This trip started on Wednesday evening, March 3rd, with Vernon Preston calling Steve Baker and all but begging him to go fishing on Thursday. Never being one to deprive a fellow FATC brother from the stream I reluctantly agreed.

We made our way to Montauk with the idea of fishing outside the park. As we entered the park we noticed that there were very few people along side the stream and decided to buy a tag and fish inside the park. The water was up, slightly off color and running a little faster than in recent trips. We fished the morning away just below and above the cut-bank with little luck, and only netting two trout. We decided to drive down to the campground area to check that area out and eat our lunch. I saw that there were a lot of RV’s set up and figured the stream might be a little crowded there. We ended up going back by the naturalist cabin to park and walked up to the power lines. I picked up another 6 fish between there and the boulder, but they were all in the 10 inch size with only a couple over 12 inches.

We called it a day at 5 pm. And headed home with a stop at American Taco in Rolla for dinner.

The uneducated analysis of the day is that only being the second day after opening day the fish were still stressed from all of the opening day fishermen. Note to self give the stream at least a week or so to settle after opening day. 

Steve Baker