Yesterday, Will and I spent part of the day fishing at the Roaring River Trout Park near Cassville, MO. This park incorporates several miles of the Roaring River immediately downstream of where it originates as a 25 million gallon/day spring ...

Most streams in Missouri are too warm to support trout populations. However, at some locations where large springs issue from the karstic dolomite and limestone in southern Missouri, the water is cold enough for trout. The state has created trout parks at a number of these locations where spring flow is large enough and consistent enough. The parks are designed to accommodate a wide range of fishing interests including providing people an opportunity to catch and take home trout for dinner. Accordingly, all of these parks are intensively stocked to keep up with the take rate and to provide a very good probability of catching your next meal. Apparently they base their stocking rate on the number of daily permits sold and some rule-of-thumb estimate of how many fish are hauled home per permit issued. This way they make sure that plenty of trout are always available for the taking. While we were there yesterday, we observed many stringers of nice rainbows being carried around by successful fishermen (and women).

I mention these facts as a means of characterizing our respective success rates yesterday. Will had a very successful day hooking and landing on the order of 8 or so fish (see photo), and hooking and losing maybe 4 or 5 others. He also had many strikes where he was unable to set the hook. The lost fish and the missed strikes were in large part because he was using #22 midges for most of the day (very small hooks). I, on the other hand, caught 0 (yes, that is a zero, not an "O") fish, hooked and lost 0 fish, and had 0 confirmed strikes. If you do the math, between the two of us, we probably validated the park's rule-of-thumb stocking rate - he no doubt caught more than the normal amount of fish and I, no doubt (duh) caught less than the normal amount of fish. If the park based it's stocking rate on Will's results, the river would soon be swarming with fish like the breeding ponds at the onsite hatchery. If the park based it's stocking on my success rate, the river would soon be devoid of any trout. Since Will released all of his fish, there was an overall net gain in the trout population for the next day's fishermen. Of course, I also contributed to the gain in my own unique way. Bottom line is that Will gained more confirmation of the value of the time and effort he puts into tying flies and learning techniques while I am left to ponder the gross injustices of the fishing gods.