Jeff Tief

Nice job on the fishing and the video.

Caught some goldens over the years but they were at the places that charged quite a bit.Rockbridge,Spring Valley, and the old Fisherman's Dude Ranch were the first places we caught them.Will try to get the gang from here to meet you guys at Montauk when it looks good for all.

Took the Mrs. today for a quick trip to Maramac Springs and caught a lot of fish.Only saw a couple bigger fish and they were nestled in above the wire boundary at the upper end of the stream.Susie caught the biggest rainbow of the day with a fish in the 17-18" range.I didn't catch any big fish but did catch a golden rainbow about 12' long.Saw several in the park-first time I've seen that and had fished the park for 50 years.Probably caught over 100 fish between us in 5 hours of fishing.Most of the fish were in the 10-12" size with a few 13-14" thrown in.Park did have a lot of fish and the numbers we caught made for a good day.Susie used egg patterns and i used zebra midges and 1/100 oz. jigs.

Roaring River Resort folks said that they would be open but only have the lower group of units available.This was the info I got the last week of October.

Would go other than have obligations for Saturday so looks like a one-day to Montauk.We fished 3 days the last week of October and caught a bunch of big fish in the park and C&R.Several of these fish were in the double digit range and they should still be in the park.Unless someone got them in the last 2 days, you could hit it big.Keep us posted.

Nice video-tough to get to Taney when it's a 5 hour drive and normally have a carful when I mention Branson.Pretty good fishing partner too! Most of the time my fising buddies are having me tie on tippet or flies or both.

I posed the question last year of how long the season lasts when we had weather cold enough to freeze some of the smaller,shallower lakes that are stocked.If the lakes are frozen over by the end of the year,then 6 weeks isn't much of a return or a bang for the buck.Not familiar with many of the lakes that are stocked as it is closer for me to visit Maramac Springs than drive to an urban lake.At least the parks and Taney afford a little longer season for the most part.Then again if the folks in the urban areas fish close to home it makes it a little less crowded for all.

Rangerman, I usually check any info out in advance of our trip to get the best results.Have gotten some good info from the lake-link website in the past.Seems like the numbers were down in Wisconsin and Michigan this year.Have kept records back to 1999 and and they had processed as many as 10,000 king salmon at this time of year in 2000.Don't think they have hit 3,000 kings yet this year but the latest report from the DNR said lots of fish in the lake waiting for the next rain /snow event to get water levels up.You are correct in stating it wasn't a bad trip-doesn't take a whole lot of battles with those kings to make it a good day.

Spent a couple of days this week in Wisconsin on a hunt for big fish.Didn't time it well as fishing buddy Danny had a couple of Drs. appointments and I had some Grandpa duties at Arcadia Valley's Fall Festival.Traveled to Racine,Wi on Tuesday and looked the river and steelhead facility over and tried to generate some kind of plan.Lower water and not much fish movement but the reports we had on the other two rivers we fished weren't promising.Fished Wednesday for 8 hours and had 7 legal hookups and landed 5 kings and 1 brown.Danny had 3 legal kings in 5 1/2hoursof fishing.Had fished this water on and off since 1997 so we weren't too impressed with the first day.The kings were in the 15-20# range and the brown I released was around 8#.They were planning to process fish the next day so we decided to take a break and watch that show.Had about 10 DNR folks sorting ,spawning and releasing kings, coho's, brown's and the occasional steelhead.Only say them spawning the coho .For some reason they don't post the fishing reports very often so a big rain can make the difference in a big surge of fish out of Lake Michigan or few fish in the stream.We ended up fishing 5 hours Thursday with mixed results.I had 3 legit strikes and lost a nice king and male coho.I did land a coho in the 10-11# range.Danny only had 2 strikes and lost a nice coho but landed his personal best 11 1/2# brown trout.Guess it wasn't too bad a trip as some other long time fishing friends spent a week in Michigan 2 weeks ago and didn't land any fish.

Great fish-neat to be casting and pick off a hog.Never knowing if you hooked a stocker or a trophy would be awesome.Most of the time we fish is sight fishing and anymore not a lot of good fish to fish for.Enjoyed the pictures and report.

Sounds like a job for the old brother-in-law Dennis to handle.

Lost one of the best fly fisherman and hunter Tuesday with the passing of John Teeple of Basehor,Ks.John was 61 years old and was diagnosed with a brain tumor.Fished Bennett Springs for years and held the park record at one time with a rainbow approaching 16#.John disappeared from the trout parks in the early 90's to bow hunt for deer and turkey hunt.

Looks like a great trip-a whole lot better than those combat fishing trips we have made to Wisconsin for the fall salmon run.Reminds me of some of the small streams we fished for warmwater species as kids.Thanks for the show!

Enjoyed the videos especially the huge rainbow.Thought there might be more bugs but didn't seem to be any problem.

Great report,don't know if I like the fishing pictures or the food pictures best.Now Mrs. T wants to try that kind of trip!

On further review, saw on a later post that a J.C. angler caught a 12 1/2 # brown this last Wednesday at Bennett.

Rich,sounds like it was a good trip-thanks for the updates.Haven't seen many 16-20 inch fish in our last two trips to Montauk and Bennett.Did see a big brown cruising the Bluff Hole at Bennett.

Enjoyed the show didn't get to watch all of it as grandson came to visit.Nice brown!

No Luck, I researched on several websites and got their recommendations and went from there.Caught a lot of fish on scud patterns in tan and gray,wife caught fish on egg patterns in the usual colors and caught a bunch of fish on a little emerger pattern.That pattern is a weighted 20-22 fly tied on a scud hook using tan embroiderey floss and finishing the head with dark brown thread.Caught several browns also in the 18-20" range on a red fox squirrel nymph.Those little TBH patterns should tear them up.We fished primarily in the upper sections and the big bow was from the C&R section.Several areas we waded had a flat hard rock bottom and was slick and we were still wearing felt back them.After the rain, the folks at Abes said the topwater terrestials would be "on" but we didn't fish them as much.We did have a blast.Used 5wt. rods and handled the fish well ;would have probably taken some of the 8'6" and 9' rods if going back today.

Fished it several years ago the first week of July and it was crowded but not any worse than the trout parks or Taney at times.Caught some nice fish including one rainbow pushing 8#.We didn't rent a guide but went to the different access points and caught fish on the same flies we use back at home.Had some wonderful scenery and toured the Aztec and Salmon Ruins while in Farmington and Bloomfield.It did rain a couple times on us and they had a pretty good hatch of mosquitoes.

Russ, one of these nights I'm going to get in touch with you and learn some of your methods of fishing Taney at night.Took the Mrs. there one dark cloudless night and she didn't enjoy it too much.Maybe get Laker healed up and I can learn from both of you.

First fished Montauk on a camping trip in 1969 and really consider it my favorite park even though I've caught bigger fish at the other 3 parks and Taney.Montauk is unique in that it has something for everyone.Introduced some of my first time friends to fly fishing in the c&r section.Used to visit with Nighthawk in that area too! I can usually catch more fish in the campground area than the fly zone even though I find more fish in the fly zone. Used to catch and release lots of big browns when the summer got hot and the river got a little bit lower-not so much now as too many big browns are harvested.Don't really blame them either for keeping these trophies as it is a put and take operation and you can often find some real bruisers.Caught more big browns on the Dave Whitlock red fox squirrel nymph than anything else but also fished it more for those fish. Often in the fall you can catch lots of stockers on the various egg and scud patterns.Then you have the river below the park to fish also.

It's amazing how a nice fish brings out all those great smiles and those are a lot of nice fish.Thanks for a great report.

Can't recall if the one time I saw you at Bone Hole if you were in a small plastic boat or a small plastic swimming pool.Course that might have been close to 50 years ago too!

ciRe,wish I was going back down but wife has other plans for us this week.Lots of nice fish at Montauk right now.Went by the hatchery and told the boys we were impressed with the size-figure if we complain about small stockers it's okay to thank the boys when the fish are super.One of the guys said they had 11 floods last year at Montauk.Didn't think they had anywhere near that amount.Should have a lot of good water with few people fishing.