Foghorn

Awesome. I thought it was an old tire at first glance.

Sandy, he was referring to my white/gray hair and goatee looking like a goat!

I did see 4 in the park that looked in the 15-18" range. I just don't remember seeing such quality numbers in any of the trout park or Sheperd of the Hills rearing pools.

I was wondering where they got that many browns. I didn't see anyone matching that description but did flag one of the workers driving a truck down. There were 4 guys with fly rods around the old green "power station" building and one was stripping line off his reel. Not sure if he was playing or getting ready to fish. Worker decided to remind the 4 it was illegal to fish there and would result in a hefty fine.

Susie and I had the 4 youngest grandkids last weekend for a couple of nights. They had never been to Maramec Springs so off we go. This isn't a fishing report as the "Park" can be tough enough to fish for experienced fishermen and not with 4 kids from 6 to 11. We did the usual tourist thing visiting the museum, hatchery, playground and walking the stream. While in the museum, I read a small article about one of the early school teachers for the children of the men who worked there. This lady was originally from St. Clair , Missouri and met a slightly older man who had visited this state to see his sick mother. They later married and had a son named, William Randolph Hearst. I bet she had an interesting life. While this isn't a fishing report, I had to comment on the brown trout in their hatchery. We estimated 3-400 browns swimming around in the main spring that were 3# and up. They weren't in any raceways or holding pens. Several in the group were considerably bigger. Now if a few of them washed out and went down into the park.

Awesome trip, boys!

That rascals been eating good!

When we were kids, we would watch my Grandpa and Uncle Nip hand fish in the upper stretches where he was raised at Enough. Wasn't any chance I was sticking my hand under rocks and logs to fish. Wife Susie caught an 18" smallmouth just below the dam at Council Bluff when we were first dating. Never knew what mile post marker any of the stream was listed as.

Awesome colors on those fish!

Officially 11 years ago today for Susie and I.

Retirement life is good!

You did hit the high notes pretty good.

Pat doing the hard work. Not shucking the corn but listening to Marty singing!

Older brother had been camping at Montauk from 06/16-06/23 and had called home and said they had pretty good fishing in the fly zone. I had told him about the browns moving into the park but he had stayed where he saw the most fish. Okay, Susie and I made the 2 hour drive Monday and had a great day. Starting in the campground below the bridge, we started seeing nice browns. I picked off an 18" chunky female within the first 15" and lost another male that was a shade longer. As I worked my way downstream, I found a bigger brown in the 4# range in a stretch of water that wasn't 2 foot deep. He wasn't buying what I was selling so I moved down to catch up with Susie. She had caught a brown similar to what I had caught and was having a discussion with a couple who couldn't understand why she let it go. We fished to the handicap area and got out of the water to go to the 300 campground area. Saw 5-6 browns in the 2.5-5.5# range but no takers the first round. I didn't want to go further down even though we got into some good browns on our last trip. We decided to circle back upstream and make one more pass thru this section. Almost immediately, Susie had another 18" brown on and released it. I had put on the old trusty red fox squirrel nymph and got a couple good drifts on the biggest fish we had seen. She took it and I set the hook like the proverbial 800# gorilla and she was gone. Within 15", another brown in the 4-4.5# range moved into the whole and the RFSN did the trick. I let it go as a youngster who witnessed the fight couldn't understand why I wasn't going to the lodge to weigh it and get a patch. Told him it would be there tomorrow for him to try and catch. Older brother's campsite wasn't 50 yards from where we had fished for those browns. No pictures as I was wet wading with the hot weather.

Thanks Marty. Had been a bit since I got any shots at a decent brown trout. Surprised these survived the locals.