Day At The Park 3/24

[STL Matt]

Me and my buddy Blade were planning on trying out Cardiac Hill, but with the river a little high and us being kinda novices we decided to hit the park instead, figuring the likelihood of rain would keep some people away. We arrived at 8:30 a.m. and it was pretty packed. I'd never been so we walked around a bit and checked out the spring and hatchery. Really pretty around there. We started out the only place we could find room to backcast, in the middle of the long slack pool I think people are calling the "pond hole," and gradually elbowed our way to a little bit of current around a big tree where I'd seen a few people catching fish. I tried all kinds of wets in various dropper combos: BH pheasant tails, scuds, eggs, a garish big yellow blob I thought might remind them of food, but had nothing but a couple missed strikes (a dangerous thing when it's that crowded, if you're not paying attention behind you). Blade caught two bluegill there while stripping line back in for his next cast, but after a bit we decided to explore a bit and get away from the crowd. Along the way we talked to a few people, and the overwhelming majority were catching them on white powerbait tightlined or under a bobber. We wandered up Dry Fork a little ways and I scared the hell out of a bass with a popper while Blade caught an unidentified minnow.

Eventually the morning crowd thinned out and we started fishing right below that first big pool (I think the one people call the "handicap pool"?) in the swirling riffle where the odd trout was rising. I once again threw all kinds of stuff at them, almost picking at random as I was getting nothing. Blade caught a goggle-eye, I think on a pheasant tail.

After a lunch break there were short showers off and on, and lots of people cleared out. Having been all geared up for some river fishing, I swallowed my pride and found a spot in the "handicap pool" to target the fresh stockers just the same way I do the ones they stock for the winter urban trout program in Forest Park, STL: that is, put something small under an indicator, cast, and wait. I chose a copper john and after two or three casts started getting some action. After missing two or three strikes and having one fish escape, I finally brought my first trout to hand. No picture, but it was a slightly larger than average stocker, maybe 14" or so.

That felt like cheating, so as more people left in the late afternoon we worked back down to the bathroom hole. I swung that same copper john in the little rapids just above the bathrooms and caught a little rainbow. Just as I brought it to hand the guy to my left must have just heard a splash and thrown a reaction cast. A really accurate one, too, because it just about lassoed my line six inches from the fish, yanking the poor guy out of my hand. At the time I was just anxious to get fishing again, so in the ensuing disentanglement discussion I didn't appreciate the humor in the guy's response like I do now: "Sorry, man, I thought you was a fish."

Around I guess 4:00 all the sudden trout started jumping out of the water in a few places, and soon I saw why, as swarms of little white bugs were filling up the river. They were really hopping a little downstream and across from the bathrooms, in a cutbank past a submerged rock. I tied on my littlest whitest fly and eventually remembered how to cast that far and throw a big and quick upstream mend to float it by 'em. Took forever, because I'm not used to tying on tiny flies, and my backcast was squeezed between two trees I'd sometimes prune, and I had to keep a close eye on the path to not snag anybody. Got a few good drifts and the fish didn't care, one of them even jumping over my fly like a barrel in Donkey Kong, so I dug around and found one smaller and whiter and tried again. I'm glad I did, because when one of them took it I killed two birds with one stone: my first fish on a match-the-hatch dry fly, and my first brown trout (I think... he's a little guy and it was kinda hard to tell, pic's a little blurry too cuz he wasn't too cooperative a photograph model). That made my day, and I was getting tired, so I switched to the spinner and cast some lazy rooster tails while Blade caught himself a rainbow on that same white fly right off the dropoff in that same pool upstream of the two grass jetties. After I added the hundredth decoration to the tree across the stream and tied on another, I caught a surprisingly strong little goggle eye over there after thinking I was snagged. The last action either of us got was kinda funny: Blade went to backcast, felt something heavy, and heard a slap behind him. It was a little minnow on the fly, and since the barb was mashed, when he cast forward it just flew off and went back in the river. Hope the litle guy lives to tell the incredible tale...

All in all I'd call it a pretty successful day for a couple novices such as ourselves, and we capped it off with some cheeseburgers and beers in St. James at Johnny's, which somehow I'd been driving by my whole life and never gone in, despite the siren call of my beloved cheap beer of choice, good ol' Stag.

[Wormser]

Nice report. LOL, I know that sign very well too and have never stopped. I probably should sometime.