The temperatures were going to slide up on this Friday (into the low 50s) so it was an ideal time to get a another graduate completed from the 2017 Fall fly fishing class.  James Mitchell was next in line as we headed out to the rivers.  Unfortunately, we had several guys have to drop out of the trip due to colds, bronchitis and the like, so it was just Kenny and James hitting the waters.  We decided to go close to Meramec river and the park.  We got a leisurely start and were on the river by 9:30.  James didn’t need much work on his casting so he was ready to go.  We fished the first riffle by the cabin to get some practice in and again found very few fish in what is usually a hot area.  After going over the wet fly swing technique and stripping buggers, we headed up to the “bend” and to do some dead drifting. The cries of “mend, mend” were heard up and down the river as James worked hard on this new technique.  He did great and caught three trout here – two rainbow and a brown (one on a P&P and two on a gray scud).  At noon we headed back up to the park for lunch and talked of our afternoon strategy.  We decided to check out the park and found trout feeding on top again later in the afternoon.  Small soft hackles and Griffith’s gnats brought in a few more fish. It was a good day. The park has some big fish in there and we found out that they will stock it each Friday with a 100 or so trout.  We topped off the day with Hicks BBQ.  Remember, catch and release season ends on February 12th so get out when the temperatures get back to normal.