Trout Talk August 2014

TALKTTRROOUUT

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90 years and counting90 years and countingpage 3page 3

Days gone byDays gone bypage 5page 5

From waterfowl to fi shFrom waterfowl to fi shpage 8page 8

LunkersLunkers page 11page 11

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THE LEBANON DAILY RECORD TROUT TALK AUGUST 2014 PAGE 3

ennett Spring State Park is one of Missouri’s fi rst and most popular state parks, attracting a growing num-ber of tourists every year.

The third largest natural spring in the state of Mis-

souri pumps one million gallons of water each and every day. Anglers from around the nation wade in the spring’s waters in search of lunker-sized trout, and those looking for adventures in camping and canoeing come in droves each year, but there was once a time when Bennett Spring State Park was simply known as Brice, Mo.

During the 1920s, when America was enjoying prosperity following World War I, Bennett Spring (then known as Brice) was one of many areas considered by state planners to be preserved as a state park.

A Dec. 12, 1924, article in the Laclede County Republican stated that Lebanon Chamber of Commerce President O.A. Mayfi eld requested that the state consider Bennett Spring as a possible park site. It said the fi rst parcel of land, 8 1/2 acres that be-longed to Josie Bennett Smith, would become a part of Bennett Spring State Park. The land was purchased from Mrs. Smith on Dec. 27, 1924.

Several weeks later, another contract was signed between Wil-liam Sherman Bennett, Mrs. Smith’s brother, and the state for the sale of 565.33 acres. Of that land, 427 acres can be traced as belonging to James Brice, who settled there in 1837. The land where today’s park store, offi ce, dining lodge and hatchery buildings stand once belonged to the Bennett family.

James Brice fi rst came here while traveling in Missouri from Illinois in search of productive land and a healthful climate. He decided to stay

at the beautiful spring area, which reportedly teemed with wildlife. Elk, deer, wild turkeys, buffalo and even panthers were said to drink from the enormous spring.

Brice homesteaded 160 acres, which included the spring, and eventually homesteaded additional acreage that included all of the land and the spring branch area.

He built the fi rst mill in the vicin-ity, where early farmers brought their corn for grinding. The mill eventually was washed away during a violent rainstorm and fl ood. Brice, the fi rst permanent settler in the Bennett Spring area, died in 1855 and is bur-ied in the Bennett Cemetery.

The Bennett family later settled at the spring area on land known as the Elmer Conn farm, site of the present Sand Spring Resort. The enterpris-ing Peter Bennett built a mill at the spring outlet and Niangua River, which also was washed away in a rainstorm and fl ood. Bennett built a second mill, known as Bennett’s Mill, during the Civil War years. It became a center for tradesmen and farmers. The mill was too small to accommo-date the increase in business, so Ben-nett built a third mill and included a carding machine that prepared wool for the spinning wheel. He also built a sawmill in one section of the mill.

As business continued to grow, Bennett decided to construct a three-story building, and he purchased equipment for it in St. Louis. Since the railroad track went only to Rolla, Bennett and his employees had to meet the train there and haul the equipment to Brice in ox-driven wag-ons — a slow process over the rocky fords of that time.

Peter Bennett married Anna Brice, the daughter of homesteader James

90 YEARS AND COUNTING

From Brice to Bennett

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See ‘From Brice to Bennett’/ page 4

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PAGE 4 THE LEBANON DAILY RECORD TROUT TALK AUGUST 2014

From Page 3Brice. After Brice’s death, Peter

and Anna inherited the property.When Peter Bennett died in 1882,

his son, William Sherman Bennett, continued to run the mill. Bennett’s

daughter, Josie Bennett Smith, oper-ated a hotel at Brice for many years.

The Bennett Mill was destroyed by fi re in 1895. Dr. John B. and Free-man Atchley built the last mill at Brice. Others who operated the mill

in later years were J.E. Kelly, Mr. Runge and B.J. Usery. The mill stood as a landmark at Bennett Spring for sightseers and tradesmen alike. The Civilian Conservation Corps, which worked in the area during the 1930s, improved the mill. However, it later was destroyed by fi re. The CCC also constructed a log dam, foot trails, a new bridge and many other buildings at the park.

The spring valley already had become a popular camping site in the late 1800s as area farmers waited their turns at the mill. According to a Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) brochure, campers would fi sh, hunt or visit with local townspeople to pass the time.

By the turn of the century, rec-reation was gaining in importance at Brice. According to the DNR

brochure, in 1900 the Missouri fi sh commissioner introduced 40,000 mountain trout into the spring, and a privately owned fi sh hatchery was built in 1923, the year before the state bought the spring and some of the surrounding area for a state park.

The Brice Post Offi ce was origi-nally built as a log building on the riverbank and named after James Brice. In later years, it was located in a general store operated by William Sherman Bennett and his wife, Louie. The name of the post offi ce was changed to Bennett Spring in 1939 and fi nally was discontinued in 1965. Arlie Bramwell was the last postmas-ter at Bennett Spring.

It was reported that in the early 1900s that William Sherman Bennett

From Brice to Bennett

See ‘Park history’/ page 6

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you started fishing way back when I did, you prob-ably started with very crude fishing gear. Dad had an inexpensive bamboo fl y rod.

Mom had a telescoping, metal 9-foot rod, and I had a willow branch with some braided line and one of those red and white bobbers.

When I was about 10 year old, I gradu-ated to one of those telescoping rods like mom had.

We didn’t do too much casting because we fi shed in the small creeks and streams around southern Missouri. We simply

tied on a 2-foot leader to our line, added and extra long shank No. 2 hook, a squeeze-on sinker and drifted a minnow, which we caught in a glass minnow trap down under a root wad, fallen tree or deep cut bank for pump-kin seeds, goggl-eyes or bass. It was very similar to cane pole fi shing, but it looked more so-phisticated. Today, cane pole fishing

has reached a new level with modern day composite materials.

I was tending my lawn one day when my neighbor Larry came over with a black tube about two feet long and said, “I have something to show you.” As he opened the tube and removed a black bag, my interest grew. He pulled out a cork, rod, handle and a black tube and attached the two parts. He then began to pull on the tip and the more he pulled, the longer this mystery item grew. When he was fi nished, he handed me a 12-foot rod with a metal eyelet on the tip, but it didn’t have any guides or a reed seat. Larry tied on a length of fl y line with a tapered leader and showed me how to make a fl ip cast. He said the fi rst day he

used it, he sight fi shed a scud in the spring hold and caught 14 trout.

Larry’s rod was a Tenkara rod from Japan. An Internet search revealed similar rods from $15 to well over $200. If you are into Duck Dynasty, there is also a Duck Com-mander model.

While these rods are designed for crappie and bream fi shing, they can be great for backpackers on tiny streams.

I didn’t know such rods ex-isted, but as they say, “It just goes to show you that you are never too old to learn something new.”

****Have you ever taken out a package

of trout fi llets and prepared them only to fi nd that they didn’t taste too fresh? Proper handling of your catch can result in a better tasting dinner.

First of all, don’t drag you fi sh around all day. If you have fi sh on your stringer and they don’t look too lively, clean them and get them on ice. I never go to the stream without a cooler, plastic bags and ice. Freeze soda bottles full of water for cheap, reusable ice.

I prefer to fi llet my fi sh with the heads and skin on. To gut the fi sh, I hold them upside down in the palm of my left hand and insert my knife under the fi ll plates and cut the gills loose, front to back. Then I cut the belly from the vent to the gills. I prepare all of my fi sh in this manner and then put my knife away. I then run my thumb nail along the tops of the rib cage three times, loosening the blood line, A few tugs on the innards and the gills and a few swishes in the stream and I am ready for the next fi sh.

When I get back to the trailer, I put the bag of fi sh in the fridge for a few hours. They fi llet much easier when they are thoroughly chilled.

As you fi nish each fi llet, rinse it in cold water and put it in a bowl of ice and water until you are ready to bag them. Mark each freeze bag with the number

Days gone by, new lessons learnedFrom a willow branch to a fl y rod

A young Richard Rehm and his father.

If

See ‘Rehm’/ page 6

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of fillets, your name and the date. Put fillets in bags, add a little cold water and squeeze out the air. Seal bags and freeze. Use your oldest fish first, and if you have fish frozen longer than two months, thaw them and soak in milk in the fridge for an hour before cooling.

****The last time I was down at the

stream, I was sitting on my porch watching the hummingbirds fight over three feeders. There were sev-en feeders, but that doesn’t stop the bickering. The sun was going down, the weather was cool and I decided to take a leisurely drive through the park and see what was going on.

As I drove by the spring, the shadows were long and the wind was calm. As I looked at the cab-

ins, I saw a man starting a fire in a barbecue grill as his kids sat in lawn chairs and watched.

A little farther down, and elderly gentleman was sitting on one of the memorial benches working on his fly rod. Driving on, I stopped to watch a lady and three young girls taking pictures of fishermen on the stream. They then gathered around to look at the photos she took with her digital camera. They were all smiling. As I crossed over our beau-tiful stone bridge, there were sev-eral people fishing from the handi-capped ramp.

In Zone 2, the fly fishermen were making graceful arcs with their fly lines as they fished for their last fish of the day. Down by Zone 3, I gazed at the swimming pool, now quiet

for the day. At the RV camping area, folks were gathered around camp-fires enjoying the last few hours of the day and probably talking about their travels in those great RVs.

As I drove back out of the park, a van pulled into the dining lodge parking lot; three kids jumped out and ran to the lodge, followed slowly by mom and dad. They all looked tired and hungry.

Back at the trailer, I filled my glass with ice cold diet orange and went back out on the porch and reflected on what I had just seen: great people enjoying the great outdoors in the greatest park in Missouri.

The sun had now dipped be-low the horizon and a miraculous thing happened: the hummingbirds

stopped feuding. They put their dif-ferences aside and concentrated on the job at hand, storing up enough fuel to make it through the night. Then it occurred to me, wouldn’t it be nice if your elected officials in Washington could argue all their points all day, but come together and get the job done at the end of the day?

Remember, time flies like an ar-row and the fruit flies like a banana.

****Send questions, tips and suggestions

to:Richard Rehm3267 Childress Ave.St. Louis, Mo. 63139or by email to [email protected]

Rehm from page 5

had a number of cans of young trout emptied into the spring. The trout thrived in the cold waters, at-tracting many fishermen.

Brice was the location where famed author Harold Bell Wright completed work on his classic novel, “The Shepherd of the Hills.’’ Wright also wrote “The Calling of Dan Matthews,’’ while he lived in Lebanon. In that book, Wright’s “Gordon’s Mill’’ actually was Bennett’s Mill.

Today, one off the oldest original buildings at Bennett Spring is the Bennett Spring Church of God, or-ganized in 1917 through the influ-ence of William Sherman and Louie Boles Bennett, who donated land for the church site. In the 1950s, stone veneer was applied over the wooden structure. It is the only

original building that was in old Brice.

“Aunt Louie’’ Bennett was pas-tor of the church for many years. Today, Bennett Spring Church of God is a very active church and is visited by many fishermen staying at the park each trout season.

In 1933, the Civilian Conserva-tion Corps (CCC) and the Works Project Administration (WPA) were two new programs implemented by the U.S. government to put people to work during the Great Depres-sion. Much work was done at Ben-nett Spring starting in November of that year. The crews’ first tasks were to build barracks for them-selves. They built a new dam, a bridge, a dining lodge, six cabins, a store and post office building, shelters, houses, roads and trails.

They also renovated the old Atch-ley Mill.

The men also constructed a sec-ond set of gravel-bottomed hatch-ery rearing pools and in 1935 built a new section onto the hatchery building. After the men left in 1938, they dismantled all but one of their barracks.

Through the years most of the development at the park has taken place outside of the park’s bound-aries as private individuals built cabins, hotels, campgrounds and many other businesses. In 1969, Arlie Bramwell sold his wood and stone cabins to the state. Ralph Usery’s cabins were razed. Splan’s Resort was once a very busy place there. Vogel’s Resort was acquired by the state in 1980.

In 1969, the Nature Interpretive

Center opened at the park with George Kastler as the first natural-ist, and in 1982 the park dedicated a new office and store building close to the dining lodge on the site of the original Brice. Later the park’s Niangua entrance was renamed the Bramwell Entrance in honor of Arlie Bramwell.

An additional 1,650 acres of land to the south of the current state boundary was purchased in No-vember 1988 to provide watershed protection for Bennett Spring itself as well as the park area. Each year has brought more improvements.

Now, at 3,216 acres, the state park that arose around Peter Ben-nett’s spring continues to delight all comers.

Park history from page 5

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By Kelly MorganTrout Talk

Bennett Spring State Park Assistant Hatchery Manager Mike Perry has always knew wanted to work for the Missouri Department of Conservation — he just didn’t know he wanted to work with fi sh.

Perry fi rst began preparing himself for a career with the MDC as a student at Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University), where he graduated with a degree in wildlife conservation.

“I always enjoyed hunting and fi shing, and I enjoyed being outdoors, dealing with the wildlife,” Perry remembered. “I hadn’t had as much experience in fi sher-ies; in fact, when I was going to school, I was looking more going into waterfowl management, but whenever the fi shery position came open, it was just something that interested me, and...it’s not an offi ce, inside job all the time, and it’s something I always wanted to do.”

After graduating from college, Perry went to live in Columbia, where his wife was studying to be a veterinarian. Once she fi nished school, Perry took an hourly job in a waterfowl area in Sikeston. He then worked in Sikeston for two years before being hired full-time as a resource assistant at Bennett Spring. Eventu-ally, Perry became a resource technician, meaning that he was in charge of fi nger-ling production.

In September 2013, Perry was pro-moted again to his current position as assistant hatchery manager. Today, his responsibilities include managing out-side production and making sure that the fi sh are the correct size for stocking. After nearly 15 years at Bennett Spring, Perry says that he has come to appreciate the merits of working in a hatchery.

“I’m just glad I was able to get on with the department,” he refl ected. “I mean, there’s always small parts of me that

Trout Talk photo/Julie Turner-Crawford

Assistant Bennett Spring State Park Hatchery Manager Mike Perry secures a basket full of trout as he and other hatchery staff members transfer the fi sh to another raceway.

From waterfowl to fi shBSSP assistant hatchery manager always wanted to a job working in conservation, the outdoors

See ‘Perry’/ page 13

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Connor McAteer, Dardenne Prairie, Mo., 4 pounds

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Mike Kneemiller, St. Charles, Mo.

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By Israel PotocznyTrout Talk

The fl oating season is off to a big start this summer with several local outfi tters reporting the mild summer weather has led to big crowds on the Niangua River.

Linda Patrick, owner of Adventures Float Trips and Campground said the water levels have been low in late July, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“I think it’s been a better season than last year,” Patrick said. “The water levels are getting low because we haven’t had enough rain south of us to make a dif-ference.”

But Patrick said the lack of rain water means the river is mostly made up of spring water.

“With Bennett Spring feeding the river, the river gets to the point where it is totally spring fed, which is pretty cool because it is really pretty,” Patrick said.

Patrick said several floaters have asked if there is enough water in the river to fl oat, but the Niangua River is fl oatable.

“Our river is fl oatable at all times, ex-cept perhaps on a really crowded Satur-day,” Patrick said. “Then it is diffi cult for people to read the river and get into the

deeper spots versus the shallow spots.“I think it has been a great summer. It

has been pretty exceptional for us.”Patrick said outfi tters on the Niangua

River offer an affordable family vaca-tion.

“I think we are a very affordable area as opposed to maybe some other rivers that are way more expensive than we are,” Patrick said. “It is still a very af-fordable vacation.”

The fl oating season typically begins in mid-April and runs through October. Floaters can avoid big crowds during the week days.

Patrick said the lower water levels means the river runs slower and a fl oat trip might take a little more time, or a little more paddling.

“You’re going to have to paddle,” Patrick said. “The water fl ow from Ben-nett Spring is slower and the flow is really slow.”

The typical water fl ow, Patrick said, is 80 cubic feet per second, but is currently down to 40 cubic feet per second.

“We need some rain,” she said.Several of the Niangua area outfi tters

offer potential fl oaters an update about fl oating conditions on their website.

Time to hit the river!

Moving day for hatchery troutVisitors to Bennett Spring State Park on July 15 had

the opportunity to see how hatchery staff move fi sh from one raceway to the other.

Assistant Hatchery Manager Mike Perry explained that the moving operation, which utilizes a crane to move trout to a holding cage equipped with a pump to move fi sh and from one raceway to another, is actually the least stressful way to move the fi sh. On this day, between 14,000 and 15,000 fi sh were moved to a race-way that would be used to stock the stream. Each fi sh, according to Perry, graded out at just over 12 inches in length. The number of fi sh moved each month depends on stocking needs.

Trout Talk photos/Julie Turner-Crawford

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would like to go with the waterfowl, but I don’t know that I would change it now and go back over to water-fowl if I had the chance. I enjoy what I’m doing raising fi sh, and especially seeing the smiles on people’s faces when they’re down here fi shing — especially the kids. It’s just something that I don’t know I’d want to go back into the waterfowl part of it.”

In fact, watching other people’s enjoyment of fi sh-ing is one of Perry’s favorite aspects of working at the park.

“That’s one of my big enjoyments, seeing a child down here catching his fi rst fi sh and bringing it up to his mom or dad or his grandmother or grandfather,”

he said. “That smile that you see on his face whenever he’s bringing his fi rst fi sh up to them, that’s probably the biggest benefi t I’ve got.”

Perry’s other favorite part of his job, the actual raising of fi sh, is a little bit more complicated than the general public realizes.

“I think it surprises people a lot how long it takes us to actually raise a fi sh,” he stated. “We’re in it for 15 to 18 months from the time we hatch the eggs out to the time we get 12, 12 1/2 inch fi sh, and all the process that actually goes into raising a trout. Whenever I’ve talked to people before and given hatchery tours and told them what all goes into it, they kind of have a surprised look

or a better understanding of what all exactly we do. It’s not just spawning the trout out here naturally and letting the fi sh raise up on their own. It’s a lot of work by keeping stuff clean, keeping stuff fed, grading the different-sized fi shes out of the different-sized pools and then moving stuff out and stocking every day of the season. I get a lot of surprise that we actually do stock every day from March 1 to Oct. 30.”

While there is a lot of work involved, Perry still likes it.

“I enjoy what I do, and it’s something that I can see myself staying here for quite awhile,” he said.

Perry from page 8

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When you stay in a

Weaver’s Cabin

Documents

Trout Talk August 2014