Fishing With Dad- Part 2

[XP 590]

If you happened to catch the first installment of my "Fishing with Dad" series on the Current River forum a few months ago, you know I'm having a problem with Dad. At 89 years old, I can't get him to stop working, traveling and dancing long enough to go fishing with me more often. I'm lucky to have such a problem. The last ten years or so, I've been exploring the trout rivers here in Missouri alot more than the parks. I love the occasional solitude you can find, if you time your trips right, and I've always had good luck. Lately, I've been trying to get Dad to join me on some of these trips. Our family history includes years of fishing at Bennett Springs, starting as kids, and camping in our old 1959 Shasta Airflite that was parked at Weaver's since 1978. A recent turn of events has led to that old camper being let go, and being replaced with a 1973 Holiday Rambler at Valley View. Of course, that meant a few trips were necessary to get it broken in properly, so we started the first weekend of December. Our hope was for a nice chilly night to try out the heater, but since the low barely got into the 50's, not much luck with that. We headed down to Barclay access early Saturday to start fishing by 7:00 or so, before the sun pops over that hill. I've fished there alot over the last few years and have had pretty good luck swinging woolies through that riffle. I started Dad with a few different woolies that I tied, and told him I was going to be his free guide, not fishing unitl he caught a few. It should go without saying that he was happy with that arrangement, never touching a fly or a fish. As we worked through about 3/4 of that nice riffle with no luck, I noticed lots of fish jumping and splashing, not a common sight for me on that river. I decided to put on a big size 10, Orange & Partridge soft hackle, showing him how I swing those across the current and it was on! He was hooking up cast after cast as I snapped a few pictures with my new phone. Dad's fairly new to that wet fly type of fishing and couldn't believe the tug on the line as the fish chase those flies. Like they say--The tug is the Drug! He really liked the isolated area and the scenery where we were, and every time he'd hook into one, he look at me and hollar "Hell Dave, this couldn't be much nicer if we were in Wyoming!". A slight exaggeration maybe, but his spirits were high, and I was really happy to have gotten him into some fish. We didn't hook any super whoppers that morning, but did get a few nice browns, the biggest about 16".
With his busy social calendar, he needed to leave by 11:00 and head back to Columbia, but I stayed and fished that afternoon. I went upstream and hit the Bennett Access, fishing the long stretch below the concrete boat ramp. I usually fish above that ramp but the water was so low, I thought I'd hit this area for the first time. Now, I do consider myself pretty good with a woolybugger on the river, but I'm pretty sure I was the beneficiary of a recent visit from the stocking truck. I was getting bites on almost every cast and fished until my arm and hand was too sore to go on, only making it about half way down to the island. The numbers were too high to count, the temperature was about 65 degrees, but my morning fishing with Dad was the highlight of this trip.

[awhuber]

^{Great report.}

[J-Doc]

That's awesome!

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[mic]

So very sweet. Will you guide me? I'll buy lunch.