Beautiful Day At Bennett

[John W Kelly]

Fished Bennett yesterday (Friday 12-27). The water was crystal clear and there were fish everywhere. Most of them were relatively small in the 10"-14" range, but still fun to catch. I started at the spring, at 8am, and worked my way down through zone 1 to end up at the bridge by 4. There were only about a dozen people in the entire zone, so it was nice to not feel the pressure of being compressed into a small rectangle of fishing space.

I fished the whole day with 2 different patterns of flies that I made. The first was a "JFly Opal Glitz" and the second was a "JFly Ruby Glitz" (see pics). They are made with hot melt glitter glue and sparkle as they rotate in the sunlight. I used the Opal Glitz for the first half of the day and managed to land 9 fish, then switched to the Ruby Glitz in the afternoon and landed 7 more. I've noticed before that the Ruby Glitz works well at Bennett in the afternoon when the bite usually dies down. The numbers could have been a lot more, but I was practicing using 7x tippet, so I was trying to set the hook more gently. I had many missed takes and quite a few failed hook-ups, but I only broke off two flies while setting the hook. I usually lose about a dozen when using 7x.

The Opal Glitz works well at Taney too, and I included it in the "OAF Winter Swap 2014" here:

JFly Opal Glitz:

JFly Ruby Glitz:

Panorama of the spring in the morning:

First run:

Clear water and fish above the spillway:

A Mayfly hatch started around 1:00 near the spillway and trout were taking them off the surface. I dug through the floating plants along the bank to photograph the larva, but didn't have any luck:

I took a (crummy) short video while standing on the base of the spillway, which I hadn't done before . It was a little scary at first. There was a hatch occurring and a bunch of fish were popping out of the water, which you can sort-of see in the video (use HQ setting). The flies were hitting me in the face as they went up and over the spillway:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BviHcbYZf4

Bennett Spring Trout Cam:

http://mostateparks.com/content/trout-cam

[Wayne SW/MO]

Not trying to be picky, nor do I care personally, but those might be illegal in z-1? Plastic?

[John W Kelly]

Not trying to be picky, nor do I care personally, but those might be illegal in z-1? Plastic?

It's a reasonable question, but they do not fit the definition of a 'soft plastic bait'. It is a relatively hard and non-flexible material, which is permanently attached.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I did go and look. I wasn't thinking soft plastic as much as plastic. It does appear that the difference between a lure and a fly is the single hook.

[dave potts]

Nice video and photos. I started to go down but didn't get around to it. Might be the last nice weekend for awhile.

[ruthead]

We were there for a one day mad dash fishin trip Saturday. 8 hours drivin for 8 hours fishin. Did ok and caught some fish. Wife caught one 13-14 inches, the rest were pretty small. Sure felt good to go though. Beautiful day but got a little windy in the afternoon. Tried out a pattern for the trout swap. Didn't figure I'd catch anything on it this time of year but caught 2 with it so it does catch fish. Hopefully this trip will tide me over till springtime.

[rcguy]

Very cool. Thanks for posting the pics! Makes me want to head down....when it warms up a little!

[brittsnbirds]

RC I thought Rich was going to go down. He pimped me earlier in the week but the kids were in town. When is C&R over? I need to get away for a few days regardless of the cold.

[NoLuck]

Pat, me and my brother went down last Saturday., fishing was pretty decent for mostly small fish but a few decent ones were caught too. I'll tell you about the one that got away later. Grrrrr!!

[upstream]

Pat I wasn t present and didn't see the big one that got away .