week in review

Wow, logged lots of wader time fishing this week with 4 trips and plenty of "mike time" as well. Here's the play by play starting from last Saturday.

A week ago was the Annual Rush River Cleanup day and despite the cold morning temps, turnout was terrific! I'm guessing a hundred or more concerned folks showed up to pitch in and picked up an amazing amount of junk. Thanks to Sara for organizing and Josh for putting together all the grub, bravo.

Sunday it was my pleasure to fish with David and Kathy Cooper of Plymouth MN. David was doing the fishing and Kathy was along to enjoy the stream and catch up on some valuable Oprah reading. We had a good morning, the fishing was a little slow but David did manage to hook up but was kind enough to release him from a distance...

Tuesday I fished with Mr Bob Webb from Chicago area. Bob was getting back into Fly Fishing and since he had just retired, was eager to pick up a few new tricks so he could make the most of his newly found free time. We went to El Paso and were out pretty early, thinking we'd nymph and streamer fish till we had some bug activity. The fish were active all morning and about 10:30 or so the Olives started coming off. Bob landed his first fish on a dry fly, then another, then another.....It was a terrific hour or so of action and he and I had a great time. We broke for lunch and had a few more hours to fish as well. Thanks Bob, what a nice time and I hope to see you soon.

Wed and Thursday I had the great pleasure of fishing with a couple of real characters and outstanding guys, Michael and Bruce Ratner of NYC. Despite their being rooted in the big city, these guys had some serious skills and unending enthusiasm for the game. We fished the Kinni wednesday, but the 80 degree temps and lack of any bug activity made the fishing pretty tough, we did get a number to play along on the BWO emergers but there was no dry fly fishing to speak of, which was really what we were after. Thursday came and brought rain and wind, temps in the 50's. We met up with Mr Steve Born of Madison and the Ratners cousin Mark from Chicago at El Paso, 8:30 or so. Was looking like a potential washout but we gutted out the rain and were rewarded with an late afternoon olive hatch to satisfy the dry fly fiends. Spirits rose with the emerging bugs and everyone got fish, I spent much of the afternoon with Mark, picking off nice fish in a slackwater rock garden area, his delivery was terrific and he was rewarded with several nice fish in a tricky situation...Then there's Bruce, who busted out the spinning rod, spin and fly float and proceeded to catch fish after fish in a big slack flat, on a variety of bobber trailing flies, most notably the propeller bugger. So much for delicate presentation...it was hilarious. Dinner at Huggies followed, steaks ribs and all the good meats and drinks, thanks guys and particularly Steve for putting this trip together, I had an amazing time!

last but not least, the willow is on fire, just in time for a week off it seems. Fished yesterday morning and afternoon with Fred and while we didnt light them up, we did manage a couple nice fish, including a pretty 20" female on a yellow madonna. This morning was a whole 'nother story. I had never experienced a day such as this, fly fishing ANYWHERE. all I can say is I was stunned, here's the final tally....
1 @ 20.5"
1@ 19.5"
3@ 18" (on 3 consecutive drifts!)
2@17"
2@ 16"
3@15"
not to mention, I hooked up and lost another 6 or so and had about 15 other grabs. all told it could have been a 20 fish day, with all big fish. I could not believe it, shitty snowing sideways and they were just committing suicide...Was wrapping up about 10 or so, ran into Whahoo and got him all fired up, he managed a nice solid 18"er as well as a couple other big grabs. I hope these fish make it through the onslaught of the opener next weekend....damn, I'm still shaking. I'll be back on in the am...

BPM

last child in the woods

Where are all the fishing punks these days?

Last child in the woods is the title of a book I just picked up. (Richard Louv) I'm not too far along, but the gist of it is this. "Nature deficit disorder" is an affliction that rages amongst our nations kids and could (in my opinion) be one of the root causes for all the issues, perceived or real, that kids today face. Here's the old "when I was a lad" part, but all true....We grubbed around in the woods and creeks and fields at will, exploring, learning and just being grubby kids. I cant really recall the last time I saw kids grubbing at the trout stream or the state park, on their own, unstructured and in nature. My own buddies with kids claim it's just not safe these days, bullshit I say. there were just as many weirdo's when we were kids, but the current state of media and availability of information means we just know more about them now. I think what it's really about is parents structuring their lives so that the kids are 100% occupied and that in turn frees the parents up to do their shopping or coffee or whatever. to hell with soccer and camp, take the little rats camping and turn them loose with a few essential grubbing items and show them what the natural world is all about.

true guide story. Last summer I had a bunch of great trips, but the most enjoyable was a father and his 2 sons age 9-13 or so. Dad was an accomplished fly angler and there was a tricky trico hatch going on, so I turned him loose and took the youngsters grubbing. We discovered a ton of crayfish and sculpins amongst the bottom critters, made a big rock pen and had an old fashioned crayfish rodeo and hoedown! Every once in a while we'd cast to a nearby trout, but for the most part were absorbed in our crayfish rodeo. I had more fun that day, they were stoked, dad was stoked and we learned a lot more then just how to trick a 12" trout on a #20 dry fly.

Get outside for crying out loud

end of rant

River of Spotted Cow....or the delinquent blogger

Ya ya, that's me...been a pretty lousy week for fishing, the rain and snow left me bummed and the river's over their banks. The walleye bite has slowed some on pool two I understand, but frankly I've not been since the cold snap. However.....

I got a chance to fish SW WI last weekend as well as help with a massive tree planting project on the West Fork fork of the Kickapoo River, the family farm of Paul and Bernie Hayes. They are the parents of fellow angler and good pal Ben, the guy who taught me all I know about great lakes angling. We were fortunate to have great weather last saturday and the rain sunday held off till we were done and ready to fish, speaking of....

What an amazing area, every time I'm there I'm really in awe of the amount of water and lack of anglers for the most part. We fished the Bad Axe out of Viroqua and the west fork on the Hayes property. The Bad Axe was tough, we had high skies and warming temps and I'll be damned if a 3wt felt foriegn in my hands after chucking big flies and sinking lines all spring. Ben managed one decent fish and lost another, I reckon I got one as well. Pretty river, looked to be heavily impacted by last summers flooding though. The west fork is amazing to me, every hole beckons you to the next, "c-mon it says, there's another sweet hole just up the bend", a fella could get caught up in that and I did. We fished streamers, small leeches and buggars on saturday night and got about 20 in an hour or so. They were fiesty 11-15" browns and a number of brookies as well, they seemed to be in pods at places.

Saturday night was Bowling and Spotted Cow night at the lanes in Westby. Lo and behold who should stumble in but Dan Boggs from Janesville WI. Dan is the president of the Blackhawk WI TU chapter (of which Paul Hayes is a member long standing) and he joined us for bowling and even volunteered to help with some planting the next day in exchange for a TU donation and a couch to crash on. Thanks D! As an added bonus, Dan and I got out on the same west fork beat, this time with larger muddlers and had similar sucess. it was great to fish with Dan again and I look forward to my next visit to the area, what a place!

High waters look to be the norm, although I did see the kinni and rush were dropping pretty steadily after the storm on the 11th. The willow is blown wide open, it's got a huge drainage and lots of lowland topography so I expect it'll be a couple days till we can get out there again. I'll be focusing quite a bit of attention on the Rush and Kinni for the next couple weeks with some trips on the books, looking forward to nice weather and good fishing.

Hot tip of the week: crappies on lake Mallillue (sp?) around the dam from shore and by boat. good reports of numbers and some slabs to be had as well. may try to get out this week and stock up for crappie tacos!

my good fortune

Greetings ~

this will be a quick one as I'm off to meet Mr. Walleye @ hidden falls in just a bit.

I Had the good fortune of fishing with Wahoo aka Chris Adams on Sunday evening. We both grew up on the stream it seems and are part of a network of high school buddies that still meet up to chase trout and drink a beer or three. My real good fortune was this, Wahoo ties some seriously evil muddlers, the finest big trout flies I've seen. just the right mix of ingredients and variations in color and size, I managed to talk him out of a couple for the evening and contracted him to tie me up a dozen for our fishing thursday morning. I was down to a couple that were so beat up, they were more like kruddlers. so timing was very good. The weather was nice, although on the front end of the storm that we got yesterday, so falling temps and change in pressure, usually means good fishing for all species. We pretty much took turns on each nice piece of water and chatted a bit, but at some point decided to bee line it to the lower reaches after that one big bite...Took a while and some change in color and tactics but we each managed one nice fish, Wahoo a 17" female on a nondiscript black wolley bugger and I plucked a 18-19" or so on a black wahoo conehead muddler variation. Both fish came later in the evening, after 6, which was a change from the usual 3-5 bite and color, black, another change from the whites and naturals we seem to rely on during off color water times. Things should only get better, I'll get more in depth on technique on my next post. The things we do locally can and do work on any trout water you may be on, regardless of where it is. big trout eat big prey period, no go get em!