Catching 100 trout is no sleepy-time dream. It's the real deal when anglers gather at Roaring River State Park for the start of winter catch and release season.
Legions of fishermen at the Missouri state park, located eight miles southeast of Cassville, Mo., counted catches in the triple digits on opening day. No bad fishing luck here with the opener falling on Friday the 13th of November.
There's a catch to this great fishing. Anglers may fish with flies only and all fish caught must be released. Hair jigs commonly used to catch crappie are considered flies according to park regulations.
Fishing is allowed Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Catch and release season opens the second Friday in November and closes the second Monday of February. Anglers 16 and older must carry a Missouri fishing license and annual trout permit.
Opening day of catch and release draws a modest number of anglers, far fewer than the catch and keep season. The count is higher when the weather is nice, as it was this year. Yet it's never crowded. There's plenty of room to spread out up and down Roaring River, a spring-fed beauty, which flows through the heart of the park.
Roaring River Spring gives birth to the stream, pouring out 20 million gallons of ice-cold spring water each day. Visitors can visit the spring along a bluff at the north end of the park near the trout hatchery.
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Now about those 100 fish. Ken Lawrence of Warsaw, Mo. stood stream-side, casting small jigs he ties himself. Each weighs around 1/100th or 1/64th of an ounce. Rainbow trout pounced his hand-crafted lures on almost every cast.
By 9 a.m. he quit counting fish. By 11 a.m. his conservative estimate was he'd caught 100 trout. An angler next to Lawrence confirmed the number, adding that Lawrence's guess was probably low.
"I caught one awhile ago that weighed 3 pounds," said Lawrence, who's a retired oboe player with the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. He allowed a fellow fisherman a peek into his fly box.
Opening the lid, the delicate hairs of his tiny hand-tied jigs jostled in the light breeze. White, green and black jigs filled the metal wallet-sized box. He casts the jigs with an ultra-light spin cast rod and reel, using 4-pound-test green monofilament line.
Lawrence wasn't the only one enjoying a 100-fish day. Upstream a ways, Rick Brown's fly rod was doubled over most of the morning with a trout on the line. He travels to Roaring River from Wichita, Kan. every November opening day with his buddies from the Flatland Fly Fishers club.
"We haven't missed in nine years," Brown said. "I come because I'm a die-hard addicted fly fisher and I really believe in catch and release fishing."
He starts most mornings casting a small brown woolly bugger, size 8 or 10.
"Later in the day, I'll use a black and red zebra midge," he said. Size 14 or 16 works well.
San Juan worms, chartreuse or pink in color, also get trout to bite, Brown said.
Fishing can get tougher as catch and release season moves through the winter.
"These fish get educated. They get hammered pretty hard," Brown testified.
To ensure good fishing, about 500 new fish are stocked into the stream every two to three weeks, said Paul Spurgeon, manager of the trout hatchery at Roaring River State Park. Missouri Department of Conservation operates the hatchery.
An initial stocking of 1,500 rainbow trout goes into the stream at the start of the winter season. Some remodeling is taking place at the Roaring River hatchery. Fish stocked in November were trucked from a hatchery at Montauk State Park in southeast Missouri.
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Trout are being raised at the Roaring River hatchery now, Spurgeon said.
Anglers who like to keep and eat trout converge on the park during catch and keep season, which runs every day from March 1 through Oct. 31. Cabins and campsites are available during catch and keep season. The daily limit is four rainbow trout of any size.
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Hike Roaring River
A fine outing at Roaring River State Park is fishing in the morning, then hiking in the afternoon. Hiking trails meander through the park, located eight miles southeast of Cassville, Mo. They include Devil’s Kitchen Trail, 1.5 miles, moderate to difficult; River Trail, out and back hike of 1.4 miles, easy; Fire Tower Trail, 5 miles, moderate.
Source: Staff report