What do you do when the fishing fever hits you early in the week. I (Larry Mangels) have found that posting a trip on the FATC website will always find a few other people with the fever. I posted the trip on Tuesday morning and by Wednesday I found three other gentlemen (Ken Welter, Al Blair and Jim Craig) were free and ready to fish. Jim, Ken and I met at the Eureka commuter lot April 30, 2026, at 6:15 and all jumped into Jim’s car and hit the road. Al made the trip down to Montauk from his home in Columbia. We all made it to the park around 8:30 and were on the river around 9:00. It was a little cool in the morning but was beautiful in the afternoon.

The park wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be, which was very nice. I know some people believe that it is a bad omen to catch a fish on the first cast, but luckily that didn’t hold true today! Fish were caught in the morning, but the general consensus was there didn’t seem to be as many fish in the river as normal. At one point in the morning there was a large Mayfly hatch going on that lasted for 5 or 10 minutes. Of course, it happened 5 minutes after Ken took his Headlight Caddis off and went to an indicator 😊. We all convened for lunch at 12:00, and then back to the river. The activity in the afternoon was about the same after lunch. Fish were in the net, but they came in bunches if you seemed to find the right spot. The hot flies of the day were Walt’s Worm and Blow Torch.

We all met up back at the car at 4:30. Another awesome day for four FATC brothers on the river. On the way home, we had the pleasure to introduce Al to American Taco in Rolla. A very enjoyable way to finish off a great day at Montauk.