Back Yard Wildlife - October 2016

Enjoyed the deer and turkey this month.

Mildale Open House 4-30-2016

Dan and I enjoyed the Mildale Open House, along with my friend Bill DeHoff. The weather had just been pretty stormy, but was actually pretty nice during the morning hours.  We fished several of the ponds, with the one I call the East pond being the most productive. We caught a ton of Largemouth Bass and many blue gill and sunfish. Over at the west pond where we started, we caught a fair number of fish as well.  Bill and Dan caught a number of crappie there as well.  I was fishing mostly all topwater, so I didn't get any Crappie.  All in all, one of the most productive fishing days I've ever had out there, especially on topwater.  They had a small display about the new and upcoming Big Bull Creek, but really it was only a map of the area (which is about 2,000 acres).  And it wasn't crowded; only saw about 6 or 7 other fishermen the whole time.

Terry

More pictures at this link:

All Pictures

White & Spring River 4-03-2016

The 5 of us, Dan, Ron, Rocky, Jim, and myself had a good fly fishing trip to the White & Spring Rivers.  The 3 dam tail waters (Bull Shoals, Norfork, Table Rock) were running high so no wade fishng. So our car with Ron & I decided to fish Crane Creek on the way down (first time for either of us).  I miraculously caught as my first fish there a 22 inch rainbow on a size 20 zebra midge size 6x tippet & also caught 3 others small ones, I believe they were McCloud Rainbows (?). Ron also caught a couple, all in park area downtown. Then we all stayed the first night at the White River Trout Lodge on the upper portion of the White River.  So we used guides that next day around Rim Shoals and up by the dam (running about 3 generators).  Dan & Rocky and I were in one boat and I believe all caught over 20 or so rainbows. Jim & Ron had another guide and caught a few as well. Since there still wasn't any good wade fishing the next day, we drove over to the Spring River the next day (the flow was maybe 1400 cfs down at Hardy).  Fishing there was definitely slower than past years, but we caught a rainbow or 2 or 3 that morning.  Then we split up and went down stream and the Bayou access, and did better there.  While at the Spring River, we stayed down at the Hardy Spring River Lodge, which is the first time we stayed there; it was pretty nice. The next morning our car fished the Spring River up at Dam 3 and caught about a dozen rainbows or so, while the other group headed up to Montauk where they did pretty well.  Rain came in later that day as we started driving home. We got lucky on this trip and both the red buds and dogwoods were blooming beautifully!

Terry

For all the pictures, go to:

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North Fork Float Trip & Rockbridge 2-10-16

Dan and I had an enjoyable trip down to the North Fork River and also nearby Rockbridge in southern Missouri.  The river trip was with a guide, Shelby, who we both really liked. We caught a number of relatively small to medium fish, but it was nice that each of us caught a very nice sized fish as well, all were rainbow trout except one small brown. Best flies were the wolly bugger, rubber legged prince nymph, and I experimented with a chartroose glo ball for a while and caught 4 or 5 on that.  We went from Rainbow Springs to Blair bridge, which has some really nice water, and beautiful scenery, about 6 miles.   I was really impressed with how many cabins that Myron has finished there at River of Life. Shelby had a ClackaCraft boat with anchor spots on front and back to stand and cast; very nice. Even the lunch was very nice. A very enjoyable day trip all around. We decided to take a few big fish home from Rockbridge trout park. The water was running just a little high, and also impacted by a recent flood which put a lot of small rainbows in the park. And some areas had a muddy coating which made some areas EXTREMELY slippery to walk.  Each of us caught 10 – 12 nice sized ones, all in the 1 – 3 pound range, averaging a little over 2 pounds.  Their restaurant food was also very good as usual. The spring creek that runs through their park runs into the Bryant Creek, which eventually runs into the North Fork above the lake. While fishing the first day, one of my boot soles came half off, so I’m very glad I brought a backup pair with me. Weather was a little cold, but warmed up decently during the day with some sun (teens & 20's in the morning, then mostly 40’s). The best flies I think overall were the woolly buggers and then especially the rubber legged princes that Dan brought. I even caught a couple of fish on a small purple fly that Shelby’s son made, and caught several in the river on a chartreuse glo ball.

For more pictures, click here.

Lake Fishing 10-07-15

I enjoyed an hour of bank fly fishing out at a local private lake yesterday. Caught about 17 fish, mostly green sunfish and blue gill and one Largemouth Bass. Weather was great, lake had some algae making it more difficult. My foot didn't bother me too much.

Big Piney & Montauk Fishing Trip - 9/28/2015

Dan, Jim & I enjoyed a trip this week down to Montauk State trout Park south of Rolla, and also a day float / fishing trip on the Big Piney River. Dan & Jim also enjoyed an extra day of fishing on the Spring River in Arkansas. It was absolutely perfect weather the whole time. Fishing was a little slow but we caught multiple fish every day. Montauk (which is where we stayed) had water level that was down a little and most of the time not crowded, and we caught a mix of stocker size and a number of keepers (I kept a couple to bring home). It's interesting that there's absolutely no phone service down there except for some AT&T service; everyone else is up the creek. Food down there was a little better than in the past. Then going over to the Big Piney River was a really fun adventure. We rented a canoe for Jim and I and Dan used his kickboat. We caught a wide variety of fish, including a couple of largemouth bass (around 13 - 14 inch), some goggle eye (up to 9 inches), longear sunfish, suckers, and of course some smallmouth bass (our main target, up to about 15 inches). I only caught 2 of those but one was a nice one a little over 15 inches. Several others were caught  that were close to that size. We floated from 6X to Ross Bridge, about 7 miles. I managed to lose my fly rod over the side of the canoe in some rapids, but was lucky and retrieved it with no damage down stream a little bit. We were tired by the time it was over. And even my Plantar Fasciitis on my foot got better the more I fished and didn't hurt much (honest!).

Here are a couple of pictures below, and the rest are on this web site:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=B39C3ED8614A9863!944&authkey=!AA9iAzxY2Drq-lA&ithint=folder%2c

Terry

Bennett Spring Trout Season Opener 3-01-2015

Ron and I had an enjoyable Trout Season opener down at Bennett Spring State Park
on Sunday. I'm guessing it's been about 17 years or so that I've been doing this,
always on March 1st. It was a tad cool this year, but certainly not the worst
I've seen. This year was a much smaller crowd, I'm assuming based on a
combination cold weather and bad roads around the area (I heard about 1,178 tags sold, compared to expected 3,000) . Much of the roads were
snow covered, and I-44 was even shut down for a while. We saw several vehicles
off the road, and a pickup completely turned over close to the park. The governor
was supposed to come but didn't make it. The person doing the honorary horn
blowing at the start was someone that Ron used to work with at Enterprise. We
stayed at the usual Sand Spring resort, right outside the park. Always a good
place to stay, even though we had a temporary "1st day of the season" water leak
in the bathroom. Just like my real estate experience tells me, a vacant
house/cabin tends to have some problems over time. We don't fish at the opening
whistle on the 1st, as it's too crowed, but go out later in the day after it
thins out some. Fishing seemed a little slower than some years, but we caught
fish, and both brought a couple home. The high temperature was about 34 on Sunday
and it started out 10 on Monday. Ron fished at the opening whistle on that second
day, and did good, although the eyelets on the rod started freezing over. The
park was really beautiful with all the snow, including an eagle that we saw. Of
course it's always fun to run into the Liberty fly fishing gang for breakfast and
a few lies (I mean stories).  Roads on the way home were just fine and dried out.
And the snow was almost totally melted when we got back home.

All the pictures are here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=B39C3ED8614A9863!352&authkey=!AMipN87z3-eR6y4&ithint=folder%2cJPG

Video of siren (low quality):
http://youtu.be/4BX3QMR13nE