the latest....

Couple of things of note...My email on Bigpikemike.com has not been working for a while it seems, but appears to be up and running now. Apologies to anyone who has tried to contact me via the site and got bounced back, if I can retrieve that data, I'll shoot you a reply as soon as I can.

Here's the latest on what's been happening close to home.

Pool 2 shore bite has been going strong, walleyes and smallies being caught below the ford dam on both sides of the river. Fish are relating to the current but time is best spent fishing off current area's looking for resting/feeding fish. I may head down this morning if I can get my home chores done.

On the trout front, fish are definitely waking up with the warmer terms. Fished the willow Thursday night with my buddy Fred and for once this season, got the best of him. The water levels are up and a little off color, just right really for swinging big flies. Water temp was hovering around 40 or so, and there's still some snow to melt in the woods so it might be a couple weeks till we see a spike in temp. Thursday night we focused again on the slower, wider tail outs and flats where we have been having luck in the past week. I hooked up early and landed a tough 15" brown in a long thigh deep run, swinging down and across with little or no stripping, just swing and let the current do the work. Be sure to allow the fly to "hang" below you on a tight line for a few seconds before you retrieve or reposition, this time of the year I find they like this presentation and tend to grab it when you least expect. I got a couple more nice grabs a few minutes later but the big payback came just before dark. Fishing a hole known to give up some nice fish, I picked up a 19-20" male on a 3" natural/brown lead eye bunny leech (see header photo). This time of year they fight like crazy and this fish gave me all I could handle in the fast water and the 6wt. couple of photo's to admire him by and off he went. I'll add some images of flies for my next post and Fred ordered some new flies to test from Schmidts in MI, looking forward to seeing what he bought.

I'll be on the Kinni Tuesday with Dave Carlson of Northland Adventures TV show(http://www.northlandadventures.com/), we'll be paddling and fishing the Kinni for an upcoming episode. This will be my first outing with Dave and first time on the Kinni for me this year, but the weather looks good and I anticipate some bug activity and hopefully we can get some fish and put together an interesting program. Dave is very conservation minded and I'll be sure to fill his head with TGFL thoughts and ideas. Look for this in the coming weeks.

It's Brule opener as well this morning, good luck to all that are up there and send me some reports. It'll be a couple weeks for me but I cant wait, the Brule is truly my favorite place on earth.

peace.

TU monthly meeting

Howdy!

I had a good night last night, but I wasnt on the water. I was given an opportunity to address the folks from TC Trout Unlimited at the REI in Bloomington for their monthly meeting. Although it was last minute, no way am I going pass up an chance for an audiance to hear about what's happening with TGFL. Things are progressing pretty rapidly in fact! We're in process of setting up with the state and both the website and newsletter are in process as well. Thanks to Steve Carlton for having me and to the folks who made it out. I appreciated the support and the good Q/A aftewards. Although the whole principal of what we stand for is and seems pretty simple, I think we have all been conditioned to believe the "fishing's always better somewhere else". The experiences I have had locally rival any I've had abroad and although the scenery might not be as spectacular, there's always something to be enjoyed and remembered. Like most things, it is what you make of it.

no fishing today, although I tried. Truck died on the way to the ford dam to fish with my buddy Ingy, looks like I need a new fuel pump, damn.... Last check Ingy had a couple bites but no walters landed.

Brule opener is this weekend, but my most recent report was the river was iced up from about Culhane on down, and I think I'll give it a week or two. Sounds like there's still plenty of deep snow in the woods to contend with as well. Snowshoes and waders anyone?

more to come, stay tuned eh!

Rush River Clean up Day

Good Morning Fellow Anglers....

Mark your calendar for the 2008 Rush River Cleanup day! Saturday April 19, 8am at the Rush River Rod and Gun Club on Highway 72, east of Ellsworth. Contact Sarah Sanford @ rushclean2006@yahoo.com if you have questions or ideas, or just show up, grab a bag and start picken! It's a great opportunity to make an amazing stream that much better, get involved!

Locally, the water levels are rising and most of the streams will be high and off color. I was at Kinni Creek Lodge yesterday working on the fly shop and the kinni looked rough, not overly high but chocolate milk like in consistency. The willow was also high (up a foot since tuesday) and not quite as murky but difficult fishing.

Regarding Kinni Creek and the shop. We are adding a number of things this year. Rods and reels from Temple Fork Outfitters and Flies from Montana Fly Co. The bugs from MFC are amazing and most of the patterns we'll stock will be geared to the Kinni and the Rush with lots of seasonal patterns to boot. Stop in when your in town and say hi to Paige and myself. We also have a complete line of leaders/tippet and fly lines. With the lack of shopping opportunity locally, this could be a great stream side stop to pick up some last minute items and some of the cool "tech nymphs" from Montana Fly.

The next couple days could find me shore fishing @ Pool 2 again. I might even drag the 7wt down and with a little patience, catch a walleye on a streamer..or not.

Peace,

BIGPIKEMIKE