more pics and one last shot at steel

Tony just sent me some more pictures from our trip to Montana. Click on the flickr link to check them out. The recent rain surely pushed some more steel into our rivers, but most of them are unfishable as of now. Try to get out when they drop a little for one last shot at a steelhead for the spring. The fish that were in there a month ago have mostly fallen back into the lake, but there are other strains of steelhead that will run later. This may be a great time to have more space on the rivers. Other anglers may be turkey hunting and the general fishing season opens this weekend, which will draw some people away to the lakes. It's a long wait until the next time you may have a shot at a steelhead, roughly five or six months at the earliest.

bighorn trip

I just rolled back into town from Montana. It feels good to be home...but it was awfully hard to leave such an amazing river. I'm already thinking about dates to go back there in the fall. Tony and I picked up my boat Thursday morning after a 13 hour drive from River Falls, grabbed our licenses, arranged a shuttle and hit the river. It proved to be really tough fishing that first day. No sleep the night before, high winds and tons of boats probably didn't help matters. I ended up getting a couple rainbows near the take out point and that was the end of the first day. We woke up the second morning and our tent and campsite were covered in snow. Needless to say that we were the only tent in the campground. I think people thought that we were nuts. Friday was a night and day difference from Thursday. Despite the colder temps and snow, the fish were cooperative. We tucked ourselves into little channels between islands and ran nymph rigs and did really well. A size 16 or 18 orange Ray Charles and an orange Bighorn scud were hot, as were size 20 red Copper Johns and zebra midges. We had a few big fish roll on streamers, but didn't get any hooks into them. I landed the biggest inland rainbow of my life, a hefty fish that Tony and I figured went 24 to 26 inches. It's odd out there that fish that size will eat a size 20 nymph, but they do. I hooked one that was maybe even bigger, only to lose her and realize that she'd completely straightened the hook on my zebra midge. As good as things were, that fish will haunt me. I will be back to exact my revenge on that one. The snow ceased in the afternoon and the sun even graced up with it's presence for a little while. We ended the day in a good run that gave up a couple fish and many more takes. It was an awesome trip and I'm thankful that things went smoothly and safely. I can't wait to get back there. Click on the flickr link to the right to see all the pics from the trip...there were too many to post them all here.

road time, river time, steelie time

Luke (my brother) made his annual pilgrimage this weekend to join me in a weekend of steelhead fishing. Saturday we fished the Kewaunee and had a couple runs to ourselves...for a brief time. We saw a few fish scooting around, but what was a river in prime form a couple weeks ago is now little more than a trickle. The water temp was around 52 degrees and slightly off-color. I haven't heard all the details, but I know there was a manure spill somewhere on the Kewaunee. Something like 100,000 gallons of manure leaked into the upper Kewaunee. DNR personnel and the farmers pumped out what they could and installed dams to stop the spread downriver. 250,000 trout and salmon were stocked into the river last week. Hopefully it doesn't spell the demise of those fish. We left early and headed up to the D.C. tribs. There is also very little water in the D.C. tribs and most of the fish are off the gravel. Suckers are starting to thin out as well. No fish on gravel means fewer fishermen. It also means drop-back fish. We saw a lot of nice fish, slightly colored up, heading back to the big pond. I hooked a nice hen that broke my tippet as I was tailing her and hooked another fish that went ballistic and broke me off in a heartbeat. We ended the day at the mouth of one of the rivers casting streamers into the lake...a last ditch effort to hook one more fish for the day. Today (Sunday), Luke and I headed down to the Milwaukee. We were the first ones there and had our choice of the runs. A couple bumps in the first two hours had me wondering if the front that dropped temps thirty degrees had shut the fish down. The water temp was around 50 and with the overcast skies, they should have been grabby. At about 9:30 I sent a cast to a long foamy slick behind a boulder and in an instant had a super-charged hen on. She spent more time out of the water than in it, tail-walking and jumping all over the place. We landed her, took a couple quick shots and pointed her back towards her lie. Awesome. Luke was still leading the run down and about a half-hour later, he was plowed and had a fish on that jumped a few times and then decided to fight like a smallmouth. This buck stuck his head down and refused to budge. I got down below Luke and tailed the fish, his first steelhead on a swung fly. I ended the day with an unexpected bonus fish, a 12 or 13 inch walleye on a swung fly. We were on the last run of the day and I was stripping in to re-cast when this ambitious little walleye hammered my string leech. I was so jacked that Luke got a fish that it made the drive much easier. Start looking at your calendar for next year, Luke. This is becoming a tradition that will yield some great memories.

someone do a rain dance

Monday, Bart and I joined Todd and Troy for a day on the Sheboygan. Even though I have mixed feelings about having to pay to fish a stretch of water, there is no denying that there are a lot of fish in said stretch. I hooked and landed a nice hen steelhead in the first hour on a black and purple string leech. Troy got his first steelhead of his career on a swung streamer and then duplicated the feat a couple hours later with another great fish, this time a bright hen that put on a great acrobatic display. Barto got rocked by a gorgeous lake-run brown (picture) just before we started dodging gun fire....literally. Apparently there's a reason it's called the Gun Run. All in all it was a super day. It would have been great if Todd could have gotten a fish as well. I was on some of the smaller tribs today and all I can say is WE NEED RAIN. It's not that there aren't any fish in, because there are, it's just that most of the rivers are running so low and the fish are spooky as all get out. I don't think the odds of landing a steelhead on 7x tippet are very favorable. My advice...get out early, stay low, make the first cast count, wear drab colors and find a cloudy day, if you can. The steelhead season is going to come to a screeching halt if we don't get some precip soon. Well, time to start tying flies for next week. Tony and I hit the asphalt for Montana on Wednesday to pick up my new Clack and spend a few days on the Big Horn. A new boat, big fish, cold beer and projected temps in the mid-70s....

in the boat again, just can't wait to get in the boat again

Barto and I floated the local trib today looking for browns or steel, but mostly just looking to relax and be in the boat again. Bart landed a sucker that actually ate a white sparkle minnow and foul-hooked what must have been a hell of a carp or sucker, based on the size of the scale that came back impaled on the hook point. No browns or steel were seen, but there are a lot of walleyes in the river right now. Every riffle we went through had good numbers of decent sized fish holding in the shallow current. We had one take a swipe at a streamer, but that was about as ambitious as any of them felt like being. It was great just to be out in the boat again (Barto, I love the skiff, a.k.a. More Than Meets the Eye) throwing flies and enjoying seasonable temps. Our trip Thursday to the Milwaukee was pretty uneventful, minus the hook-up that Bart had in the morning. High skies and DNR electro-shocking boats probably didn't help our cause.

steelheadin' and fishing movies

Bart and I fished the Kewaunee Sunday morning for a couple hours to no avail. With Saturday being as nice as it was, I'm sure the fish got pressured like crazy and weren't in the mood to feed Sunday morning. Monday, Bart, Charlie and myself took a trip down to the Milwaukee and had a great day of fishing. Bart hooked and landed his first steelhead of the season on one of his first casts, a bright little hen that ate a black string leech. I managed to get a few grabs and lose two fish before I finally landed my first of the year, another bright little hen that also ate a black string leech. An hour or so later I landed a second fish that came out from under a tree as my fly was swinging past it. All three fish were in that 5 to 7 pound range, probably of the Chamber's Creek strain. We ended the day at the Fly Fishing Film Tour in DePere. The turnout was great and the films were even better. It was good to see so many familiar faces in the crowd. For those of you that missed it, don't make the same mistake next year.

4/2 report

I got my butt handed to me by a fish this morning on the Key. Surprisingly, I was the first car in the little lot so I had my pick of the runs. I went to a slower pool, thinking that the cold water may stack fish in such an area. I worked some line out via a little roll cast that lobbed out about ten or twelve feet and decided to let it ride. A few seconds later my indicator shot under and I set hard and to the side. I've never fished tarpon, but I'd imagine that what happened next is a lot like hooking a big tarpon. Three or four huge head shakes, line ripped from my hands in an instant and a broken leader. Not the tippet, the leader. It must have had a nick in it somewhere, but still a great testimonial to Maxima tippet material. I can't tell you what she ate, only that it was either a size 6 Bear's Hex or a Glo-bug. I ended up hooking one more steelhead and landing two big suckers before I was flanked by every camo-wearing, stringer dragging, cig smoking, loudmouth JR in the county. Ahhh....spring steelheading on the Kewaunee. It's still amazing to me that a person will walk up, not even say "hi" or nod at you, and start casting spoons literally within inches of your fly line. If you think that fishing during the week will get you away from the crowds, you're mistaken. On a side note, the water was 42 degrees at 7 a.m. and with forecasted highs in the low 30's next week, I wouldn't expect the water to warm much for a week or so. Think low and slow...Barry White 'em.