01/16/2017, Club Fishing Event, Bennett Spring State Park
By Bob Randall on Tuesday, January 17th, 2017 in Fishing Trip, Flies, Social Events, No Comments
*Club Fishing Event, 1/16/2017, Bennett Spring State Park*
Six of us fished Bennett Spring on Monday. Harry Morgan, John Bush, Dick Solomon, Mike Kidd, Larry Olson, and myself braved the cloudy January skies to stalk the elusive hatchery raised rainbow. There was a near drowning as one of us got a little water in our waders. It wasn’t me this time. Beyond that, neither fish nor angler were harmed during the event.
We were spread out from below the Whistle Bridge to just below the spring. Morning reports gathered at lunch time were sparce, ranging from the monsters that managed to release themselves without help from the angler to 8 trout to the net. I was having success on a brown and white soft hackle with an egg pattern below it. Odd combination but I was catching fish. I was no more than 75 yards below the stone bridge below the dam. Mike Kidd was successful with a bead head red and white egg sucking leach fly (something like that). It looked a little like a wooly bugger and he was stripping it.
What I could gather for the afternoon was also variable. Dick Solomon guessed that he had landed at least 40 fish. I was fishing near him and can attest that he was pulling them in right and left, sometimes two at a time. He was using a pellet fly with another as a dropper. I was also using a pellet fly and standing within 30 feet of him but with much less success. He pointed out to me that I needed some small weight to get it off the surface. I did indeed catch more fish after that.
Dick and I were fishing where the outflow stream meets the spring creek when they began to feed the fish in the runways. All of trout hell seemed to erupt from below the surface just as I tangled my leader into a birdsnest. It was caused by a casting error that must have something in common with a hunter’s buck fever. I had to cut the flies off and re-rig my leader, tippet,and fly.
My score card was 12 to the net, 3 rodeo rides (8 seconds on the fly) with MTFA mid-stream releases, and lots of strikes that were less than 8 seconds or were never set in the first place. Larry Olson who would rather catch one trout on a dry fly than 5 fish on a wet fly (there is something good to be said about that fly philosophy), fulfilled his quest. Although, he did catch other fish from below the surface, the only one he cared about came off the surface. It was a good day. If you weren’t there, you missed an adventure.
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