Saturday, October 29, 2011

another steelhead weekend


Photo by Waring, Michael
So we are back up for a three day weekend steelheading.  Friday night was fun.  The Kro had a comedy show, and after that two Tequila models from Eau Claire, WI were there pimping shots of a new tequila (I don't remember the brand but keep reading and you'll see why) on behalf of their distributor.  I met a local gal who was  a retired post office mail-woman from Superior, WI who introduced me to a few people around us and chatted with them for a while and they bought me a beer.  Then the bartender bought me a beer cause we fried the keg.  Then the Tequila models were back and we ended up talking about fishing for awhile (as I "sampled" their shots).  Then Paul and Mother Feiker walked in close to 11pm just in time for the Tequila girls to ask them to take a picture of the three of us before they moved on with their night.  Not sure why they wanted  a picture with me, but who am I to argue with a request like that.  So I did my part, stood in between them and smiled pretty for the camera as they hugged me.  I know, I know, I know what you're thinking and yes, it was a hard job standing up after all those drinks, but I persevered so as to not disappoint the models.  Then Mother Feiker bought me a beer.  Mind you, I still bought plenty of my own Leinie's Oktoberfest and shots of Parton in between all these gracious gifts of barley.  As you may have guessed, we were there till 2am, before they closed and we had to call it a night. 
Saturday's fishing was slowwwww. And by slow I mean that it was slowwwwww.  But, we did watch a muskrat for awhile on the opposite bank of one our fishing spots.  He was cute, but not as much as the otter that visited us a few weeks ago.  The otter was very curious as to what we are or what we were doing.  He was swimming up stream on the opposite bank and would stop every few yards or so, pop up on his back legs and gave us look as if to say "whatcha doing mister?"  It did that all the way up stream until it was out of our site again. 
Maybe fishing will be better tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

This past weekend, low and clear

Jen and I went up again this past weekend even though the river was still low and clear and still no rain.  What can I say, we are addicts to this game. 

We found Peter a couple of doors down from ours at the motel.  He fished that day and lost his fly box, so there was some flies being tied as we chatted with him.  Which still totally sucks to lose a fly box on the river.  But if anyone finds said fly box, please send to me so that I can see what his secret flies are.

Jen and I went over the Kro-bar for supper where we were joined by Mike, Phil, and David who also just pulled into town for the weekend.  Talk about perfect timing!  And the all you can eat fish fry wasn't too bad either with a side of Leinie's Oktoberfest of course.  If only someone could have tripped over the cord of the horrible karaoke that was taking place on the stage, it would have been so much better.
   
Jen and I had zero luck on Saturday, not even a strike.  We fished till dark with no rewards from the river gods.  Peter had walked by us about mid morning Saturday and reported landing a very nice steelhead just upstream of us.  So we knew they were in river, just not on the end of our lines.  Before going out to dinner as we all gathered at Olie's motel room for a warm-up beer, Jen and found out that we were the only unlucky ones out of our group of eight.  Good for them, but I say Grrrr to our luck.   

The blueberry ribs at Deep Lake Lodge in Iron River, WI is still the best ribs I've ever had and they once again did not disappoint, unlike the Badgers football game that we could hear in the background on TV.  At lease the Packers beat the Vikings the next day.  Poor Bucky Badger.

Sunday, we had a little bit of a late start as we were not in a hurry since there was a 60% chance of rain in the forecast for the day.  But when we opened the door to get going, it was dry and overcast.  Jen and I headed to a spot we knew that fit our latest steelhead theory with a Mountain Dew in one hand, and snickers bar in the other (which by the way is a four-star fisherman's breakfast).  We spent most of our time at one spot insistent that we were right and then we were proved right.  I was lucky enough to catch two steelhead about an hour apart from each other!  WhooHoo!!  Shortly after, we gave up the spot to another gentleman and headed back to the truck just in time for the rain to start.  Lucked out again!  We changed in the parking lot and headed for home happily.

Monday, October 24, 2011

A Good fall so far

So the weekend before last Jen and I got our first steelhead fishing weekend under our belt.  That weekend was the annual St Paul Fly Tier's steelhead outing and to keep things manageable for our group we broke up into smaller groups.  Jen and I fished with Louise over the weekend and had a lot of fun.  The best thing about the weekend is that we get to see so many people that we haven't seen in awhile and is a lot like a fun family reunion.  Jen caught a steelhead on Saturday and was in the minority of successful fisherman we found out as everyone shared their stories of the day over an awesome feast that Tony prepared for the club.

On Sunday, the weather was the same as the day before, which was sunny and windy, with a windchill in the low 30's.  Louise had to leave by a certain time to get back home in her final hour before she had to leave the river she landed a 26" chrome steelhead.  She was very excited!  Congrat's Louise!!!

On Monday, I had the day off and had planned to go fishing with Mike and dad for smallmouth.  Dad and I met up with Mike as he was doing final prep work on the boat at the landing.  Everything went pretty well except someone turned the wind machine on HIGH.  We struggled through some pretty heavy wind and it made for a challenging situation.  But the three of us had a great time joking around and we did have a few bites.  Mike landed a few smallie's and I managed to land one, but dad lost a very nice one.  NO, I didn't cut the line on him.  We did get a glimpse of it, and it would have made for a good picture.  Instead, I have put in a nice photo of dad and I with a bass and the lure we caught it on.  The funny thing was he was convinced the white lures were not on the menu for the bass that day and that chartreuse was the ticket...oops!