Fly Fish KC: 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