Rain and Rain

High, muddy, falling lake levels were a challenge for my three day fishing trip this past week. My friend/fishing companion/client was Wes Powell. Wes has been fishing at AP for many years. This year Wes was forced to make the trip to Missouri by himself, so I selflessly offered to fish with him instead of guiding.

Wes is an outstanding fly fisherman, who was up to task of finding a way to get fish to bite in the chocolate brown water he found on his arrival. Tuesday we landed 34 bass up to 2 pounds, Wednesday we caught 18 bass up to 4 lbs and spent 3 hours on the crystal clear water of Deer Lake and caught conservatively 100 small bass.

Wednesday night brought tornadic weather and another downpour. Three-Mile Lake was again muddy and high. Never the less, we caught 35 bass up to 3 lbs. I lost a 5 pound fish near the boat, and Wes lost an 8 pound fish on his flyrod. We were both continually commenting that we could not have expected such fishing in the adverse conditions. It will take at least a week of stable weather to return the lake to normal conditions. The spawn is in the last stage and will probably wrap up around Memorial Day.

Don Kentner