Trout opener article in the St Louis Post

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26 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

He didn't say it mattered, he said it bugged him. 

Bugs me too.

What bugs me even worse are these Nancy boys that say "What difference does it make how others choose to fish?"

Nothing is more annoying than a person who loves people.   🤣

Harps just seems like a good person😀

[joeD]

I think I would have liked my dad taking me to Mauntauk for the trout opener, camping and fishing and fires. He wasn’t that guy and neither was I. No knock on him. I played sports and fishing wasn’t on my radar until my 30s.

 I certainly don’t harbor the eye rolling of “us” fishermen with regard to opening day at a trout park. 

There seems to me an undercurrent of hostility and lack of empathy for others who just want to fish and have fun.

Who says we’re the ones who are right?

Because we use a fly rod and throw fish back?

Prolly. My knees will certainly hurt getting off my soapbox. Nothing a one hit and whisky drank couldn’t help.

[tjm]

1 hour ago, fishinwrench said:

What bugs me even worse are these Nancy boys that say "What difference does it make how others choose to fish?"

Nothing is more annoying than a person who loves people. 

When I say something like that, it is not because I love people, it is because I really don't care what stupid people do, as long as they don't walk into the back cast. That bugs me.

[fishinwrench]

33 minutes ago, joeD said:

Who says we’re the ones who are right?

Well WE do.  And we're not mistaken.  

[Al Agnew]

Hey, I love for people to go to the trout parks.  It means fewer people where I want to fish, so the more that go there the better.  If Foghorn decided to concentrate on smallmouth on my creeks instead of trout in the parks, he'd educate every smallmouth in the creek.  It's just not my cup of tea.  I like my fishing with a little more solitude and a little fewer signs of civilization and a much wilder kind of fish.

When I did go to Maramec on opening day, there were some interesting happenings.  One kid was running up and down the bank carrying the biggest rock bass I've ever seen before or since, asking everybody he came to what kind of fish it was.  The guy he asked before he got to me told him it was a smallmouth.  I finally told him it was a goggle-eye, and probably a state record.  I don't know if he believed me.  The thing had to weight 2 pounds.

My buddy Rick was using a Mepps spinner in one of the little pools that were surrounded by fisherpeople, and got snagged with a lady on the opposite bank.  She said she'd reel it to her side and get it untangled.  She did...she cut his line and threw his spinner out into the middle of the pool.  He was so shocked he just stared at her.

Two guys on opposite sides of the branch hooked the same fish--well, pretty sure one guy hooked it and then the other guy hooked his line and his lure slid down to the fish.  They were both reeling like crazy, until suddenly the fish came out of the water, suspended in midair at the ends of the two very taut lines.  Neither guy would relent and they both kept reeling until they established that one guy had stronger line than the other.  The other guy's drag was slipping as the top dog guy slowly reeled the fish over to his side!

Teenage kid finally hooks a trout after fishing most of the morning with nothing.  He gets so excited he forgets to reel and just turns and runs up the bank dragging the fish behind him.  The fish comes out of the water and is flopping up the bank when it comes unhooked.  The kid looks back, sees the fish flopping toward the water, and runs back to grab it.  Fish makes one more flop, and as it's in midair the kid dives for it, ending up with his whole upper body in the water...and no fish.

Fun times!

[fishinwrench]

My favorite trout park happening of all time was this old dude that had just stoked a big ol' Sherlock Holmes style pipe and got it all fired up real good, then while dicking with his tackle the pipe slipped from his teeth and he dumped it right down the front of his waders.  The more he danced around cussing and pounding on himself the further down that 1/4oz. of burning tobacco ran down his legs.  Once he finally got it all put out he just gathered up his stuff and went limping off to his car. 😂

 

The other memorable one was this dude in a pair of hip boots that looked to be 2 sizes too big. He was walking along up by the spring hole at Bennett and had his fly box out digging through it while he was clopping along, and he had a trout on a stringer that was swinging around his legs while he walked.  We were leaning against my tailgate eating a sandwich, and I pointed and said, "that ol'boy better pull that fish up or he's gonna ...."     No sooner than I said that the stringer hogtied him and WHOPP! the dude faceplanted one of those benches that sit along there.  I busted out laughing like a maniac and couldn't pull it together.  The dude was bleeding from the face really bad and everyone around there was rushing over to help him ...and looking at ME like I had somehow caused it.  

 

[Gavin]

Easy to make fun of the park opener. Will always remember my dad tumbling down the high bank a Meramec near the bridge with  the tackle box that contained all that we owned at the time. 45 ish something years ago. We did not even have waders, but had limits on rooster tails and salmon eggs.

[Seth]

I’ve got two opener memories that always stand out.

The first was this guy who was in a motorized wheelchair. He slowly worked his way down to the stream side just before the buzzer. People were courteous towards him and gave him space so he could fish. After fishing a while, the Lord above granted him enough strength to get out of the chair and walk back to his vehicle for a cold beer and sandwich as well as enough strength to make it back to his wheel chair and continue fishing.

The other memory was when the water was up a few inches above the concrete. A guy hooked a lunker that he fought up on to the concrete and started seimming around like a salmon trying to reach spawning grounds. The angler and his buddy chased it under a bench and one of them flopped down in the water in front of the bench to trap the fish. They were so excited to get that fish even though they were soaked. 😂

We all know it is a hot mess, but I still enjoy participating in the madness. Even now that i fish all winter, I still look forward to March 1st as it signals a lot of good things are right around the corner such as snagging season, white bass run, turkey season, etc.

[tjm]

Not a trout park but a State Park in the very edge of a 300,000 pop city with a ~30 acre lake that kept trout year round, so, almost the same, RI closed trout for the month of Feb and opened the first Saturday in Mar. every year; so there was always the thousands of one day anglers out on that Saturday, the few of us that fly fished year round would all gather at a cove on that "pond" and eat doughnuts and laugh at the "circus". One year about a dozen of us were standing around swapping fish stories and watching when two car loads of "rich kids" drove up and 10-14 of them pile out and open the trunk of one car and start rigging up with salt water spinning gear and lures 6"-8" long- of course we all had a ball making fun of these college boys (only two of which seemed to know anything about fishing at all, they were helping the others rig up) but with great enthusiasm and a bit of noise these kids all got limits of 6 trout each in less than an hour. A couple hooked decent bass too.  Those stocker trout were used to eating young bullheads, I guess, after a month or more in the pond.

[snagged in outlet 3]

 We used to go to the opener every year, wouldn’t miss it.  It’s a social deal, I get it. 

We would get there at 4 - 4:30 in the morning and get on the downstream side of the Mainbridge at Bennett Springs. 

About 15 minutes before the whistle was going to blow the place was packed and all lined up around that hole under the bridge. Two guys in suits walk down to us and asked if the great governor of Missouri could slide in between us.  We all just stared at them then my buddy says, he shoulda got up earlier if he wanted this spot.  Everyone burst out laughing and the fine governor slipped in above the bridge.  

Teasdale I think.