7-05-04 - Reunion at Paradise Springs
Waters Fished: Paradise Springs
Fish Caught: 6/10 personally
Outing Date: 7-05-04
Weather: Cloudy
Air Temp: upper 70's
Water Temp: didn't take it
Water Level: normal
Water Color: Crystal Clear
Fish Species: Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Brook Trout
Pattern Fished: Griffith's Gnat, Tucker Nymph
Pattern Color: as per the patterns
Fishing Quality: Good!
Talk about a fishin' weekend...and it's Monday....and
I'm not back at the office! If this isn't the excuse to fish, I
don't know what would be.
And to top off that great occasion, a few of my
buddies also have the day off...MS2, Mrs. MS2, their son Tommy,
and Chiro to be precise. I've been telling them all about Paradise
Springs. Not to mention that I've been on FAT's case for a year
now to go up there..it's like 30 minutes from our houses!
It all came together today...well...I ended up
late (as usual) so we met along the way. Everyone was excited...except
for me pretty much no one else had been there before! I was excited
too; for the most part I knew that if we showed up, as a group,
with this many people, anyone who was there would PROBABLY get frustrated
and leave. Not that I don't WELCOME THEM TO STAY, but I am aware
that very few anglers would. But Paradise Springs, from all viewpoints,
is an URBAN fishery...don't go there expecting solitude (that's
what IOWA is for)!
We got there, two guys left, one guy ran up to
get on the water before we did...cool by me! I broke out the 6'
6" 2wt. (honestly a bit too small for Paradise Springs) and
started catchin' fish. I'm not going to give you a play-by-play,
and in fact I'm going to leave you with this...we ALL caught fish,
several of them. I sighted all three species of trout today in the
spring, which is GOOD NEWS in my book as the brookies are running
pretty scarce these days (hopefully they'll stage a takeover soon!).
One bit of advice, the NOSEEUMS have show up at
Paradise....a bit of trouble in....? I am STILL, 8 days later, covered
in bites. Chiro had the foresight to bring repellent which worked
OK but not fantastic. However, it was ALL worth it!
So I left Psprings with a new record, 6 landed
(All rainbows). As usual no particular pattern outperformed any
other, but the Tucker did get 1/2 my fish.
A name change was recently proposed on one o the
forums from Paradise to Rainbow Springs. HMM...think about it while
you check out all the additional pics below.
MP

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