By Silas Gray

sports@joplinglobe.com

The first of March is huge at Roaring River State Park.

It’s opening day for regular fishing at the park. The action begins well before sunrise, long before the horn sounds which signals the start of the fishing day. Anglers vie for the rapidly disappearing space along the river bank as time grows nearer. While I stay away from this opening day, there’s another that I rarely miss – the opening of winter catch and release.

Winter catch and release begins on the second Friday in November and continues until the second Monday in February. Angers can fish Friday through Monday from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. All fish must be released. Although trout aren’t stocked during the winter, the hatchery did release 2000 trout just before the opening weekend.

It was a little before eight when I arrived at the park, and the banks were far from full. On my drive through I had noticed that most of the holes had an eager angler standing nearby, and most of those anglers were carrying fly rods. With fewer people, winter is a much easier time for casting with a fly rod.

I decided to start at a spot very near to where Dry Creek joins Roaring River. It was quite warm as I climbed from the truck, and I quickly tossed my jacket into the back. I was glad that I’d worn sandals.

By the time I’d strung up a fly rod and put on my vest, the horn had already sounded. I selected a River Run Peach Fur Bug — something I picked up in Branson not long ago — and cast into the whitewater at the head of the pool.

On my second cast, my leader jumped and then began to move quickly, headed toward the rolling water of the falls. As I applied pressure the fish turned and used the current to make a run down the pool and toward the head of the next pool. The 5X tippet that I was using was fairly heavy, and after four runs up and down the pool I netted a very nice 14-inch rainbow.

I landed one other trout from that pool before moving on. Unfortunately, the second one was several inches shorter than the first.

My initial luck cooled as I worked my way upstream, and I caught nothing through the next two pools. I began trying a variety of flies and lighter tippets, but nothing helped. I walked to the truck, retrieved my thermos, sat on a nearby picnic table and poured a cup of coffee. There were eventually three of us around the table, all with similar luck.

Once we’d commiserated for a while, I switched to a small dry fly and walked toward the big hole where the water from the spring enters the river. I saw a knot of trout several feet out hanging in the slack water that was immediately next to the main flow. After several missed strikes on the dry fly, the action cooled. I replaced the topwater fly with a subsurface rabbit strip streamer, and it wasn’t long before I hooked and landed two of those trout that I’d been missing.

That action was short-lived so I moved to the much more shallow water of pool three and once again tied on the peach fur bug with which I’d started. That pool was loaded with trout, and although they were much smaller, they were quite eager. I landed four but the largest was only ten inches. Since the fishing day ends at four and I’d spent most of the day in the upper end, I decided to move down and check out the lower end.

The water there is much wider, and I began casting a crackle back fly into the faster water, allowing it to swing into the calm water. The first trout struck just after the fly entered the quiet water, and I began to twitch it back. I set the hook but the fight was short, and the fish was quickly free and swam away.

I landed two trout, and the anglers on either side were also landing trout. I was intently watching the fly as it drifted from the fast to quiet water when the horn sounded. I jumped, nearly throwing my rod into the water. I quickly looked around hoping that the others hadn’t seen me. I was relieved to see both anglers were putting away their gear and neither was looking my way.

I had survived another hectic opening weekend at Roaring River State Park. I’d managed to catch fish and never once tangle lines with any of the other tens of anglers who lined the shore. This is going to be a great catch and release season at the trout parks.