Miserable day, the forecast was for cloudy skies, temperatures in the upper 30s to low 40s with a 50-60% chance for rain all day. So what would be the right thing for 4 FATC guys to do? Go fish Bennett Spring. Dan Staggenborg, Scott Payne, Vernon Preston and Steve Baker, met at the 109/44 commuter lot and made record time to Bennett.getting our tags by 8:15 and on the water by 8:30. Well at least Scott was. The rest of us are a little slower. The weather forecast turned out to be very accurate, but on a good note we just about had the stream to ourselves for a couple of hours. The fishing was good right from the start. Scott had a good morning with an egg pattern and the House of Payne fished on the bottom. He definitely has a knack for putting fish in the net. Dan Stag also did well in the morning stripping a green crackleback and then an olive wooly bugger on a full sink line. He fished up by the spring and down past the gage house Vernon also hooked into a couple of fish, but he was very secretive about the fly he was using. Steve had a great morning using a plastic egg bead with a hook attached 2 inches below and dropped off a weighted nymph. This egg bead is trying to be my favorite fly.
We broke for lunch at 12:00 and thought about finding someplace warm and dry to eat but the closest place was the restrooms and the aroma wasn’t very appealing. So we ate under the tailgate in rapid fashion and went right back to fishing.
The afternoon continued to be productive. I had the best luck with the Egg/House of Payne fly up by the spring and worked my way down past the gage house trying different flies with limited success. I ended the day with 17 fish. Dan and Vernon fished down toward the handicap piers and continued to bring fish to the net. Dan was able to get 1 on a dry fly and another on a soft hackle 2 on the P&P midge and a couple on the Bennett Spring killer. His total for the day was 21 trout. Scott went down below the dam and bridge and continued dominating. He said there was absolutely zero competition in that area which contributed to his personal best day for trout at 64. With one of those being a 20 inch whiskey I think we all feel like it was worth putting up with the weather for the day that we had, the total fish count was over 100 trout.
We called it quits at about 4:30 and headed back home, stopping in Rolla at Applebee’s for dinner. All of us are looking forward to the next FATC fellowship trip.
