceeded to catch not only a limit, but also the biggest trout any of us caught all week! To say she was a happy camper was a real understatement! She was very proud to be the provider of the fish for the fish fry that night for dinner!

I know you can get them on wading boots, but does anyone offer studs for wading shoes? That might provide the better traction without using felt soles.

They need to pass ALL fish caught in tournaments behind a fluoroscope - that would show any hard objects. Question is - how many of the fish still alive at weigh-in time also have weights in their bellies, and they do not die until after they have been released?

If you buy the trout stamp (extra $7) then you can also fish the C&R Winter season at the trout parks without buying a daily $3 trout park permit.

I did not even realize there was a specific Gay Pride weekend on the Niangua River - so I Googled for the information. According to the Ozark Review Forum, the gay pride weekend on the Niangua was actually the prior weekend - July 17/18. I was at BSSP on the following Tue-Thu (7/20-22)and saw lots of families with kids in the park. I did not check out the river. I think it is probably a lot of families taking their kids fishing while they still can before the back-to-school stuff gets started.

Definitely more families - I was down at BSSP last week Tuesday through Thursday and while it was not crowded at all during the weekdays, there were a lots of parents and grandparents with kids. I must have heard basic casting instruction comments more than 40 times over the 3 days. It was fun to hear the excitement when one of the kids would occasionally catch a fish. One of the local residents said that July is the peak for families since that is the prime month when ALL the kids are off school - some kids did not get out of school until around mid-June, and some kids will re-start school as early as mid-August,. NoLuck - I agree, I have been using the Tiemco 2499SPBL hook exclusively for all my midges for several years. As you noted, the wider gap on this hook really does make hookup much easier. This hook is 2X heavy, so it also tends to help get the midge down quickly. I use this hook for all size midges; #18, #16 and #14 - it is excellent in all sizes. I will switch to the 2499SPBL exclusively for scuds as well, after I finish using up my remaining supply of Tiemco 2457 scud hooks.

I have been coming down to Bennett for more than 30 years, and I was amazed as anyone that someone would break into a vehicle parked in front of the store! In the past I often left stuff sticking out the back of my truck....not any more! As far as temptation? When my buddy left rod/reels laying in an open bed truck, I can see where that might tempt someone. My truck has a cab-level camper shell with very dark tinted windows on the truck bed - it is very hard to see what is inside in broad daylight, much less at 5:35AM; additionally, both the tailgate and the camper shell door were locked. The only temptation was that someone thought they could get away with stealing something because there were few (if any) people standing out in the parking lot. I hope folks have heard of it now, and keep their gear securely locked up!

Dave - Yeah, getting broken into in front of the Park store surprised the heck out of me also, I was parked at the far left end of the lot next to the Dining Lodge parking lot, and there were only about 3 other vehicles in the lots when I went in (it was right at 5:30am)! - I assume they popped the tailgate lock and opened the camper shell door so fast no one would have seen anything other than someone getting into what appeared to be their own truck. The Sheriff said that they have not had too much problem of this type at the Park, but I guess that is changing. FishinCricket - Thanks for the offer - I did file a police report with the Dallas County Sheriff and he noted in his report that they were notifying all the local pawn shops. The rod was simply a TempleForkOutfitters Professional 5wt 8.5' 4pc (black with gold lettering)with no special marks on it; and the rod tube was a "White River" brand covered in medium green canvas (bought it at Bass Pro), again with no special markings. The hat was a Tilley's hat made from light green nylon with a dark green underbrim, a chin strap that you can tuck up inside, the sides snap up like an Aussie hat, and it had a braided hat band made from dark green and light tan (almost white) cord (cord looks like really heavy shoelaces). I had my name and home phone number printed inside the top of the hat (visible just by looking inside), and it had a trout tag holder pinned on the back of the hat. My guess is that the stolen hat will be for personal use or given to a friend, and with no name on the rod - well, there are probably dozens that look just like it being used at Bennett on any given weekend. I asked about the possibility of any cameras on the store parking lot, and the folks working there said they did not - basically they have never had a need for one. The final disappointing thing is that I also notified the Park Ranger, I figured he would be in the Park a lot more than the Dallas Sheriff's department and thus would have a better opportunity to catch the thief. After taking my name and phone number, the Ranger said he did not want any more details (I thnk I woke him up that early in the morning) and that he would call me later in the day to get the detailed information. Unfortunately, the Park Ranger never bothered to call me back during the rest of the 5 days I was there. You are right RC - I always felt thiat was where we went to get away from all the "city" cr*p - but I guess it followed us. Guess I have to get a 2nd alarm system installed on my vehicle that covers the tailgate. Probably won't cost any more than what I lost in the recent theft! - Just a sad state of affairs........ Oh well....Let's Go Fishing !!! Yeah !!!! ;-)