What started out as a plea from Steve Baker to get out and fish one more time during the winter catch and release season quickly turned into a St. Valentine’s Day massacre. By Sunday we had six FATC guys willing to chance a divorce and just go fishing over spending the day with their sweetheart. We all met at the 44/109 commuter lot and headed to Bennett Spring. As we made the trip the air was a cool 25* and by the time we got into the water it hadn’t warmed much but by the end of the day it got up to 50+.

As it turned out Steve was joined by Scott Payne, Vernon Preston, Don Varner, Bob Hassett and Dan Staggenborg. Each and everyone of us having our priorities in line. The day was a huge success with a total fish count of 90. As usual Scott had a stellar day with 49, many on the “house of Payne” midge fished under an egg pattern This combo was far and away very successful for Scott.

Bob Hassett had some great luck experimenting with soft hackle. After Lunch Bob caught 4 on a red body soft hackle. Bob seems to be sold on the technique and ended with 6 for the day.

Steve caught 7 in the morning on his version of the “house of Payne” which was a bit more red than the original and lacked a tail made from Susan’s hair Steve also added 2 in the afternoon with a size 20 red zebra midges and spent a lot of time fishing dry flies trying match the hatch with no success. Don Varner ended the day with 10 fish and Vern Preston caught 3 for the day. DanStag ended the day with 15,  after a mad scramble to get 5 more in the last half hour on a multi colored egg pattern. Other fish were caught on a variety of flies.

We mostly fished the spring area, near the gage house and (everyone’s favorite) below the Holland dam. Scott ventured down below the stone bridge until he was crowded out.

There were a couple different hatches going on: a prolific tiny midge hatch that yielded clouds of tiny flies and a less evident black Caddis hatch in the afternoon, with lots of trout sipping emergers and coming out of the water to gulp at the clouds of some kind of hatch going on. It was truly a massacre.

The group decided to head to Rolla and stopped at American Taco for burgers and fries (which hit the spot.).
It will be tough to wait out the opening day Madness. But we’ll be back out again in another couple of weeks to trout fish again and enjoy this great fellowship.

Each of the 6 intrepid fishermen are on pins and needles to see if we are getting divorce papers served as OUR Valentines gifts for going fishing today.
But if pressed, I think we’d all say the day was worth it.
Get out and fish.

PS,
no fish were harmed in this massacre and no pictures were taken to protect all those involved.