timsfly

Zone 2 is the place to start, I like the area where the bathhouse is in campground 3, close to hadicap dock there is a nice run, below and above the dock, good nymph fishing, and we are catching fish on beetles now in that area, but that would be a good place to start, no bait fishing there and there is always good #'s of fish in that area.

Alright Stephen, I'll see you next week.

Fished crane about an hour last night with a customer, we started down below the dairy farm, fished a red san juan worm, only brought one to hand, about an 8 incher, we had 3 more on, had to add a lot of weight to get the juan down. I think we had 3 BB shot on when we got done. We used 5X fluorocarbon tippet. The creek is in fine shape, it has stayed higher longer than usual, I hope that means there is a lot of excess water in old mother earth right now, maybe the flow will remain good for the next few months or maybe longer.

The water is still high and clear at Roaring River, the dry fly fishing is getting better, we caught fish all week on caddis, adams, cracklebacks and even some on beetles, everything has been #14's and 16's except the beetles, we are using them in a size #10 or #12, long leaders and 7X tippet has been the rule this week using dries. Nymph fishing has been great this week, the higher water requires more weight and longer tippets, but if you do these small things then the fishing has been good. We have been catching trout on copper johns, pheasant tails, gold ribbed hares ears, micro eggs, y2k bugs and zebra midges. The best way I've found to fish in the higher water is to fish to bead head flies, the extra weight helps and the use of two flies gives the fish more choices, my favorite combo this week was a copper john or a pheasant tail nymph as my lead fly and a micro egg or a small zebra midge as my dropper. Best colors for me on the zebra have been red or black. Bigger woolybuggers are still working well, black, brown, green, and tan have been the best colors this week, bigger in the morning and the baby buggers are working well in the afternoons. Roostertail spinners are still working well, black, skunk, brown and green have been productive colors, and the 1/16th or the 1/8th sizes are working best. Plastic worms and plastic eggs are very effective when the water is high, but again the use of extra shot is required in some of the water, for eggs, a 3/0 or a #7 shot is effective for anchoring the egg to the bottom of the river, you can use a worm weight and a small shot about 24" above the egg, both ways work right now, the best egg colors have been white, flo. orange, hatch brown, and the flo. yellow. Worms have been good also, 1 or 2 B or BB shot are needed now, keeping your weights about 18" above your worm is about right, fish the worms in the faster runs, throw the worm up in the fast water and let it drivt out, watch you line or keep it tight, if you see the line move or feel one pulling on the worm, set the hook, with the water like it is right now, you never know what you will catch, there are still big fish out there, they haven't all been caught yet. Spoons are effective in the water when it is high, like it is right now, fish the spoons like the worms, throw them up in the fast water and let the current wash the spoon down, slowly reel the spoon back or raise and lower the rod tip causing the spoon to rise and fall, and feel for the line to feel heavy or sometimes they'll hit it hard enough to pull the rod tip down. Alot of people using spinning rods and fly rods are using the thread jigs and the glo-balls under indicators, this is working well, you need to fish a bit deeper and sometimes add a spit shot on the line to help get the fly down faster. Zone 3, powerbait paste and corn or night crawlers did very well this past week, good luck, see ya on the river.

Yes in the C&R area and in the bait area (zone 3) I have caught some really nice looking pumpkinseeds and some nice bluegill, I have caught some nice ones at bennett to.

Yes they stock a few lunkers in the C&R area every so often. We self stockes several down there during C&R area, every nice fish I caught that I could get to the C&R area I took down there and turned it loose, I would like to see them caught many times. I know several people that put lunkers down there that were caught near the mouth of dry hollow. I don't carry them down more than a hole or two, but if you are fast, they do alright, I've never had one die on me and it is nice to see them live past march 1st.

Yes it will still be high, and clear on sunday. There are lunkers left, John and I both missed 18"+ fish on thursday. I saw a nice 5 or 6 lb fish in the bottom hole of the fly area this morning, chased my olive wooly but didn't take.

John and I fished the upper part of Roaring River today, the fishing was good, we each caught maybe 12 fish apiece, we fished maybe 2hrs. Most of mine came on a small egg colored glo-ball, and a brown woolybugger. John used white, and orange thread jigs, chamois worms and I think he use a small fur bug some, both of us were useing 6X and long leaders. Water is high and clear. 2 of the fish I caught were nice looking browns, we didn't catch anything to brag about, I missed a good one and so did john, but it was nice to see the water clear again.

I have the G-3 Simms guide waders, they are pretty good, I did have to send them back after only a year, had a leak around the right bootie, they fixed the problem, repaired some small leaks(caused by ME) and sent them back and they have been good ever since. I have wore the cheap orvis waders a lot, always found them good for the money, and if I had a leak, orvis was very good about replacing or repairing the waders, I sent several back over the years and they replaced every pair. Can't beat Orvis for customer relations.

There is no schedule on when they put big fish in, they just do it sometimes, fish do get big in the stream, there have been several fish caught in the river over the years that have attained their size in the river, now they may have been stocked at 3lbs but they can make it a few years and some do, they can get big pretty quick. We watched trout in the area that is now the C&R area, it wasn't then, it was big rainbow, we watched it and fished for it for 2 years, and when a friend of mine finally caught the trout she was almost 15lbs and not a mark on her, she had reverted back to wild as much as any pen raised critter can. Browns in R.R. can get big quick, the hatchery actually stocks them small on purpose, they told me they will get bigger faster in the river, as much as 1" per month till they hit the 18" mark, and you know as well as I that a 18" fish, rainbow or brown is a much tougher fish to catch if they have been out on their own for awhile, I guess any pen raised fish or animal can turn feral, quickly after being turned loose to fend for itself. But you are right most are killed right off the bat, but a few make it, and they are the real trophies. I saw a pic of a brown caught in the Zone 3 area of R.R. on sunday, it was a beautiful trout, had to 8lbs or better, the guy had caught it on a rebel crawfish, he turned it loose, he is supposed to send me a pic, but this fish was beautiful and had to have been out on its own for awhile.

this is a link to the 10lb fish that was caught, you can continue to veiw fish in my album, there are several that are nice sized, I have over 70 pics but I only have a handful on right now. Check em out.

In Billings, when I left at 6:00 this morning, I was the first one out of my little subdivision, and I was busting drifts to get to the main road, we have about 10" at billings, drove down to monett, there was less than an 1" there and as I got closer to Cassville, the snow got heaiver, I have about 3" here at the shop at Roaring River, it is pretty, glad it wasn't a heavy wet snow.

Here is the right e-mail address, don't use the mo-net.com address reflectionsart@sbcglobal.net

One of the best in this area, is reflections taxidermy in Monett, MO. His # is 417-235-8848 He does some great work. here is his e-mail address rftaxidermy@mo-net.com http://www.reflectionstaxidermy.com here is his web site.

Jerry, super at the hatchery told me it was 2923, 2295 adults and 628 kids. That is quite a few tags. I knew it was busy, Duane and I put on over 30,000 yds of line on in 2 days, we used 9 3300 yd spools of maxima, new spools and used up several that we had started earlier during the C&R season, someday I'm going to try to keep a exact # of line sold on a opening weekend.

There were plenty of people, haven't heard an dependable tag count yet, called the lodge today twice and got a different # of tags sales each time, I'll wait for the hatchery guys to call tomorrow, I will get the actual count from them.

Thanks Guys, just made it today, good weather and lots of people here at the park, haven't got a confirmed tag count yet, but have seen several over 2500.

http://www.cassville-democrat.com/articles...news/story1.txt Trout Class of 2010 is on its way at RRSP By Lindsay Reed Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:55 AM CST Each year, the Roaring River State Park Hatchery produces more than 212,000 pounds of fish to stock the 1.7 miles of stream that wind through the tag area of the trout park. “The bulk of the fish, around 270,000, are stocked in the tag area, but around 6,000 trout are also stocked in the remaining three miles of stream inside the park and the four and a half miles between the park and Eagle Rock,” said Jerry Dean, hatchery manager. “In addition, Roaring River Hatchery also stocks 7,000 fish in Capps Creek and 5,000 fish in Hickory Creek.” Hatchery staff members dedicate many hours to producing the quality fish that fill the Roaring River stream and other waterways. This process begins in mid-January when staff members collect eggs and sperm from around 800 breeder stock fish that are kept at the Roaring River Hatchery. “We check the fish weekly during the two months when the fish are ready to spawn,” said Kevin Asbury, hatchery assistant manager. “Eggs remain good quality for around a week, so we check the female fish once a week in order to catch them all.” Each week, staff members evaluate the female breeder fish one by one and collect the trout that are ready to lay eggs. Those trout are placed in an anesthetic solution that sedates the fish making it easier for the staff members to handle them. After the female trout are sedated, a small amount of eggs are collected and evaluated. Eggs that are determined to be of good quality are drained and gathered in one container and eggs that are of poor quality are collected in a separate container. The eggs that are determined to be of poor quality are later fed to the smaller fish at the hatchery. “Each fish produces around 900 eggs per pound of body weight,” said Dean. “So a five-pound fish will have around 4,500 eggs.” After collecting a large batch of quality eggs and three tubes of sperm, which are gathered from around nine male fish, hatchery staff members fertilize the eggs in a controlled environment by placing the trout sperm and salt water into a pan with the dry eggs. “We keep the eggs dry to keep the eggs from swelling until the sperm is activated,” said Dean. “The salt water acts as a lubricant so the sperm is better dispersed but activation does not occur until the eggs are placed in fresh water.” After the eggs and sperm are combined, they are placed in a container of fresh water for around an hour. Then the fertilized eggs are transferred to a covered container, called an egg hatching jar. After 21 days, the eggs hatch and are placed in troughs inside the Roaring River Hatchery where they continue to grow. It takes around a year and a half for the trout to reach full size from the time they are fertilized. Around 65 percent of the fertilized eggs will survive, said Dean. As hatchery staff members go through the spawning process to collect the eggs and sperm from the breeder trout, they also take time to evaluate the fish. Male fish are used for one spawning period before they are released into the stream, but female fish can remain in the breeding program for up to five years. During each spawning, the female fish are evaluated to determine if they are producing quality eggs or not. The trout that are producing quality eggs remain in the breeder program. Those that have poor quality eggs are released into the stream. Many of the female trout that are released into the stream are large enough to be considered lunkers. The Roaring River State Park Hatchery staff evaluates spawning trout nearly every week from mid-January through February. Trout will be evaluated for a final time during the first week in March.

http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u294/ti...nt=P2240009.jpg http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u294/ti...nt=P2240006.jpg http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u294/ti...nt=P2240005.jpg The water is high and muddy right now, I fished a bit today below the park, there are a lot of fish in the river right now, I managed to catch 3 in about an hour. I caught all my fish today on a big #8 conehead woolybugger in olive color, had a few strikes on a black one the same size but didn't land any on the black. Had a few hits on orange glo-ball, but again didn't land any on the egg pattern. I suspect the water will remain about where it is for now, it may drop a little, but even if it does it will still be higher than normal on sat. Now this won't ruin fishing at all, it will help some and hinder others. There are still some huge fish in the water, and I would expect some bigger ones could have made their way out of the spring, the water has sure been high enough, there is no telling how big a fish there could be out there right now. This will also keep the march 1st snaggers at bay The egg and worm fisherman will have it made, this water is great for that type of fishing, just remember extra water, means you need extra weight, and I'm not talking a BB or two, you will be better off fishing worm weights and bigger #3/0 and #7 split shot. You can use a bit less when worm fishing. I like to put on a 1/16th or heaiver bullet style weight, and then tie on your egg hook, now the keep the bullet weight away from your hook and to allow your hook to float up off the bottom you will put a B or a BB shot about 24' above your hook, just make sure the bullet weight is above the shot, this will give you plenty of casting weight, and allow the fish to eat your egg pull on the line and not feel the worm weight. The worm weight will not snag as bad as the removable shot. So you might give that a try, it really works well. Now I think most people will be just fine with 4lb line this weekend, I don't think you will need the 2 or 3 lb line we normally use. With worms or eggs, you should use #10 or #12 hooks. Roostertails will work great in this type of water, if you find yourself fishing where the water is really fast and you can't get the roostertail down fast enough, add some weight, those big fish will lay right in that white water comming over the baffles, and extra weight is really needed in that area. With the water like it is, I would use the black, skunk, olive, or a roostertail with some flash. In this type of water a small crankbait is very good, the little rebel crawfish, the flatfish, or rapala minnow lures work very well when the water is up. Marabou jigs will work, you'll need to use the heaiver jigs to get down in some of the holes, but on the lower end where the water gets a bit wider and slower, you can use a smaller jig sometimes, a lot of times when the water is up like this the little white thread jig is a very good fly, or a brassie, you fish both the same, you'll need a indicator (bobber) and some time to fish. Just tie the little jig on, and put the bobber up the line 2 or 3 feet from the fly, and cast upstream and let the current do the rest of the work, you have to keep the slack out of your line, you'll need to set the hook very quickly, they won't hold the little thread jig or brassie very long, both are good when the water is up, they sink fast and the fish like them, you can fish this set up on a fly rod or a spinning rod. Glo-balls are fished in the same manner when the water is up like this. Now Fly rods can be tricky when the water is up, big conehead buggers, heavy streamer, glo-balls, san juan worms, heavier pricne nymphs will all work, you'll need to change your fishing method a bit, I like to fish just nearly straight tippet when the water is high, I don't have a problem fishing just straight 4lb tippet, it isn't pretty to cast, but it drags less in the water, sinks faster, and stays where the fish are longer, I still use 7-9' of tippet, and a longer rod really works better when the water is up like this, this will be a good day to leave the short 3 or 4 wt at home and string up the ole 5 or 6 wt. Bring the short rod if you want, even with the higher water there will be some caddis and midges comming off, and I've seen a few baties this week, and the tricos will be along shortly. I have had days when the water was up and had good luck on cracklebacks especially in the afternoons, and it gets even better if the sun comes out, the weather is supposed to be nice for now, up in the 50's on friday and even up to 60 on sat. so it should be a nice weekend. Holler if you want more info, thanks for reading all my ramblings.

I'll bet there were good #'s of fish that moved down stream, that happens when there is a good flood, and this was a good one, not bad on the top end, but the bottom(zone 2 and zone 3) got a good flushing. Should make for some good fishing below the park this next week, if the water level drops.

I did this for the guys that didn't winter fish and come down to fish on march 1st, the water is up and looking good, this shows the upper half of the river from dry hollow to the twin falls, it ain't much but I've had some calls from people wanting to know what the river looks like after the work was done. http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u294/ti...nt=P2170002.flv

If the water remains high, and I expect it will be high on opening weekend. A olive, black, or brown woolybugger is always a good choice. In the afternoon if the water stays clear, there will be some good dry fly fishing unless it is flooded, you just never know what opening day will bring. You can always nymph and catch fish, pheasant tails, prince nymphs, sow bugs, gold ribbed hares ears and about any kind of small bead head midge will work. Depending on the water, I would fish 6X tippet, if the water is rolling, then you can probably get by with 5X, but for dries I try to stay with 7X I just seem to get better drifts with long tippets of 7X. I fish leaders usually around 9'. Good dries early in the year are adams, caddis, griffiths gnast BWO's and if it is warm we will even be catching them on beetles in early march. We have caught trout on beetles all winter, they work better when it is warm. San juan worms will be good choices to, if the water stays up, and glo-balls are good also, both work pretty much anytime.

I don't think the high water is bad, but thursday I found 5 spawning females on beds, and I think the flood will probably do in any eggs that might have been put down already. It was nice to see the spawning fish, 5 fish in about a mile of water that is not bad I guess, and I probably didn't see them all.

Water was over the bridge at the hatchery this morning, and was uncrossable. The falls are running hard and fast, 2-3' of water comming over both falls. Water is very high but is dropping on the upper end(above dry hollow) It is still partly clear. From Dry hollow down the water is at near flood stage, the water is about a foot from going over its banks on the lower end. There is a lot of water comming in from the washburn area(dry hollow). The water had been over both low water bridges, and looked like it had been near to the top of the bridge in front of the lodge. Should be in good shape for March 1st if the rains don't last much longer. Looks like all the new baffles held up. Guys & gals Catch and Release season is over, there were a couple of guys from Oklahoma gearing about 8:00 a.m. I'm sorry to say it was a long trip for nothing, Dusty went up and explained the season was over and they had to head back home.