Bennett Spring Opening Day Report

[John W Kelly]

I arrived at Bennett at 5:45 Saturday morning. There wasn't as much of an early morning crowd coming in as I had expected and I had no problem finding a parking space along zone 1. Over at the store, the tag line was only 3-4 people long, so it took about a minute to get a tag, and by 6:00 I was perched on top of the bridge overlooking the spillway with my camera. After the siren, I walked up through zone 1 to seek out some good spots for taking pictures, so it was about 8:00 before I began to fish. By then, I didn't have any problem finding a good spot to jump in.

As the morning went on, the crowd slowly thinned out, and from noon onward it seemed like a typical weekend day. Last time I was at Bennett (a month ago), there were lots of tiny fish in zone 2, so I stayed mostly in the lower half of zone 1 while moving around from place to place. Later in the day, I fished through zone 2 and caught several nice fish, and didn't see any evidence of the 4-6inchers from the month before. Most of the fish I caught throughout the day were in the 12-14" range.

I was fishing with midges all day long, which wasn't the most effective fly to use, but that's what I like to play with and did pretty well with them. Part of the fun comes from creating and experimenting with different variations just to see what works and what doesn't. I caught fish on 5 different variations: red w/ green wire copper bead (best), white w/silver wire olive bead, gray w/silver wire silver bead, red w/white wire black bead, and black w/white wire black bead. With the number of fish that was reported to be stocked (9000), I think anything would have worked. I think the most popular flies that I saw being used were egg patterns and woolly buggers. At one point, there was a guy near me who was pulling fish out on almost every cast. He was using a white egg. On the other side of me, there was a guy who was using a white/yellow egg, but wasn't doing quite as well. It might have been the color difference, but of course technique has a lot to do with success.

Luckily, the weather held out for most of the day. It was cold but still comfortable enough for me (and I hate the cold), it was overcast for much of the day, very little wind, the drift was fairly slow, and there were LOTS of fish to catch. In other words, it was a great day to fish! Toward the end of the day, the wind picked up some, but not enough to really bother anything. On the way out of Bennett, I stopped by Readings Fly Shop to peek around and Charlie seemed a little bummed about the slow business. According to the Mo State Park web site, there were only 1626 tag sales for the day http://www.mostateparks.com/trout-opening-2014

I guess that means there are still a lot of fish swimming around waiting to be caught.

After I got home, I read the write up in the Springfield News Leader about opening day, and while browsing through the pictures I surprisingly came across myself in my frumpy hat (haha) http://t.co/QaAiGdZYxJ

That was a good way to end the day .

[laker67]

Very good report with pictures. Thank you for taking time to share with us.

[Terrierman]

Hey, I'm in one of your pictures! Grandson and I had a good time. The crowd was not nearly as bad as I expected. The weather was a LOT better than I expected. Breakfast was good. The fires in the barrels were very welcome. It had been a long time since I'd been to Bennett Spring, It was like visiting an old friend.

[John W Kelly]

Very good report with pictures. Thank you for taking time to share with us.

Thank you. Your welcome!

Hey, I'm in one of your pictures! Grandson and I had a good time.

Were you up near the spring?

[Terrierman]

Were you up near the spring?

More or less. 5th pic down from the top.

[John W Kelly]

More or less. 5th pic down from the top.

Above or below the rock dam?

[dave potts]

Nice report Johnny. Were the midges you used the hot melt glue ones?

[John W Kelly]

Nice report Johnny. Were the midges you used the hot melt glue ones?

Thanks! Yep.

The red/green/copper always catches at least a dozen fish for me at Bennett.

(Edit: I should say 'land' instead of catch. I get a lot more takes and hookups that never make it to hand)

I fished the other flies for shorter periods of time just to try them:

Caught 2 on the blk/wht/blk

2 on the red/wht/blk

2 on the gray/silver/silver

1 on the wht/silver/brown

I expected the wht/silver/brown to do better, but it was the one I fished with the least. It usually does well at Taney.

Sorry the pic is kinda crummy. Could have set them on a different background. The flies are used too...

[Terrierman]

Above or below the rock dam?

Above. I'm the person furthest to the right in that photo, behind the line of people actually fishing. I try to get out of everybody's way to string fish.

[NoLuck]

Johnny change your hooks to a 2499SPBL tiemco and your hook-up rate will go from about 65% to about 95% . I had the same problem with TBH midges and a guy in Colorado Springs hooked me up with those hooks. They are a little pricey but well worth the extra cash.