Here’s a report from long time FATC member Larry Farrar. He took a “work trip” to Rockbridge and had some nice trout!!

I traveled to Rockbridge Trout Farm with a friend to fish for rainbow trout.  We arrived by noon on June 5th and found the stream in very good condition.  The water was clear, with good flow and few anglers.  After lunch, we put rods together and headed to the stream.  As everyone knows, in this part of Missouri, cicadas are the afternoon hatch, so we tied on our largest cicada pattern.  After entering the stream, knowing our cicada pattern was the correct choice did not take long.  Over the next few hours, we caught several large fish on the fly, lost several, and found time to take pictures with a couple of them.  We fished until 7:30 pm and then headed to the Rockbridge restaurant.  The next morning, the stream was quiet and so were the cicadas.  I tried a large orange stimulator, and my friend tried the cicada pattern used the day before.  We found the fish preferred the stimulator and had no interest in biting the cicada pattern.  The action was steady, but we wanted to try something different, so we decided to use streamers and fish further down the stream.  We both tied on brown and orange streamers and commenced fishing.  After just a few casts, we both hooked up on fish and continued to do so for the next few hours.  We met friends for lunch at the restaurant and then went to St Louis.  We confirmed that the bite on the cicada pattern had picked up that afternoon.  I hope each of you has the opportunity to fly fish with a cicada this summer.  Tight lines.