Foghorn

Have a fishing buddy who is the hospital at Mercy South so we drove the 60 miles to the city for a visit. Evidently the price of fuel isn't affecting the folks as Highway 67 and 55 were pretty busy. Maybe just Sunday afternoon drivers?

We used to find some points and a couple axes from the fresh plowed fields on my great grandparent's farm out in Belleview Valley years ago. Only have the 2 axes now as I think my brother helped himself to a couple really nice points I had.

Happy late birthday, Pat! Susie and I fished Wednesday and Thursday and missed Marty's posts.

He has some of his patterns in the latest 2022 Feather Craft catalog for sale.

That didn't sound right. Bait fishing was legal but chumming was a no-no.

Couple buddies would throw the bait and a tan scud worked wonders around them. Mr. Fuji's(nickname my kids gave friend Nick when they were little) would have so much bait in the water it was unbelievable the fish that would surround him. It was still legal below the dam at Taneycomo and on arrival, he would launch 3-4 softball sized balls of dough bait in the water and then rush to get his waders on . We told him that might be considered "chumming" but it never seemed to phase him. Until the park ranger saw him in action and he got a $100 fine at Montauk.

White River "Bling" ? Ouch!

A buddy of mine and his son hit Maramec for the opener and said the water was off but they did each catch a limit of decent fish. He saw one guy at the cleaning table with a fish in the 7# range that was really doing some talking. They were fishing the old pellet "dough" bait.

Majority of the fish the Mrs. and I caught in the C&R were either an egg or salmon colored fur bug tied out of the old glo bug yarn. 2 of the bigger fish were caught on beadhead nymphs- one a fox squirrel and the other a zebra midge.

I used a 6'6" 3 weight at Roaring River Wednesday and had a blast. Majority of fish in the park put up a good fight on the lighter rod.

Doug ,you know if we get Rick out for a day on the stream, we'll have to bring Sandy and Susie and they'll catch more fish than us!

Had an interesting trip to Roaring River for the opener. We hadn't fished any opener for the last couple years and with the weather forecast thought it would be a nice outing. We arrived Monday at the park and decided to walk the stream. Within 10" of our walk, we came upon 3 guys fishing in the park. They said it was okay to fish because it was still C&R season. I explained that season ended 2 weeks earlier and there would be somebody wanting to give them a fine if they didn't quit. They hadn't been fishing that long but weren't catching anything. We saw enough fish to make it interesting so we checked in our motel. The guests above Monday night were either bowling or having a WWE match as they banged around their room constantly until 1030. Think they may have stayed up all night because they were starting up their trucks at 330 opening morning. I eventually got up and headed to the stream at 430. That's still too early for a 630 whistle but didn't think I'd get back to sleep. Found the spot where I saw a couple bigger fish Monday and settled in for the siren to go off. About 10' into the season, I caught a nice rainbow just shy of 4#. Fished a while longer then back to the motel for breakfast and to pickup my better half, Susie. We fished the rest of the day and caught fish but thought it was pretty tough once it got into the afternoon. We woke Wednesday to no electricity at our motel so we headed to the park only to find they also had no electric but were selling tags. We had checked out of our room and the lodge was also down so off to town to get something to eat. Cassville had electricity so after a good breakfast, we headed to the C&R. It was pretty empty at 9 so we put on the waders and started catching fish immediately. Did see one guy using a jerk bait in the flies only section but he wasn't catching anything. We saw somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 fish in the upper 1/2 mile of the stream that would go 3# or better. I was using one of the Piscifun reels that "Wrench" was talking about and it worked extremely well for a reel that was less than $40 on sale. Ended up catching 3 over 3# with that little 3/4 reel and was impressed. Susie caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-30 fish in the C&R so we left Roaring River at 230 for the long drive home. I realized that I didn't miss the crowds but saw some old friends that I hadn't seen in several years so that made it better.

Enjoyed the video. Nice to know that the "pro" fly tiers run into problems at times. Good looking pattern.

Good looking fish.

Nice fish and a great day to be on the water.

I liked that "gunslinger" stare in the picture.

Had pictures with snagging type setup on his spinning rod and using plastic in the trophy area. Saw one of the older guys with a weight heavy enough to sink anything you'd want to fish with and a chartreuse worm on a treble hook. One of the lads had a podcast with several sponsors and lost them after some of his posts.

One hot summer when the river was low and Miss Susie was feeling up to it, we spent every chance we were off work at Montauk. I caught 14 browns in June and July over 3# with the biggest an 8# male. Had one that I couldn't revive and ended up keeping it. Susie was going thru her first round of cancer and had a beast on that broke her 6X tippet that was a double digit. These were all in the park in the campground. Unfortunately a group of lads began catching and keeping all the browns and it hasn't been the same since.

Montauk did have some of the bigger brood stock in the pools above the C&R last fall. They normally throw a few out for the various derbies thru out the year. Lots of competition for them(as in the lads getting aggressive and crowding the fellow anglers) in the past. Resembles the combat fishing in Wisconsin.

Glad you and Miss Sandy got out but sad that is the state of trout fishing in our state parks. Susie and I sat and watched "Seasons on the FLY" fishing the Muskegon.PM, and the Big Manistee in Michigan.

We had the youngest 4 grandkids in the C&R section at Roaring River a year ago last October. They were ages 3-7 at the time. Not sure who had the best time-the kids or Susie and I. They fished a little, netted fish every chance they got and played in the stream. I apologized to a couple fishermen who came in above us as we took up a little more space on the stream than we should have. You'll have a blast especially with the oldest grandson being good enough to help with the little ones!

You'll probably never have a better day on any trout stream. Like the old "Mastercard" commercial "Priceless".

I have a copy of the draft from MDC when they were expounding their "Plan for Missouri Trout Fishing". It has a lot of background on the history of trout fishing with statistics and graphs highlighting (maybe Lowlighting) their programs . One objective was to produce catchable size rainbow that average no more than 12". This was part of what i think they labeled their 15 year(not sure) plan. Guess they actually made that part of the plan a success. I got it in the mail around 2003-04.

Stayed there last in November 2019 and it was fine. Small continental breakfast but clean and we got a ground level room.

Hey Wrench, saw those Piscifun reels on sale on their website for 15% off. Crazy cheap as the one I was looking at in a 3/4 weight reel was $38 and change. It was the "Sword" series.