Fly Fishing Road Trips
Good People      Good Water       Good Fish

For the last five years, I have been focusing on getting trout in Mississippi, as the guys at my Florida plantation pond gave me hints of a lake with rainbows in "The Magnolia State." The challenge in Mississippi is that only one location in the state holds trout. On top of that, the Department of Natural Resources(DNR) only stocks the fishing pond adjacent to Lake Larmar Bruce once a year. So, the timing of when you can go to Mississippi is strict. In the past, stockings were anywhere from Christmas week to the third week in January.

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I finally got to Mississippi Lake Larmar Bruce's fishing pond while passing through a trip from Chicago to Florida in February 2022. However, I only fished for 15 minutes because there was nothing online to tell me the DNR  stocked any trout that season. It was a big mistake as the DNR did release trout...they were there!! The scare came in 2023 as the DNR didn't even stock! So, now I missed my chance as the DNR might have given up permanently stocking the lake. 

In December 2024, I was driving back from Florida and didn't even look to see if the Mississippi's DNR might have stocked Lake Larmar Bruce because they never stocked until the third week of December. The DNR stocked the fishing pond in early December, and I had just driven by thinking the pond was barren.

This year, the dogs, my wife, and I decided to go south for Christmas to Georgia. Knowing there was a chance to hit Mississippi on our way back, I researched Lake Larmar Bruce, and now I know there are trout at the lake. So, on the eve of my birthday, we found a hotel in the birthplace of Elvis Presley, Tupelo, Mississippi. I woke to a dark, rainy morning with a temperature of 35 degrees. Thank God for a coffee shop outside our door and a knit hat. 

The drive to the trout pond was only 15 minutes.   I set up with a black wooly bugger and fished the back end of the pond. Two other fishermen were fishing with corn. They were catching their limits when I had one hit on my first cast after my first hour. I talked to the guy, and I moved closer to the pier, changed my fly to a white wooly bugger, and the strikes often came after getting strikes on almost every other cast. There were times when the trout were in a feeding frenzy, so it wouldn't have taken me 30 minutes to finally get one. I finally hooked an 11-inch rainbow. I quickly pulled him out without a net, recorded, and dressed it for dinner.

Mississipi done!