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Published August 27, 2006 02:15 am - I was 150 miles south of where I’d planned to be and, after catching seven trout in seven casts, replacing a lost fly and catching five more, I was beginning to believe the boastful messages my friend had left on my cell phone. Silas Gray: Trout-fishing tip panned out big By Silas Gray
Globe columnist I was 150 miles south of where I’d planned to be and, after catching seven trout in seven casts, replacing a lost fly and catching five more, I was beginning to believe the boastful messages my friend had left on my cell phone. I’d been fishing Bone Creek Reservoir the day before, followed by the strip pits of Pittsburg, and had planned on fishing the pits of West Mineral the next morning. My plan changed after I returned to civilization and listened to my voice mail. I had two messages from a friend who lives near Eureka Springs, Ark., on Beaver Lake. The first message excitedly proclaimed, “This is the best trout fishing I’ve seen since moving to the lake.” The second message, left a couple of hours after the first, was a crack about my apparent indifference to catching trout. Standing on the bank of a strip pit near Pittsburg, Kan., with my clothes soaked with sweat, the decision was easy. The thought of 50-degree trout water and “the best fishing I’ve seen” won out. I returned to the truck and headed south. Joplin was on the way so I stopped by the house for a shower and clean clothes. I made it to my friend’s place near Beaver Lake at a little after 11 p.m. He’d given up on me and turned off the porch light! The next day was Friday and that morning I arrived at the ramp below the dam well before the sun and apparently before other anglers since the parking lot was empty. I had just finished lacing my wading boots when another truck arrived. The two guys from the truck each grabbed a spinning rod and tackle box from the back and started down the ramp. It didn’t take long for me to follow. The long ramp disappeared into the mist giving it a mystical feeling which made me hesitate for just a moment before wading in. I began with a black hackled, white woolly bugger at one of the two deep pools near the ramp. The dam was silent and the water was barely moving as a 14-inch brown trout hit my third cast and started me off for the day. The storm clouds had followed me from the day before, and it was just beginning to sprinkle. In just a few minutes I had my second fish, a smaller brown. By then the sprinkle had turned into a downpour, which was filling the top of my waders. The kind that made me wish I’d taken the time to put on my rain coat. There was no lightning but the sky was a solid mass of dark gray and the rain looked set in for the day. Almost everyone along the bank packed up and left in a hurry, leaving me and one other fellow with the whole bank to ourselves. We spoke under the protection of a large tree for a few minutes before deciding to resume fishing since we were already soaked. Although he regularly uses a fly rod to catch bass, this was his first attempt at trout fishing. Despite appearances, the rain stopped within just a few minutes. I’d moved up the bank and taken over a recently vacated fishing hole. I began drifting a suspended number eighteen zebra midge. On the first seven drifts I caught seven fish. After stopping to replace a lost fly, I caught five more. The rainbows were lined up just to get a shot at my midge. The new trout fisherman stopped by to say he’d been catching quite a few trout using a small olive scud and now he was on the way out to breakfast. 
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