Vacation of a lifetime: Bennett Spring - the Trilogy: Part 2 – Bite #4, 5, 6

Bite #4 – organize the reels, line, tippets, lures, tools, landing nets, waders and vests, lures other than flies, and spinning reels.

This was a really big bite with a lot of little details, but whenever it started to overwhelm me, I'd take a look at what we were headed for and check out the

Bennett SpringTrout Cam!  

A new picture is taken every minute!  The link is real time so if you look at night - yep, it'll be dark.  

In that case, I'd take a look at my Dad's photos from Bennett Spring that got this whole adventure started.

Or look at what was waiting for us in Lebanon, MO just off of Route 66.

As I gathered the spinning reels, I realized that since I haven't used them in a long time, the line on the reels was at least 10 years old. So, I bought new line and spent a couple hours putting it on 6 spinning reels.  

Fortunately, I had the right equipment to do the job – line stripper and reel loader (lower right in photo below).  

A few reels and nets next to the reel loader

Now, things were starting to get a bit complicated.

I had to find a space to spread out all of this equipment to properly sort and pack.  Up till this time, I kept everything I bought for the trip in plastic bags in the basement near my other fishing gear and, unfortunately, it was becoming a bit of a disorganized state.  

My wife likes everything neat and in place, but it was time to get it all out in the open so I could see what I was dealing with. 

Family room here we come!

Several of the fly reels were Orvis and identical except for the line, so I labeled the bags.  

The Orvis line has the type and weight printed on it near the preformed loop. 

I love the preformed loops.  Saves me the time of creating my own custom loops which I've done quite frequently over the years.

My loop is on the right - actually, my hand tied loops have some advantages over the pre-formed loops - but they take forever to make.

Organizing the reels was the easy part.  The hard part was, well...I also had to… well.. Then I started to…well…

OK - let me just show you.   

My brother-in-law Larry told me that small flatfish were good at Bennett Spring so I had to get some - I think he used a silver one, but this was all I could find.

I've caught everything from bluegill to trout to bass to steelhead on Roostertails.

Several reports said these locally hand poured, scented worms were the best - sure thing for Bennett Spring trout!

These little Rapalas work on trout every where else I tried them - why not Missouri? - good to have just in case.

"Secret Bait"?  Had to have some - even though we never opened the jars - we'll bring them next time - just in case.

Bite #5 – packing the car.  

We have a 2015 Kia Sorento with lots of space, but due to the extent of my preparation (or over preparation) I still had the 10 pounds of stuff to fit into a 5 pound bag problem. 

5 pound bag

Several pounds of stuff - and this is just the fishing stuff.

All the fishing stuff fit in the hidden compartment! - except the rods.

And besides my (our) fishing equipment, Joyce decided that I needed more than one pair of jeans, shirts and underwear for the trip, so that meant lots more luggage! 

I ask you - did we really need all those extra clothes?  

Would the trout really care how many times I wore one pair of jeans?  

I don't think so!

However, Meghan, my little fashion diva, was coming in from NYC with a huge overstuffed suitcase, so I figured -

what the heck -

- extra U-trou and shirts and even a few pair of pants besides jeans and a couple extra shirts wouldn't hurt. 

 But the Tux stayed at home.

And, if we went out to a nice place for dinner, maybe I'd at least need jeans that didn't smell like fish.  

Cutting to the chase, everything we needed and a couple pounds more, fit into the Sorento and we were ready to roll!

Bite #6 – the drive.  

Bite #6 is a bit bigger than bites before, 

so I better back off before my blog host boots me, 

which would be totally bogus - but believe me - 

they would boot and not even boo hoo a bit.

The Drive will be here soon!

Bye, Bye!

Dave