We were all in the water when the horn sounded and were on pins and needles to make our first casts. I say pins and needles because I was freezing and my lower extremities were in the process of going numb following that pins and needles feeling. It didn't matter though! The trout were in the water, the sun was rising, and the fish seemed active. I think I jumped a little when the horn actually sounded, but my line ended up in the water pretty fast. While working through my first drift, it was hard to miss the fact that Austin had hooked up with a fish before the horn finished sounded. While I am EXTREMELY proud of Austin for so many reasons, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I am incredibly jealous of his abilities, knowledge, and maybe even his luck.
The morning was rolling along and everyone was catching fish. The sun was out, the fish were biting, and this is all we had to do! Life was good and only got better when Busch arrived at the park. He had gotten up around 3:30 and made it to the park just about the time the horn sounded. Busch hadn't fly fished in a while, but he has done so much in the past that all he had to do was shake off some rust and he was into fish pretty fast. It didn't take long for us to start making fun of the small fish, oohing and awing over the larger than average fish, and inquiring about the flies one another was using. This was one of those mornings that we will refer back to in the future when things are slow. I can hear it now: "Remember that one morning you, me, Pat, and Austin...".
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| Austin caught his good looking male. We named it Troutasaurs after we looked at the picture. |
Mother Nature also decided to smile on us and send us a few bonuses on top of the fishing. Austin was the first to spot the otter that showed up near the hatchery intake grate. He dove in the pool behind the metal barrier and came out with a stocker rainbow a few seconds later. He then drug it up the nearby hillside and proceeded to eat his breakfast. Consequently, he did the same thing on Sunday morning as well. I had never seen that in the wild before and it was pretty impressive. We also saw some kingfishers and a flock about 20 turkey vultures on their morning commute.
There was something else going on this particular morning that I had never experienced either and that was the Holland Trout Derby. I had heard of this event in the past but had never participated in it and found it to be a little difficult in terms of finding information about it. Essentially, one hundred tagged fish were stocked in the stream and if you were lucky enough to land one then you could remove the tag, release or keep the fish, and turn the tag in at the park store. From there, you had to attend a drawing at noon on Sunday where prizes were given out. We joked a little about one of us catching a tagged fish but I'll be honest, I didn't expect anyone in our group to ACTUALLY get a tag. I think I even told Pat, "Come on man! Nobody's going to get a tag! That kind of stuff doesn't happen to people I know." So yeah, I landed a tagged fish at about 8:30 Saturday morning.
I had landed about 10-15 fish by that point, but this particular fish had something protruding from its right gill cover. I had been told that tags were blue and that they would be easy to remove. What I saw was a shiny piece of metal. After netting the fish (which I rarely do, but this sucker wasn't getting away) I gave a few gentle wiggles and prying and the tag came lose. I waited to announce to my buddies that I had actually got a tag until the fish was released and the tag was securely in my possession. To say I was excited was an understatement. I doubt the guy that stamped out this little piece of stainless steel or the guy that attached it to a twelve inch rainbow ever considered the amount of joy that it would bring some stranger on a trout stream. It felt like a little trophy because of the unlikelihood of being able to acquire a tag and the strong possibility that I could have dropped it in the gravel where it never would have been seen again. I joked with the guys that if I wasn't guaranteed my tag back, then I wasn't going to enter it in the drawing because to me, the tag WAS the prize. I did end up turning in the tag at the end of the day and called home to break the bad news to my wife that I would be staying a little later than I expected in order to attend the raffle...and get my tag back.
We fished until noon. Sometimes we fished together, sometimes we split up, and sometimes we fished in pairs. As usual, the fishing slowed down over the course of morning with the best fishing coming within the first thirty minutes of the horn, but we were still picking up fish here and there. We even saw a 1-2 pound largemouth in zone 1 (above the spillway). I always wonder how species other than trout find their way into this particular stretch and it adds a little bit of variety to the day.
The park was pretty crowded on this particular weekend and good fishing spots were at a premium. You had to fish the spots that were open and in some cases, fish stretches of water that no one else was fishing with the hope that the spot might actually hold fish. Sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't but you had to play the cards you were dealt. By about noon, we were starting to get hungry and wanted to head over to the Redington event on the Niangua.
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