Sunday, March 25, 2012

Lake Lenexa 3-25-2012

Ray and I ran out to Lake Lenexa this morning. What a beautiful day!!! The lake was pretty murky, and we didn't catch any fish on the main lake, mainly using wolley buggers, poppers, and clousers. We went down to the pool below the dam and caught a few small blue gill / sun fish on little poppers. Very pretty lake.

Terry



Saturday, March 17, 2012

James A. Reed 3/16/12

Jim and I decided to head out to James A. Reed Friday morning as Jim heard they recently stocked some trout. We fished Coot Lake down on the Southwest side. Weather was perfect. Jim found a place along the East side among the trees and set about catching 4 rainbows on glo balls during the morning. I decided to walk around the complete lake, and didn't catch any trout. Did catch quite a few small blue gill and a Crappie on a Jacomo and black Woolley. I even caught about a half dozen on the dam on a popper. Wasn't sure if it was too early for that.

Terry





Saturday, March 3, 2012

Bennett Spring Opener 3-01-2012

It was another fun opening day at Bennett Spring State Park on March 1st, for Jim and I. It was pretty cold in the morning, but warmed up to the 70's by afternoon. Crowd was down a little bit at 1,619 tags sold. Jim decided to fish at the opening whistle (I didn't) and his rod eyelets started freezing over. Fishing was definitely tough this year with the large crowd, changing weather, wind, etc. Later Thursday and Friday were also fairly crowded but we could usually find places to fish. Several times, the wind was bad enough to make it was hard to cast. We both decided to bring some fish home. I'd say we caught about the typical number of fish for an opener. The water was about average flow, although a little murky and lots of moss and gunk in the stream, which is usual for the opener.

The second morning was a little warmer, although it sprinkled several times for a few minutes each. I  managed to find a very hot spot Friday morning at the whistle and probably caught at least 25 in the first hour by the island. Once I counted 30 casts and 30 strikes (didn't land all of those of course). They seemed to be in a frenzy there. Lots of "dumb fish" released that morning. Flies included black woolley, soft hackle, glo ball, and bedspread (which landed the most fish for sure). It was fun to visit with the regular Liberty fly tying gang who always come down for the opener, as well as Mike Rueck and some others. Jim cooked us a big breakfast the second morning, which was very nice.

We also witnessed some storm damage from earlier Wednesday morning. A camping / trailer park just up the hill from the spring got hit by a tornado (Castaway Campground). I heard that all but 3 trailers were destroyed, but no one was hurt. There weren't many folks there during the storm, like there would have been the next night, since most of get down there the night before the opener. They suggested it was very lucky it was leap year and therefore hardly anyone present, or probably would have been very bad. There was also a death in a trailer park in nearby Buffalo.

Terry
The Dam at the Opening Whistle

The CCC Bridge

Ray Thomas (Quincy Ill) sounding opening whistle



Jim


Me

Castaway Campground after tornado