Lake of the Forest HOAFF outing 6-18-2011

It was a great Saturday morning for fishing with perfect weather and friends. The club outing was a lot of fun and most of the group had kickboats / float tubes. The fish really cooperated too. Everyone was catching loads of fish. Many good sized blue gill and sunfish as well as quite a few largemouth. My biggest bass was about 14 inches and a fat one. I heard someone caught a 21 inch largemouth but didn't see it. The water was very murky, and so I thought poppers wouldn't work. After catching just a couple with a Jacomo, I switched to a small white popper and used it the rest of the time. Probably caught 60 - 70 fish or so and missed a lot. We had a nice lunch on the shore and then split up.

Lake of the Forest

Gary

Ron

Jim & Son

Eric

Ray

My kick boat

Fly Fishing Lessons 6-11-2011

I enjoyed giving some beginning fly fishing lessons to 5 of my clients and friends out at Shawnee Mission Park Lake Saturday, June 11th. It's always fun to see someone who is truly curious and interested in checking things out. What a beautiful day it was too!

Terry

I had to throw this Grandson picture in !

Bennett Spring 6-08-2011

1 night Bennett trip by Jim and Ray, June 6 - 7:

Water was still up a little and really swift, crossing stream below bridge was real iffy.  Color of water was good a green tint.  Ray tried everything and had some hits but was a struggle.  Fishing was slow however glo balls produced better than anything.  Tried bedspreads but no luck.

New hatchery is almost completed.  No top water action, however it was the 15 year return of cicadas (large brown ones)  they were making quite a racket, when one would land in water it sounded like a chain saw.  I didn't see any trout taking them.  Fished the island and across from gage house.  Had a number of hits just above gage house about 10' from  bank, missed most of them.   It was good to get away even if only for a one night trip. It got fairly hot in the afternoons, but a nice breeze made it quite pleasant. Brought some trout back to grill outside, they were really tasty!

Gardner Pond Fishing 6-09-2011

I enjoyed a couple hours of fly fishing out at a private pond in Gardner. The pond was pretty murky and fishing was tough, but managed to land a couple of blue gill and couple of largemouth. The last catch was a VERY nice largemout at about 19 inches and pretty fat. Gave a good fight. Caught all the fish on a Jacomo fly (tied by Ray). No luck on poppers. Great weather too.

Terry

Fish Lake Lenexa 5-30-2011

Enjoyed this  morning out at Lake Lenexa by myself on a nice warm but windy Monday morning. Didn't have any luck on the main lake; casting was difficult. Only a few bumps on a woolly. Went down below the dam with same results on Jacomo and Woolly. After bass attached my little indicator at one time, I switched to a popper and caught quite a few blue Gill and a few largemouth. Biggest was about 10 - 11 inches, under a pound. Also tried the small stream below that area and caught quite a few small sunfish. Especially enjoyed the little run-off area below the wetlands.

New Shelter going up

Bennett Spring Washout 5-18-2011

Well, this wasn't one of our best trips to Bennett Spring but it was good to get away. Jim, Ray, and I went down Wednesday morning and were optimistic, as the water levels were almost down to normal and pretty good color was returning to the water. However fishing Wednesday afternoon seemed really tough, and we only caught a few fish. The weather was pretty decent. Then when we woke up early Thursday, the storm came in quicker than they thought and it was heavy rain starting around 5:00 in the morning. It let up around 7:15 so Jim and I fished for a while, with still conditions and the fish were biting pretty good (although small rainbows, probably stockers). The lower part of the part stream was fairly muddy but up by the island was only about 20% milkier and not bad, so we fished there. After about 20 minutes, that nasty lightning started getting closer and we high tailed it to the car. When we got back to the room, it started coming down very hard, and even a little bit of hail. They were now predicting rain all day, so we packed it in.I suppose the best flies we used were a dry mayfly, black woolly, soft hackle, bedspread, and of course Jim's ole Glo Balls. Check out a couple of pictures outside our room at Sand Spring Resort (where we had room 51 on the south side of the house). There was a stream between our room and the car, and even saw a board float by!. On the ride home the first 45 minutes, we saw all the creeks flooding. Just what they needed down there after all their recent high water!



Kill Creek 5-06-2011

Ray and I checked out Kill Creek Friday, 5/06/2011 in the morning. The weather was nice, although a little windy. The water was still a little cool. I think we caught about 4 blue gill and 4 largemouth, largest being about 11 inches or so by Ray. Mostly fished the south shore. Only fly that worked was a woolly bugger.

James A. Reed morning fishing 4/29/11

Five of us fished James A. Reed Wildlife area in Lee's Summit Friday, April 29th - Ray, Jim, Kyle, Al Bauer and myself.  (Al fished his first fly rod for the first time!). We fished 3 lakes - Bluestem & Nell which were very muddy and Gopher which was a little clearer. The water temperature was still in the 50's so the fish weren't too active. We caught around 15 - 20 fish or so, being small blue gill, black crappie, and a small bass. Best flies were woolly buggers and similar weighted flies mostly on the bottom. All the fishing was from shorelines. We ended up eating lunch there on what ended up being a windy day. They have now opened the new entrance to the north of the old entrance, and will open the new building / headquarters in a few more weeks. We're guessing they'll be some decent fishing when it warms up a little.

Terry

Kyle & Crappie

Al

Jim

Ray

Spring River Ark 4/08/2011

We had a very enjoyable fly fishing trip to the Spring River just below Mammoth Spring Arkansas. It was Dan, Ray, Jim, Rocky, Ron and myself. We stayed at the Riverside Motel with the nice rear balconies overlooking the river. We fished the usual public access and campground access and really caught a lot of fish in many areas. The best flies that I heard about were the Wooley Bugger, Bedspread, Glo Ball, scud, crackle back, and even a few on the big Chernobyl Ant (over at Lassiters). We managed to catch tons of fish. The weather was very nice with no rain and off and on wind. The red buds were in peak bloom and the flowering dogwoods just started blooming as well – just beautiful! Later on Sunday, Dan & Jim spent an extra day over at the White River going to the dam, but with 2 generators running, couldn't wade fish. So it was over to Handicap on the Norfolk where they went upstream and caught tons of rainbows and a few browns, biggest around 17 inches. Most caught on glo balls and scuds. They stayed overnight at the Mountain Home Comfort Inn and woke up to a rainstorm. So they headed up to Taneycomo, where the water was shut down and the fishing was great on scuds and glo balls. After this, they felt it was one of the best fish catching outings of all time. What a great time!

Terry

To view ALL the photos, click here:

http://s1189.photobucket.com/albums/z438/flyfishkc/Spring%20River%204-08-2011/?albumview=slideshow 

Brown by Jim

Ray

Jim with rainbow

Ron

Ron, Rocky, Terry, Dan, Jim, Ray

Spring River

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