The BEST Bennett Trip Ever (Part 1)

Bennett is an affordable and glorified trout farm.  I know that, you know that, and let's just embrace it for what it is shall we?  That doesn't make it a bad thing by any means though!  It's fun!  It was designed to be fun, it IS fun, and it probably always will be fun.

I live over 100 miles away from the closest trout stream.  What this means is that I don't have the ability to monitor flow rates, log seasonal hatches in a journal, and understand the cycles of the river.  I wish I did, but I don't.  Here's what I have time for: I can leave the house on a Friday night or early Saturday morning.  I can fish all day and if I am lucky, I might be able to fish until 10 AM on Sunday before I head home.  That means I fish when I can, and when I can fish, I want to CATCH fish.  So for this very reason, places like Bennett and Roaring River (closest trout parks to my house) are awesome and I love them.

I have had a love affair with trout parks for about 15 years now and I have had some memorable trips to them.  By that, I mean that there have been trips that produced few fish but large fish and other trips that have produced a large number of fish but they could mostly be classified as "pellet heads".  However, last I was able to get down to Bennett last weekend and it was a particularly unique experience and maybe the most memorable that I have ever had.

I had this trip planned for a while after I heard that Redington was going to hold a get together on the Niangua on Saturday, October 8.  I was wanting to try out some gear, meet some nice folks, and maybe procure a donation for the middle school fly fishing club that I sponsor.  I also wanted to invite some friends to come along and spend some time on the water.  I was able to wrangle my buddies Pat, Busch, and Austin into joining me.  If you frequent this site you know that Busch is my best friend, Pat is like a second dad/brother, and Austin is a former student of mine as well as fly fishing prodigy.  I like to think of it as a sort of "super team" of fly fishermen and I'm pretty sure that when we departed for the spring, the trout gave a collective shiver in response.  Alright, maybe not, but isn't that a cool visualization.  Fish actually fearing your arrival?  That's funny.

Anywho, we arrived in the valley after dark and were able to check in to Sand Spring Resort before their office closed.  The rest of the evening was spent rigging up rods, talking about fly patterns, and trying to find something decent on the television.  I don't know what I fell asleep watching, but I know I fell asleep first.  I also woke up first.

When I realized that it was 3:45 in the morning, I had already been awake for fifteen minutes and there was no chance that I would be returning to my night of slumber.  I was like a kid on Christmas day and there was just too much excitement to allow sleep to drape over me again.  I was awake, wide awake, and there was a stream about 100 yards away.  What else was there to do than a little fishing in the dark?

I hit the water at about 4:00 AM and threw a few different dark colored wooly buggers until about 5:00.  I didn't get any bites but thoroughly enjoyed fishing in the dark and fishing by feel rather than site.  A mantra that I subscribe to, especially on trout streams, is to fish by faith and not by sight.  Well buddy, when you are fishing in the dark, faith is all you have.  It reminds me of the bible verse that states "And although I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear not for the Lord art with me."  I'm not saying fishing is like death though because it is more important than that.  I kid...kind of.

After realizing that I was fishing an unfamiliar stretch of water both in the dark and in the cold, I decided that I was participating in an act of futility and I decided to go warm myself near a campfire that I had seen burning the night before.  Luckily, there were some embers and leftover wood available and it didn't take long to get a flame going and to warm my spirits for the rest of the day.  It's fascinating to me about how a flame in the dark and especially in the cold can return you to a primal state of mind and make you appreciate simple things like light and warmth.  This is the kind of soul restoration that I needed from the world of work, stress, and deadlines that I left behind.  I felt myself returning to a state of calmness and sense of conscientiousness that I haven't felt in, well let's just call it many moons.

When I got back to the room, it was about time for my roomies to wake up to their cell phone alarms.  Before long we were all going about some sort of silent routine like we were going to work like any other day regardless of the fact that the job, surroundings, and coworkers had changed.  We all had ideas of what we needed and wanted to do with our days and we moved around the room with direction and purpose.  While that sounds profound, it is important to note that Pat used the bathroom three times.  He said that is normal for him but I would argue that it is not normal for anyone else in the known world.  We all ended up in the truck about 45 minutes before the horn sounded and it at least appeared that we would reach the water with time to kill.