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

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

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

Bennett & RockBridge 2/13/2012

Here is a report from Dan on his recent trip with Jim:

Bevan and I had quite a trip to say the least.  Our original plan was to leave on Monday, February 13.  We planned to fish Bennett a half day then move on to Rockbridge for a day of fishing on Tuesday.  We decided to leave on Sunday instead due to a snowstorm coming in the early hours Monday.   It was snowing pretty good when we woke up on Monday morning.  We did pretty well that morning on globalls and soft hackles.  It was a lot of fun to fish in the snow and actually pretty comfortable.  Here are some photos:

 

  

We decided to quit around noon and head to Rockbridge since it was coming in pretty heavy.  That turned out to be a good choice.  It took us about 4 1/2 hours to make a 2 hour trip.

We fished Rockbridge a full day on Tuesday and the weather cooperated fully.   The river did not seem to have nearly as many fish in it as I've seen in the past, but the quality more than made up for lack of quanity.  I landed the biggest rainbow of my fish life at 25 inches and Jim landed a 23 incher.  Jim's fish was pretty much the most perfect rainbow I'd ever seen.

We had to work quite a bit for our fish.  We used globalls, y2ks, midges, woolies,  and prince nymphs.  The bedspread was shut out.

We decided not to fish on the last day, but came on home. 

Dan

Rockbridge and Norfork 1-24-2012

Jim and I had a outstanding and productive fly fishing trip last Tuesday through Thursday. We hit up Rockbridge the first day, which is a private, middle of nowhere South Missouri trout stream where they charge more to fish but stock much bigger fish. We both caught some fat monsters, both of us catching 2 over 20 inches. I managed to catch my biggest rainbow trout ever down by the bluffs in the upper area; I'm guessing 21 inches and about 6 - 7 pounds. Definitely the fattest fish I've ever caught; couldn't grab the side of the fish in one hand. These fish are more in the shape of footballs. We caught tons of fish in several areas, one above the upper bluffs and the other at the start of the lower bluffs. The best flies tended to be black wooleys, glo balls, and bedspreads. The weather was perfect, at 60 degrees and sunny; water was pretty clear and a little low. 4X tippet was still the size of the day (still broke a few off). Evening meal at the restaurant was awesome as usual.

Then the next day we drove down to the Norfork River in Arkansas, fishing the Handicap access until late afternoon (they had shut off the generators around 9:00, although the water never seemed to go all the way down while we were there). Fishing was really good up by the island, and we slayed them again. Besides a multitude of rainbows, we caught 5 browns and 3 cut-throats between us (I caught the biggest cut I’ve ever caught). Same flies worked well here. No luck in either stream with dries or sow bugs / scuds. Weather here was a little cooler and we fought sprinkles for a few hours, and it seemed to get cooler as the day went on (mostly in the 40s). We stayed at the Comfort Inn in Mountain Home, which has always been nice.

Well after those 2 great days, it didn't bother us too much that the third day was a bust. We decided to risk fishing Taneycomo on Thursday on the way home, as they had been shutting off the water around 10:00 a.m. for several days and the web site predicted the same for this day. After getting there though, they never did shut off generation, so we didn’t fish. We hung around for a while visiting the hatchery, saw the newer fish ladder, watched construction on the new visitor center just above the dam, hit the fly shop, and had a nice meal at Danna's BBQ. Then we headed home.

Terry

Here are a few photos below, or for the complete slide show, go to:

http://s1189.photobucket.com/albums/z438/flyfishkc/Rockbridge%20and%20Norfork%201-24-2012/?albumview=slideshow 

Mill at Rockbridge

Jim & rainbow trout

New structure at Handicap, Norfork

Brown at Norfork

Bennett Spring Banquet/Winter Outing 12/03/2011

We sure enjoyed another fly fishing trip last weekend (Fri - Sun). This was our club's yearly winter outing and banquet, sponsored by our Heart Of America Fly Fishers (HOAFF), at Bennett Spring State Park. It turns out that the weather was pretty decent, even hitting mid 50's on Saturday. Only caught a couple hours of spinkles the whole weekend at the end of Saturday. And the fish were cooperating very well, certainly better than average. Our group consisted of  myself, my friend Bill, Kyle, Rocky, and his friend Al. We stayed at Sand Spring Resort just north of the park. The best flies for us seemed to be the Woolly (black and olive), soft hackle, caddis dry, chernobyl ant, midges, glo balls, and Scud. None of us caught any monsters, as many were stocker size and a few decent in the 12 - 16 inch range. We enjoyed a nice lunch consisting mainly of chili and hot dogs, which really hit the spot, and then the annual banquet down at Ollie's. There was a raffle for a 5 weight rod that went to Bill Brant.Overall, the park wasn't very crowded so we got to fish mostly where we wanted in the park.The most productive locations for us were both sides of the Whistle Bridge and the Island. The winer season is all catch-and-release.

Here are a few pictures below, or for the complete album, go to:
http://s1189.photobucket.com/albums/z438/flyfishkc/Bennett%20Banquet%20Trip%2012%2003%202011/?albumview=slideshow

Terry

Kyle & Rocky

Al

Whistle Bridge

Lunch

Banquet

Bill

Dam

Terry

Rainbow Trout



Rocky's Retirement 2011

I'm both sad and happy to report one of our own fly fishing buddies is about to retire and move out of town - It's Rocky. We're very happy to wish him the best in retirement but sad to see him be so far away. They had a party for him at work at Simplex Grinell where he had been for 39 years. Here are a couple of pictures of that along with one of his past fishing trips. He says to keep him on the email list as he plans to come back some and maybe we'll be able to make a trip out to Charlotte sometime to visit him.  GOOD LUCK, ROCKY!!!

Terry

Ooops, had to throw this one in!