Trips: One Down and Nine to Go!

The 2024 Winter FATC fly fishing class has completed all classes and is ready to hit the river! The first was Brain Baker, who not only had to fish on April Fool’s Day but his day on the water was threatened with storms. But Brian didn’t fall for the April Fools or the weather, as the trip was welcomed with great weather and perfect fishing conditions.

Joining Brian was his friend and FATC member, Sterling Short. Sterling was responsible for getting Brian started in the FATC (thanks Sterling – and thanks for driving!). Along with Brian and Sterling, Ken Welter, Jim Craig, and I (Kenny Klimes) headed to Montauk State Park for Brian’s graduation trip. As we departed the St Louis area the forecast of storms concerned us but did not deter us from going fishing. Fortunately, the storms didn’t hit the St Louis area until we were back home and safe in our homes Monday night.

As we arrived at Montauk, we picked up our trout tags and met at the Naturalist cabin to get suited up. Brian was well prepared and ready to hit the water. As Kenny “drilled” Brian on what he learned in class, Brian proved he was ready. I think Brian had some past fly-fishing experience too. As we reached the river, Kenny pointed out all the locations where we will find trout. They started with stripping flies, then swinging flies and finished before lunch with dead drifting techniques. Brian easily graduated before lunch with his first Montauk trout and a big smile. Brian gets kudos for helping Kenny when he (as pilots would say) crashed and burned as he did a face plant in eight inches of water. Pretty impressive when the “teacher” goes down in front of the student!!

At lunch we got to talk strategy with the rest of the gang. It was nice to get a visit from Brett “Gabby” Heath, who was camping for a week at Montauk with his family. As we planned for the afternoon Brain and Kenny decided to fish at the top of the park and work our way down to the end of the fly only area. Brain pulled in a few more trout using dead drift techniques. And even Kenny got to fish a little too! Jim Craig had an impressive afternoon with some twenty fish in the net, but he was using the “dreaded” cerise worm. Ok, ok, the water was cloudy so go big and gaudy – I get it! Ken Welter and Sterling Short both did well in the afternoon too. Some of the hot flies were the red midge, cerise worm, copper john, crackleback, Barr’s emerger and perdigons.

After a full day of fishing, we stopped around 4:15pm (concerned about the future storms coming) and voted to hit Mexican food in Salem for our fellowship dinner. A Huge THANK YOU to Brian who bought us all dinner. Genuinely nice of him and extremely appreciated. We beat the storms home to the Eureka area although some St Louis areas got hit before we were home. I haven’t heard the reports from the guys that had to drive home from the Eureka commuter lot. Hopefully, all had safe travels!

We have plenty of trips going on in April with a majority of them being graduation trips. Join us! The parks are not crowed yet but around mid-May they will start to be!