The second Lake Taneycomo condo trip began on a rainy morning, March 18th. All the guys, Bob Beckett, Al Blair, Jim Craig, Pete Drochelman, and Don Varner, met at Don’s house at 8 AM. Luckily, the rain stopped just long enough for us to load Jim’s and Don’s cars with all of our anticipation, food and gear for the weekend.
We decided to fish Bennett Spring on the way because the projected flow levels for Lake Taneycomo were too much for wade fishing. It rained all the way to Bennett Spring, but it stopped when we arrived in Lebanon for an early lunch. We fished Bennett, above and below the stone bridge and well down river above and below the hatchery. Although the return of wind and rain made fishing uncomfortable, it kept the crowds away. We did pretty well. Successful flies were the house of Payne, yellow egg pattern, orange soft hackle, and sparkly gray mop fly.
We arrived at the condo about 6 PM. A nice collection of snacks held us over until tacos were ready about 7 PM. That evening we watched NCAA basketball and sampled a wide variety of adult beverages before collapsing into our beds—dreaming that tomorrow’s Lake Taneycomo flows would be fishable.
No such luck. Saturday morning Lake Taneycomo was still flowing too strongly for wading. After a hearty breakfast, we headed to the traditional backup site of Roaring River. We enjoyed a beautiful sunny day, along with a fair number of other fly fishermen. We even picked up our first sunburns for 2022. The fishing was challenging. But, by the end of the day we had a respectable total.
We saw few fish being netted, except by our new friend we met on the water, Aaron. He was a 20-something young man from Connecticut who had recently moved to the area for work. Aaron described himself as an eager beginner, but it didn’t take long to see he was quickly moving beyond that stage. We each had very nice visits with this young man as we crossed each other’s paths on the river throughout the day. While we shared a lot of technical information with him, he and his crackleback were doing quite nicely on their own. The day ended with several of us enjoying a shoreline, wrap-up conversation with Aaron only to learn he had been spanking lots of trout butt all day with his crackleback. And, that wasn’t just talk. We had each seen him netting fish. Time to put the crackleback back in the starting lineup.
The productive flies on Roaring River were the hare’s ear, cerise worm, soft hackle, Barr’s emerger, crackleback, yellow egg, house of Payne, copperhead emerger, cream San Juan worm, orange mop fly, bead head pheasant tail, and RS2. As you can see, there was little consistency in fly preference.
Since Saturday was our one full day of fishing, we decided to stretch it out. We got back to the condo about 7:45 PM after stopping for ice cream to top the apple pie dessert that awaited us after dinner. We had a traditional “European” dinner—that is we didn’t eat until about 8:30 PM. But, with all the interim snacks and beverages, no one complained or grew faint and pitiful. The spaghetti dinner was heartily consumed. Followed by, yes, that warm apple pie ala mode.
Saturday night was full of great fellowship. The NCAA games were on, but they didn’t hold a candle to the discussion of Bob’s career path into aviation maintenance education and Pete’s stories of his gold-fish swallowing youth ministry pranks and the incredible career and personality of Pete’s baseball hall-of-fame grandfather, George Sisler. I think it was after midnight before we called it a day.
Sunday started with a blueberry pancake breakfast. Bob and Don decided to head for home as Bob had to get up early Monday for his post-retirement teaching gig. Pete, Al and Jim decided to give Bennett Spring another try on our way home. As the trip pictures reflect, lots of fishermen decided to spend that beautiful, sunny March Sunday in the water with us. It was packed. That made fishing a challenge as every fish must have seen hundreds of flies that day. The best fishing seemed to be anywhere you could find on the river that no one had previously fished for more than a half hour (and good luck with that).
Productive flies were the P&P and yellow egg. At 4 PM we enjoyed our lunches in the warm sun at a table by the river. We then headed home quite content that a weekend of fun, fishing and fellowship had been enjoyed by all.
