Guests love lakes for fishing, camping, quiet
News editor
On a Saturday afternoon with nothing to do, Lyle Brewer of Newton drove to Marion County Park and Lake with his wife. It was their first time visiting the lake.
“I’ve heard about this place but never been here before,” Brewer said.
After driving around the lake, he decided to come back for a camping and fishing trip.
“When I seen it, I fell in love with it,” he said. “It’s a park-like setting, it’s clean, and there aren’t a lot of hooligans running around.”
In a couple of hours fishing Monday, he caught three channel catfish and three sunfish. If his fishing luck keeps up, he might return two or three times a month until the start of deer hunting season, he said.
Steven Goss, Shawn Goss, Robert Goss, and Les Linn, all of Mulvane, found themselves all with the same day off work on Monday and decided to spend the day fishing at Marion Reservoir, even though there are lakes closer to Mulvane.
“We catch more fish here,” Steven Goss said. “This is one of the best areas for white bass.”
They caught about 30 fish total, including ones too small to keep, in the morning and early afternoon. Their catches were mostly white bass and wiper, a hybrid of white and striped bass that grows larger than either parent species and has a reputation as a hard-fighting sport fish.
The catch of the day for the group was a 3½-pound wiper caught by Shawn Goss.
“It was a pretty good day for fishing,” he said.
They used to come out to the reservoir one or two times per month, but they have made fewer trips the past two years because of drought that lowered the water level. On Tuesday the lake was about 2 feet, 9 inches below full conservation pool.
When Bill and JoAnn Fitzpatrick of Beaumont, Texas, made plans to visit family in the area for a few weeks, they knew exactly where they would stay in Kansas. The couple formerly lived in Marion and were familiar with the campgrounds at Marion Reservoir.
“We’ve always camped out here,” Bill Fitzpatrick said. “It’s just a nice place. It’s well kept and the spots are nice.”
He said the campgrounds compare favorably to other federal and state campgrounds.