2025 Tour the Trout Parks

[Foghorn]

Susie and I left out Thursday morning for our annual opening of the winter C&R trout park fishing. We started with a quick stop at Maramec Springs figuring we'd take a quick stroll thru the park to check if they had stocked . The lady collecting at the front gate said they hadn't stocked since the derby which would have been the last Saturday in October. Not sure if she was accurate as that meant people fished the last 6 days of October with nothing stocked. So off to Bennett Springs to check their water and fish stocked. We went to zone 1 across form the rest room and saw tons of fish. And it would take 2000 fish to weigh that ton. We headed down to zone 2 and didn't see as many in our short walk there. Our next stop and planned  first day of fishing Friday was Roaring River. Again we saw lots of fish but we also saw a half a dozen " lunkers".  We started in the deep pool with the two outlets we call the "Twin Falls " Friday morning and it was pretty much non stop for the first couple hours or so. Did manage to catch one during that morning rush that would have weighed in the 3.5# range. Saw some old friends and visited almost as much as we fished for a while. Back to fishing and it was getting mid afternoon and finally connected on a 6.5-7# rainbow on a size 18 peach fur bug. Fish fought well and swam away after some reviving . We were meeting the youngest daughter and her family in Branson so we headed East to meet the kids. Fishing was on hold Saturday with shopping and a not so wonderful trip to SDC. There was way to many people which we expected ahead of time but our daughter and husband could only get off on the weekend.  After breakfast on Sunday, we headed back East to Bennett. All those little fish were still swimming and still hungry so we pounded them for several hours. Most were in the 10-12" range with most on the smaller size. Susie did see a couple fish see figured were 17-18'. We left after catching all we wanted to catch and drove to Salem to finish our trip at Montauk. We got a late start as my fishing buddy was tired and didn't get started till 09:30. We started in the campground and again caught stockers in the size stocked at Bennett and Roaring. As we got down near the 200 campsites we started picking up a few 13-14" fish. I did misfire on a 20" rainbow and saw another brown trout near that size. It was a lot of driving and I wished we had found better sized fish but that's the "state of our state trout parks". The water was clear and the weather was beautiful and the fish fought hard for the most part on the little 6'6" 3 weights we were using. And there was the bonus of those 2 big fish at Roaring.  

[ollie]

Buzz and I were down there on Friday. At one point you couldn't even get up towards the hatchery end. There were school buses there with kids fishing that area. I didn't do so great, but I know Buzz had a high count going on at the end of the day. I don't think I saw but one chunky bow caught all morning and that one probably only went about 16". Glad you hooked up with one of the bigger ones down there.

[Foghorn]

Lady with one of the group of kids said there were 5 school buses of kids. Some of those were participating in an outdoor adventure class?  

[Xraydude]

Thank you Mr President. That’s a bunch of driving but easy to do for family and fishing. Appreciate your report as I’d like to hit some C&R over the holidays. Maramec is the closest to me but  never see more than a couple fish here and there.