It’s hard to believe that the fishing could be any better than last week but the weather was looking like another trip was in order. This trip was posted by a FATC member [who will remain nameless,] and everything was going in the right direction, until said member called me and said he had to back out due to a cold. [Who calls in sick from a fishing trip?] He asked if I would take over. How could I refuse? The trip was already planned out for the most part. On Friday, seven of us including Bob Palisch, Raul Vargus, Scott Payne, Vernon Preston, Don Varner, Harold Bates and Steve Baker met up and made the drive to Bennett. The talk on the way was whether or not we could have a repeat performance of the previous Friday. We arrived at Bennett by 8am and it was a made dash to get suited up and headed for our favorite spots with the plan to meet for lunch at 11:45.
The fishing started out slow for me as I struggled to find something the fish would take. After fishing for over two hours and watching others bring in fish after fish I got desperate and put on an egg pattern with a HOP dropped off of it. That did the trick and I was able to net 8 fish in the hour before lunch.
At lunch we discovered that everyone had a great morning. We were joined at lunch with a couple of other FATC members, Bob Wilson and Chilly. Then to top it off, a surprise visit from Don McCain. They must have read the trip report from the previous week and wanted to get in on the fun. It was a quick lunch as everyone wanted to get back to the fish.
I started out fishing across from the restrooms and the fish joined me as I was able to coax 16 more fish to the net in the next two hours with the egg and midge combination. I then decided to leave the honey hole I was in and pursue fish elsewhere. Bad move, I worked downstream past the ADA areas and toward the spillway with very little success and only picking up 5 more fish by days end.
As the horn blew and while walking back to the car I reflected on the success of the day, and felt very grateful for my life and to GOD for all that he brings to us.
As the other guys were making their way back to change out of the gear I heard some pretty impressive numbers as to how many fish were caught. It’s hard to imagine that it could be better than the week before but believe it or not the total was staggering. We all decided that we didn’t want to disclose too much information so as not to have our successes trampled on.
We were soon in the cars and headed to Rolla to our favorite fellowship dinner spot. American Taco, Little did we know that we would find the highway shut down with about a 30 or 40 minute delay. We eventually got there and enjoyed our meals and the fish stories. Bragging rights for the fish of the day go to Bob Palisch for the nice 18 inch male he caught. We all have bragging rights for getting out on the stream during winter catch and release season. It may become my favorite time of the year to fish. There are still two more weeks of winter fishing and it’s not too late to take advantage of it.
