BRANSON, Mo. _ It wasn't even mid-morning and Carolyn Parker was already sweating from simply loading gear into a boat. The forecast said worse was on the way by afternoon.
Thankfully, the water coming off 50-degree Lake Taneycomo made it feel like stepping into air conditioning as she climbed aboard her boat last week. Still, she knew the weather would win.
"When it's this hot, we try to get people to only fish a half day," Parker said. "There's just too much water in the afternoons, and it's too hot."
But sometimes a half-day fishing with the diminutive 75-year-old is still good angling.
Ten minutes after her first cast, Parker caught the first trout of the day on her fly rod. Not much later the second fish, a 19-inch rainbow that was softball fat from back to belly, took nearly five minutes from hook set to net. For most of the morning, the fishing stayed as hot as the weather.
Parker repeatedly called Taneycomo a river, because it's always in motion. It certainly was a river the first time she came to Branson.
