Had To Get Out For A Little While

[zander]

With the price of gas the way it is, and my truck with the appetite it has, it has been hard for me to justify driving down to Taney everytime I want to go fly-fishing. I finally just HAD to get out for a little while. I went down to Lake Springfield and was throwing a weighted yellow bunny leech for a while by the warm water outlet. Needless to say, I kind of stuck out a little bit there. People were giving me looks that weren't full of fellowship and admiration to say the least and one fellow with his two boys next to him kept saying loud enough for us all to hear, "Well if he wanted to fish like that he should go to Bennett Springs." If it was five minutes away from my house like this was, I'm sure I would have. I'm sure they were just a little frustrated since nobody was catching anything, but I decided to head down behind the dam before my muzzle cam off. I tied on a little foam grass hopper and flipped that thing all over along the side of the stream but no takers. No one was catching anything. It was a lot of fun though, and if anyone in Springfield needs a fly-fishing fix like I did, I would recommend going down behind the dam and trying to catch some bass or bluegill. That deep valley can block out most of the wind and make casting easier. I'll probably try to tye up some Davy Wotton floating shad and try up by the warm water outlet again, but next time not on a weekend. But it was a good two hours and it got the monkey off my back for a while longer.

[loo10]

Reminds me of an experience I had at Maramec Springs

on Opening Day a few years back.

I was casting with my flyrod and some guy celebrating his 100th year

of baitfishing walked right behind me.

I didnt see him. And needless to say, I almost got him.

He yelled, "Watch it!! This ain't Bennett Springs!!"

I said sorry but he needed to watch when people were backcasting.

That didn't help matters as then he wanted to fight.

(Now fighting a 100 year old is a no win situation.)

I couldnt help but shake my head and laugh.

Basically, he stood downstream of me and mouthed the rest of the morning.

Your trip down to Lake Springfield sounds like fun.

I keep thinking I'm going to go down there and "scratch the itch" but I never have.

Let me know next time you're going if you want the company.

loo10

[zander]

Hehe that is a good one and you are right....fighting a hundred year old is a no win situation for sure. Puts a funny image in my head. In high school we took our senior trip up by Leslie, Arkansas and met a tall skinny hillbilly pushing 90 who was crazy as a loon. He kept asking us if we wanted to go "squat" for a while with his granddaughter. We never got a look at the granddaughter but figured that even with two generations removed from the old fellow it would still be way too much ugly for us to handle:) I normally am off Fridays and Saturdays so if the weather is nice and I can find someone to watch my boy, I'm always ready for a trip down there. Just be careful walking as there is a lot of big chunk concrete making it very difficult to walk under the dam.

Phillip

[Trav]

Years ago, my brother used to live in Springfield and when he "had the itch", or "needed to stretch" as he called it, He used to walk around the area where the finley river and the James meet. Lots of area and excellent smallie fishing.

A little bit further than where your talking but just far enough to get away from the "geezers". Yet still close enough to home to make a short trip out of it.

Just a suggestion. There is alot of places just west and south of Nixa to spot fish the James as well.

[drew03cmc]

Well, I love how people have this idea of fly fishing as it is only for trout. We in KS fly fish for carp more than trout. I got out for a few minutes the other night throwing Clousers for awhile on my new Avid rod just to get out when it was 60* here.

[Fish Bork]

That area where the Finley and James meet is private land now, its owend by the housing community up the hill and you have to have a key to get in

[Trav]

Just park on the road near the low water bridge over the finley and just walk down. No one will say a word.

[zander]

I fished behind the dam from about 9:00 AM until a little after noon today. As you can tell from the picture the water is up around 2-3 feet from normal. They aren't running hardly any water at the power plant at the moment so the water is unusally cold. This has affected the bite no doubt. I did see some bass hitting on top on the far side of the river but couldn't reach them due to the fly eating, back cast hating thicket of buttonbush right behind me. I saw bronze backs hitting on top right below the spillway but once again this was out of my reach. If they start running some water through the power plant the bite should really pick up. I threw an olive PMS and some white clouser minnow like flies most of the morning. Next time I will likely use micro-jigs under a indicator and some red and white deciever like flies. A small boat would come in very handy indeed when the water is up like this.

I talked to an old boy out there today that showed me pictures on his cellphone of a flathead he had caught last weekend before the water came up. It was around 20 lbs and it had a 14 inch crappie hanging out of its mouth (he said he caught it on a bluegill). He had caught another one that day bigger and had his line snapped 6 times. (grain of salt might be needed here but he seemed honest enough to me).

It was a beautiful day though and let me know what wouldn't work and gave me ideas about what might work next weekend.