I made it to the “Springs” to fish today with several other members of the St. Louis Fly Tying Yahoo Group — Jim, Jerry, Mike, Gavin, and myself. It was a beautiful day to fish. Jim, Mike and I met at the Eureka Denny’s for breakfast and to play musical cars. Ended up down at the park just in time for the whistle to blow while we were rigging up and putting on our waders. I quickly broke off 3 fish within the first 30 minutes of fishing (1 in the first set of riffles and 2 in the handicap hole) on a tan/ginger mohair leech on 7x tippet. It was slow going after that. I did see several people hooking up on fish — but most fisherman were complaining of a “tough” bite. I managed to bring one bluegill and one trout to hand on a b.h. v-rib midge before we broke for lunch.
Lunch, what can I say about lunch. IT WAS AWESOME. Those of you in this group that didn’t make the trip to fish with us, should have. We BBQ’d beer brats, hamburgers, and beans streamside. The meat along with the cookies and hot chocolate (complete with whip cream), was enough to turn the heads of all the other fishermen in the park. It was a great time. Jerry tought us the secret to good rod building — when showing someone a rod you built, keep it at a distance of 3 feet or more. We also discussed the “morals” of fishing with a globall, and other things. It was a good lunch and good conversation. It was fun to take a break from fishing and relax amongst friends. We broke from lunch about 1pm and headed back to the water for some more fish action.
Jim and I were planning on leaving about 2pm to head back to St. Louis. We each fished for about an hour — I managed to scratch one trout on a #16 renegade on my 3wt. I watched the drift, the take, and the hookup — i love catching fish on dry flies. It was pretty frustrating hour of fishing — there was a midge hatch coming off and the fish were pretty active feeding on top of the water. I however, had nothing in my fly box that looked anything like the small grey/black midge they were feeding on. I need to try and tie up some midges and emergers for winter dry fly action. All in all it was a great day on the water and the weather cooperated to top it off. The park was crowded with cars, and some of the holes had several fisherman in it (including one “ice fisherman” that didn’t pay respect to distances between fisherman and was very erotic with the way he was working the jig), but I was not crowded out of a hole with the exception of the “ice fisherman.” The water was still low and crystal clear — I can’t wait for the water to get high and muddy (i always seem to do better then). Will be heading to the Current or the Maremec this New Year’s day and will drop a line when we are back from that trip. — Matt Tucker