Bennett Spring, Laclede County, MO. Oct 29th: Streaming Wolley Buggers is the key!

Arrived at Bennett Spring around 2:00 p.m. and had a chance to hit the water for a couple of hours....fished it about 2 1/2 hours. A big rain front was moving in for later, so I was curious how well the fishing would be....either real good or real bad.

I spent the whole time in the spot right below the first falls. Flow was very sporty and was at a nice pace. Some things I have learned this year as an angler: I think 9' leaders will work better for you in most applications opposed to the 7.5' leaders.....just a thought. When I rigged up this time, I made sure to strip off the tippet and tied on 5x tippet for stripping wooley buggers.

Cast out into the current and let the current strip out the bugger....got it down stream about 15' and then slowly stripped back to me....so the wooley bugger was actually swimming up river. Caught (3) trout using this method. I was using this technique right in the seam of the river (where the fast pace hits the slack water). I really enjoy this technique to acquire trout. It seems like as we get later in the year, this is a great method (opposed to dead drift fishing nymphs).

Even if I was not to catch a trout one, the day was absolutely gorgeous and well worth the couple of hours spent...what a great day!

Fish ON!

MLT

Roaring River, Cassville, MO. October 14th & 15th: River up, Trout hitting on Wooley Buggers big time

I got a chance to get on the Roaring River for two short spells this week. I got a new pair of waders (we finally retired the old Hodgeman waders due to leaks that we could just not fix) so I wanted to give them a try out as well. They performed excellent and were so much lighter than the old Hodgman rubber/canvas one boot waders. I got a pair of Simms goretex w/ seperate felt soled boots....big difference!

The first visit I got out on the water around 4:00 p.m.--fishing closes at 6:30, so I only had a couple of hours to really fish. My favorite part of Roaring River is the fly fishing/catch and release waters. Started off throwing a Zebra Midge...I have had success throwing these along with a yarn strike indicator. The water is up about 5-7 " with quite a pace, so I figured maybe I should move to something else. Tied on a grey wooley bugger and started to get hits right off the bat. Caught a nice one right before the horn went off, but it snapped the tippet I had on....I had a 7X tippet tied. After some thought, I realized that the tipppet really needs to be adjusted to the water conditions. Light tippet is great if you have gin-clear waters that are low and especially if you are fishing midges, but for these conditions, and throwing heavier flies like wooley buggers, I realized I would need something like a 5 or 6x tippet. Weather was overcast, cold, with moments of drizzle....perfect!

The next day, I came back to the same spot. I only had a two hour break, so I knew I need to be more efficient. I changed the tippet out to a heavier one (5x) and started to throw grey cone bead wooley buggers with a couple of pieces of split shot as well to get it down in the water column.

Here is a technique that worked out really well for me. Cast straight out into the current, and then start stripping line. got it about 20' downstream, then started to slowly stripping it back...got it right in the seam where the main current and the slack water hit. These streams are like a conveyor belt of food for the trout, so that was the perfect spot. Caught 4 trout that day using this technique. Cool and totally overcast skies. I think this brought the trout out of structure and into the main channel.

fish ON!

MLT

Roaring River, Cassville, MO. April 15th, Tippet made all the difference!

Weather was really nice....got a chance to hit the river around 4:00 p.m. or so, so I only had a couple of hours to fish. Started off with the normal spot I like to hit, but with no success. I hiked across the overgrown shoal and hit a nice run w/ structure. I knew they were in that spot, I just could not figure how to get on them.

Here is what I decided to do....tie on some #7 tippet to the end of the leader. When I get these leaders out of the package, I just assume that the line is thin enough from the package. So I figured, why not, nothing else seems to work- let's see if this theory is correct. Within less than a minute, I had a trout on the other end.....I realized a valuable lesson- you need to have thin tipped on the end of the leader, even if it is new. Lesson #2: I do not really care for the 9' leaders...for now on I am going to get the 7.5' leaders.

Great day of fishing!

Fish ON!

MLT