SpringRise at Westover (Steelville, Missouri) — October 13, 2001

I traveled down to Springrise today, in the rain, with two other friends to fish. We had a most excellent day! We all caught big fish. And we all caught fish on all different types of lures. The biggest of the day was appoximately a 6.5lb rainbow — although I, nor the other guy that was with us, witnessed this catch ;>). My biggest was another fish that went close to 4lbs (maybe a little bigger) — it was a really dark male rainbow that I caught on a size 20 midge pattern. I caught several browns on several different nymph patterns and scuds. I also caught a couple of larger rainbows (3+lbs) on a variety of flies. I didn’t catch probably but, at most, 20 fish — but they were all bigger than normal. One of the guys that was with me caught several nice fish — I made one helluva a net man for him — his biggest being at least a 5lb female rainbow that flipped out of the net once while in the air (the C&R net that I have was too small) and we thought we lost her, but she was still hooked. He hooked several in the 3 and 4lb range. I had several hooked that were close to 5lbs — but small tippet and lack of a sufficient “net man” made landing them difficult (if anyone goes down there and catches a large 6lb+ brown with a size 16 pink scud in its mouth, I would like my fly back). Most of our fish were caught before noon, and before the downpours. We got caught all the way up the “Dry Creek” when the storm moved in, and were left with one helluva walk. All in all, it was a great trip. I took alot of pictures and will be taking them to get developed and will share them with you all soon.