Fish Cleaning Station?

[cself]

Has there been anymore talk about putting a fish cleaning station at Bennett like they have at Roaring River? Seem's to me that RR the fish are active and hungry all day for the most part even in the middle of the day where as Bennett has always been catch fish like fire in the morning, then they fill up on fish guts in the river and go stale until later in the afternoon/evening.

May just be a theory I have, but even asside from that it would be nice to have a spot to fillet your fish out and keep the river clean. I've been going to Bennett since I was 6 and love it, just suprised they have never put one in. Anyone?

[NoLuck]

I don't know if there was any real talk of actually putting one in. I just think that people were talking about needing one there more than anything. It sure would make the place a lot nicer if you didn't have to wade yourself through the gut holes to get out to where the real fishing takes place. At least where normal fishing is for Bennett anyway.

If you get away from the gut holes and fish with natural flys and use a natural presentation you will find yourself catching fish throughout the day. Sometimes it is just how fish are feeding more than anything. Fish tend to feed early and late unless there is some kind of weather coming through and then you may catch them feeding at any time that weather makes them get up and active. Sometimes you just have to put something out there that they really want or makes them strike regardless if they are hungry or not. Stimulators and flys of that nature just plain work. If you get into fish that have been in the stream a while, they feed more like a naturally reared trout. They find a place and just feed on what ever comes by that looks like what they are feeding on at that particular time.

So chances are if you are not catching fish on the correct flys you are either using the wrong presentation at the time or they just ain't biting at the time.

JM2C

[Wayne SW/MO]

I don't believe it is a problem of filling up on fish guts but one of running out of new arrivals. Once the newly stocked fish are removed you're left with fish that have survived because they are different. Whether they are more cautious or what can be debated forever, but they are harder to catch.

They have been cleaning fish streamside since I can remember and that goes back a few decades.

[cself]

I agree about switching patterns and still catching tons of fish, wasn't the point of my question/theory, I've been going to Bennett for 24 years now, and still my park of choice since its been my family destination so often, and never thought any different until several years ago when I started exploring many more parks and wild streams, I see fish all the time swim out of the deeper holes down there and eat guts, then return back to thier normal feed lanes, and guts are full of protein, so a fish can get most of his daily intake off a gut pile versus slurping dozens of nymphs or fly’s. Take a lunker into consideration, a lunker fish on average is going to go for a egg pattern, worm, sculpin, leech, minnow versus going after something that is going to take a lot of energy but not gain a lot of food to fill him up. The lazier they can be the better, however if the see a injured minnow, huge gut pile, they will use the energy on that one meal because they know they'll be filled up for a while, so imagine when a smaller fish takes a big meal, they may not eat again all day.

I think alot of it is the "daily stockers" however if you go to RR you have the same "daily stockers" and yet you can take someone like my wife, or a kid, or a newbie, down there who chooses to fish toward mid-day, and they'll catch fish, put them at Bennett and they will struggle without having someone constantly coaching them on what to change too, and how to switch your drift, depth, etc. However they are completely different rivers too, whereas Bennett is way more action packed in the first couple hours, whereas at RR I have my best fishing an hour or 2 after the buzzer and late morning, so they can't be 100% compared to each other, which is why I share my time between both rivers several times a month.

In the end I'm not really bringing this up to "improve the fishing in the mid-day" Usually when I go down there I just fish till noon and go have lunch anyway, then go back dink around in the heat of the day catching them using cracklebacks/dries/buggers and then really fish hard in the late afternoon/evening. However I just am thinking out loud a bit, and was hoping they'd get a cleaning station put in some day, so A) the river stay's clean I don't get yelled at for cleaning fish in the hotel room