Skeeter ZX190

Took advantage of the temperatures in the upper 50's and gave the Spring a go. Started down close to the wooden bridge and worked my way upstream. It was more catching than fishing. I hit an area where I was getting bit on almost every drift. I alternated between an Egan's thread frenchie and a Walt's worm. It didn't seem like the fish cared. Both caught fish. Fished from 11 to 3 and had to be north of 70. I stopped at the Bullseye in Urbana for gas and talked to a man that had been at Bennett too. He said there was an emergency. A near drowning. A husband and wife. They had to give the man mouth-to-mouth until the ambulance got there. I'm not sure where on the stream this happened.

What year would this have been taken?

Took advantage of the super nice weather and gave Bennett a try. Lots of people had the same idea. Fished from 10:00 am until 2:30 pm and caught just north of 40. My most productive fly was a size 20 Eagan's Thread Frenchie with a 2.4 mm tungsten bead fished under a foam caddis. All but about 5 came on the nymph. I finished the day at the end of the park close to the old wooden bridge. There was a young man just downstream of me and I could tell he was struggling. He hadn't caught anything so I gave him a few of my thread frenchies and told him how to fish it. He didn't have an indicator so I went to my truck and got him one of mine. In a matter of about 30 minutes he had caught 5. I was pleased, and I think he was too.

K&K went out of business last December 31, in the Kansas City area. There is an online auction going right now for the leftover inventory. Here's a link. https://www.oldhamauctions.com/auctions/detail/bw139092 Maybe you can find a deal. Downside is that you have to pick the merchandise up in Odessa MO.

If I'm reading things right, Table Rock is not releasing water. Bull Shoals is not releasing water. Norfork is not releasing water. Norfolk is less than 2 feet from the top of flood pool, and Bull Shoals is 6 feet from the top of flood pool. And everything is still rising. Is anybody down there building a BIG wooden boat and gathering up animals? 😁

Tried Stockton today. First time in a LONG time. Put in at Orleans Trail and fished from there to State Park. Water temps were 44 to 51. 51 way back in the big coves. Main lake was in the 44 to 47 range. Water is very clear. Probably 8' to 10' visability. Not much wind so that might have made it tougher. Ended up catching 15, but only 2 keepers. Half came on a ned in green pumpkin, and the other half came on a Megabass 110 jerkbait. Tried a rock crawler but the rock snot is pretty bad. The weather was simply beautiful.

On a possible bright side, there were pictures of workers shocking and collecting fish that had escaped from the hatchery during the flood. I would assume they are returning these fish to the hatchery so maybe it's restored to a point of being operational again.

From what's been posted on Facebook, there won't be any catch & release for quite some time as the park is closed to the public so workers can repair the hatchery and park.

Some pictures have been posted on Facebook. Looked like they got slammed pretty hard. The USGS gauge at Montauk went offline at 4:15 am on November 5. At that point the rain gauge was showing 10 inches of rain and the gauge height of the water was at 12 feet and rising (normal is around 2). I saw someone post that the park is closed so there will be no catch & release this weekend while they continue to do clean up.

I fished Sunday, October 6 in the lower area of Belt Creek. Water is low and gin clear. Didn't see many fish but was able to land 9. 1 brown, 1 cutthroat, 1 whitefish, and 6 rainbows. Gave it another go on October 8, but this time I went farther upstream into the Little Belt Mountains. Much better results. Probably my best day ever trout fishing. I caught 40. Also caught a Grand Slam+1. Brook, browns, rainbows, cutthroats, and some cuttbows. Biggest fish was the brown and it was 17 inches. Had several rainbows and cutthroat in the 14 to 15 inch range. Caught most of my fish on a france fly, size 20. I suspended it under a Caddis type dry fly. It's my own design but it is patterned after a foam front end loader. Weather has been gorgeous . Headed back to Missouri tomorrow.

My very first boat was a 16' Richline that I got in 1987. Not sure what year the boat was. It had a 10 hp Johnson with electric start. I put a foot controlled Minn Kota on the bow. Caught a lot of fish out of that boat from many places. One year my wife and I went up to Minnesota with it. We were in Duluth so I put it on Lake Superior. I launched and took it out past the jetty so I was on the main lake. I turned around and put it back on the trailer. Didn't want Gordon Lightfoot writing a song about me! 😁

The Decorah Visitors Center which is in downtown, has the trout fishing maps for all 4 counties of the Driftless area. These maps are free and show the public water with parking also marked.

I fished 3 different creeks on a quick trip up to the Iowa Driftless. North Bear, Pine Springs, and Waterloo. Caught fish in all 3 with it being an equal mix of browns and rainbows. No brookies but those 3 creeks aren't known for brook trout. Fished a dry-dropper. The dry was a size 14 Caddis pattern. The dropper that produced the best was a size 20 mustard colored Walt's worm. In the 6 hours of fishing that I did I probably caught around 50 fish. Biggest was in the 13 inch range. That's the good news. The bad news was the bugs. I have never seen anything like it. Primarily gnats. Might have been some mosquitoes mixed in there but the gnats were a plague. Hundreds of them constantly buzzing around your face. I only lasted 2 hours on my second day of fishing. When I got back to the truck I took off my hat and it was covered with gnats. I will NEVER go back in the summer. It's a beautiful area, but next time I'll go in the fall or spring.