March 1St Night Fishing Report

[duckydoty]

Did not make it to the opener at any of the trout parks yesterday, but I was able to go down to Taney for a little night fishing last night.

It was snowing, the temp was right around 30 degrees and the wind was blowing just a little. When I pulled in the parking lot about 8:30 pm, I could not believe the crowds. You sure could tell it was opening day trout season in Missouri. My buddy and I had to really search just to find the right parking spot. The one other car that was down there was parked where I like to park. After dealing with that mess of trying to find a place to park and getting geared up, we finally got on the water around 8:45. We started just above the Rebar Hole with white mink sculpins, and on my 1st cast I landed a spunky 12 inch silver bullet. Thoughts ran through my head about a fish on the first cast is usually a bad sign. Took several more casts varying my drift angle and strip speed with out another bite. Changed it up to black pine squirrel and picked up one more fish. Again several more cast changing up drift angles and stripping speeds from a complete dead drift to stripping short little strips as fast as I could and nothing. Changed to olive pine squirrel and nothing. We decided after 30- 45 minutes of that, to move to the flats between outlets 1 and 2. We picked up 4 or 5 fish each up there on black pine squirrels and white minks then decided to go down to the old KOA area. Fishing was pretty slow down there last night too. Iced up eyes on the fly rod was a major problem last night. With the wind blowing, after a cast and a few strips, if I let the line sit for more than 10 seconds, it would freeze in place to the eyes of the rod or actually freeze to the ice build up on the rod itself. I believe I missed many fish due to that problem. I might have caught 10 more fish by midnight down in that area before deciding to head home to a warm bed.

No lunkers caught, had to deal with adverse weather and crowds, but like always, enjoyed the company I was with and the time on the water.

[Phil Lilley]

Fished from 5 till 6 last evening just above the boat ramp. The trout really didn't want to bite then either. And it was cold, icing in the guides. I videoed but don't like the way it turned out...