Steelhead mojo

So there are a couple of traditions that the Jenn-o-rator and I have when it comes to steelhead.  The first is that the morning is best started with a snickers and some caffeinated beverage for me.  The Jen likes a mounds or Almond Joy for the drive to the first parking spot.  

The second is having Dave Matthews pumping loudly through the speakers; in particularly to get jazzed up for a day of steelheading we like to hear Grave Digger by Dave Matthews.  Here is a YouTube clip: Grave Digger

www.critters-corner.com

2012 Species update, Season Recap, & Thank You

Two fish were added to my fish list in 2012, bringing my total up to 45 different species of fish that I have caught over the years.  The first of the two was due to a planned mission on a summer vacation to Estes Park, Colorado.  Jen and I were fortunate to catch a few gorgeous Greenback Cutthroat trout while hanging out with an awesome local guide.  The second species caught was not planned, not pretty, and not wanted.  While I was trying to make a drift to active steelhead through a technically difficult seam, I was rewarded with a big creek chub on the Wisconsin Brule River that had taken my dropper egg fly.  Good governor!  But it adds to my list, and it relieves the magnificent weight on my shoulders of being able to cross a chub off my list of things to get in my life.  Doh!!  Did I just say that? 

 

The rest of the fish/things caught over the season encompassed my usual fare of rainbows, browns, brookies, smallies, pike, steelhead, trees, rocks, cased caddis, myself, trees, shrubs, logs, many 1st & 2nd cousins of the Snagasaurus family, and sadly not muskies. 

 

While I did fish subsurface with nymphs and streamers this year for many of the above mentioned quarry, all of the trout were caught on dry flies.  The dry fly challenge this year wasn't planned initially.  It started out with great dry fly fishing this spring on the Big Horn River in Montana.  Mother Feiker and I had a lot of fun with it and even came up with ideas on that vacation for patches and stickers for us such as "HA!" (for Headhunters Anonymous-with a picture of fish skull that has one of those voodoo bones going through its' nostrils) and "HHH" (for the Happy Head Hunters).  There were other ideas we came up with too that week, but those were the ones that stuck with us through the summer.

When I returned to my home waters is when I challenged myself to continue on with the "Dry or Die"campaign.  I enjoyed it this summer, it was good timing for me and gave my ol' game of fly fishing a new twist.  Then I bought a Tenkara rod, which also encouraged me to keep fishing on the surface.  Don't worry, I am pretty sure I won't become a dry fly snob or anything like that.  I have been reading more about the Tenkara fishing, and I have learned that there are subsurface tactics that I need to try out if I am going to learn all it has to offer.  In fact I ordered a couple of things online today specifically for Tenkara fishing including some funky hooks for some Tenkara fly patterns I want to attempt to tie. So we will see how that turns out this winter.

As for you, yes you. Thank you very much.  I would like to say thanks to you and all the people that have provided me with positive and encouraging feedback on my blog over the years.  I sometimes forget that people actually read what I write and every time someone says to me "hey, I read that and..." or replies with an email response it makes me smile and brings me warm fuzzies.  Not that I write for those reasons, but it is nice to know people don't always delete my posts when they get sent out to your email inbox. To date, this will be my 147th post since February 2005.  If you are looking for those 16 posts of my first year, you may not find them as they were on my initial attempt at blogging.  You're not missing much as they were, well, kind of weak as I wasn't yet clear with what my intention(s) was going to be with writing a blog at the time.  So there was a conversion period where they were at the time and where the blog is hosted now on Blogger. 

To everyone:
Happy Thanksgiving, tight-lines, be well, namaste, live long and prosper, hug your loved ones, fire-cracker-fist-bump, and all that jazz.

Critter
 

www.critters-corner.com

The search continues

Narrowly escaping a delay at work Friday, Jen and I headed up north for another weekend of steelhead fly fishing.  By chance, a couple of buddies (Mike and Phil) saw us as we passed through Superior, WI and they called my cell phone to say hi and we pulled over for a couple of minutes to say hi and take a little leg stretch.  We caravanned the rest of the way to the motel and after checking in, stood outside in the dark brisk parking lot looking up at an almost full moon taking away about who had heard what for fishing reports and what everyone's plan was for next day.

I could have stayed in bed all day Saturday instead of fishing.  But we got dressed and ran the truck for a awhile to get rid of the heavy frost on the windows and ventured out.  All the normal parking lots were pretty much full and that was causing me to get frustrated in trying to get away from the crowds.  We went back to the least full parking lot and thought we would give it a shot.  Even though there were many cars at this lot, we pretty much only saw one fisherman who had a European accent.  But, we saw him over and over and over again.  And that got on my nerves trying to get away from him.  Whatever.  Jen caught and landed a nice 18" skipjack that day so she was doing pretty good.  Myself, not so much.  I hooked and lost one fish, hooked many rocks, logs, branches, trees, and my rain jacket.  At one point I lost my composure and threw my rod on the bank in the mud.  Pure frustration coupled with annoyances of not being able to get way from euro-dude and not being familiar with the stretch of water were were on and not catching steelhead made for a short day.  We called it quits earlier than normal with the idea that I just needed to stop fighting with whatever forces were at odds with me.

The evening went much better, after we changed and grabbed a beer at the hotel room where we were found by the Bob's (who just pulled into town), Peter and his wife Kris, Crazy-Luke, along with Mike and Phil.  They had better luck than myself and a more enjoyable day when it was all said and done.  We went out to dinner together for the evening since it gets so dark so early now to catch up and make plans for the next day.  

Sunday was a better day for my disposition in spite of the thick frost on the cars on a crisp 26 degree morning, and our fishing luck improved....sorta.  Jen hooked a larger skipjack that had it not been for my slow response and her quick landing would have been a netted.  But since I was slow on the draw, fish spit the hook where she had almost beached it and it swam off.  She was kinda not happy with me, even though she tried to cover it up.  We both know, that I screwed that up as net man.  In my defense, I do think that was the quickest landing of a steelhead that she ever executed.  I hooked three that day and landed none of them.  The Green Bay Packers won. Yoda, hooked and landed a 25" up river from us; Mother Feiker lost a nice one on his last cast of the day.  Yoda was able to get a lot of the battle on his Go-Pro, but in the end the Steelie spit the hook and gave Bob the fin.  Crazy-Luke caught four on Saturday and one on Sunday. I don't remember the numbers for Mike and Phil, but I do recall they did really well, especially in one particular hole. 

Jen and I spent the night there with the Bob's instead of hurrying home since we had taken Monday off to just chill out with each other and to go to an hour long appointment I had set up after I had taken the day off.  More about that later....maybe.

Tuesday morning I had taken off to go fishing with Mike and Dad for small mouth bass in Location X.  Dad however called last week and cancelled his spot.  But since it had taken so long to work out a date and get time off, I went anyway fishing with Mike anyways.  We met at Mikes place and we kind of dragged a feet a little as it was another balmy 28 degree morning.  We got the boat launched and did some fishing.  The first half hour we kind of battled the thin layer of ice that had formed on the water trying to cast over or through it with our flies and fly line.  But the once the sun came out and waves picked up the ice broke up.  Mike ended up with two smallie's landed, and I caught two very small pike.  So my streak of small mouth fishing success continues to be not exciting.  That change, someday. 

Now I'm on the countdown again.  Only three days until we head up again for another chance at catching AND landing some good steelhead.

A new form of "Ice Fishing"- fly line on top, fly  dangling down below.

A cast where the fly didn't make it through the ice.

www.critters-corner.com

Steelhead weekend summed up.

This past weekend:

    some friends were seen,

          some potential new freinds were made,

               some beverages consumed,

                    some blueberry ribs were ate,

                         some rainbows, smolt, and steelhead were caught,

                              on prince nymphs and pale eggs

                                   saw two circling bald eagles, one otter with trout in it's mouth

                                        worn out, tired, very happy, 

                                             five days of work until we can do it all over again.

 

 

 

www.critters-corner.com

Weekend Summary

Friday:

Jen and I drove up in snow flurries to my friends cabin in northern Wisconsin.  I Realized that I forgot to pack my fleece pants to wear under my waders at home.  We chatted and formulated a plan for the weekend over Jameson on rocks, and then headed off to bed.

 

 

Saturday:

Peter and I fished for Muskies on the Flambeau River in the blowing snow...I was reminded by my cold legs and numb hands that I forgot fleece pants at home.  We did not catch or land any fish, but it was good to see Wendy from the Hayward Fly Fishing company again and so many eagles flying along the river.  After the day was done, we headed even further North to thaw out with some pretty decent home made pizza at the Kro-Bar.  We bumped into my Joe form Merrill, WI and talked to him and his buddy for awhile and played a little pool.  I only see him like once, maybe twice a year, so that was a nice surprise.

 

 

Sunday:

We woke up to thick frost on the car at 23 degrees.  Got our stuff together for a day of fishing for Steelhead, woke up Joe and his buddy, who asked me why they decided to try to keep up in doing shots with the 23-year old's.  I just laughed, and wished them a good day on the river and thinking it was good that I didn't participate in that game with them. 

 

We got down into the river, and reconfirmed my irritation towards myself for forgetting my fleece pants at home and the growing list of crap that I forgot, broke, or misplaced that I have to work on before coming back up.  Peter started his steelhead season within fifteen minutes by landing a healthy skip-jack.  We fished for a few hours and then took a lunch break before driving off to another spot where I caught nine and landed five fish.  Four were future steelhead ranging from 8" to 14", and the fifth one was a legit skip-jack coming in at 17-inches.  Three took the pale yellow egg, and two took the #12 PTN.  So the search for their feisty parents continues. 

 

I also had a foot and a half long witness checking out my casting technique.  He swam across the river to hang out with me.  He hung out on the shore behind me for about twenty minutes after his swim, and then disappeared.  My guess is the 42 degree water might have slowed him down and needed a little sun bathing on the beach to get going again.

Common Garter Snake sticking tongue out at me.

To top off our great fall day, Jen and I headed home through Duluth, MN and stopped in for a nice anniversary dinner at Black Woods restaurant where I proposed to her.  The service and food was great, and it was nice to stroll down memory lane and reminisce about our earlier days together.

 

More to come later, as for now we to put a "pause" on our fishing as we have a wedding to attend next weekend someplace in Iowa called "BFE" I think.  It's between "Some-town-I-haven't-been" and "it's-that-close-to-Illinois-really???" Then after that, it's back to the north woods fishing adventures.

 

 

 

www.critters-corner.com

Rocky Mountain Vacation Summary (Picture Heavy)

As promised to many of you, though a little late, here is a recap of our most recent vacation, we hope you enjoy.  :)

 

 

A week ago we got back from a week vacation with Jen's family.  Troy and I rode our motorcycles out to Estes Park, Colorado while the girls rode together in the Highlander.  We left on Friday with perfect weather drove through South Dakota and arrived on Sunday afternoon to our campsite at Moraine campground in a pretty heavy rain.  It cleared up in an hour or so.  In fact pretty much every day it rained from 2pm to 4pm and was partly cloudy and pretty good the rest of the time.  For temps at the 8,000' level where the campsite was, it was mid to high 40's at night and high 70's to low 80's during the day. But pretty much every day Jen and I wore our fleece jackets as we were higher up where it was chilly and very windy a lot of the time.  At one point in the week we ran into an overlook where the ground all around us was freshly covered with sleet and snow.   

 

Monday, Jen and I went out to explore the park and found that the air was thin up there.  We really noticed it during our hikes, which surprised us since we had changed our workouts at home thinking it would help prepare us for this.  Fact is, we live at 950' in elevation, our campsite was around 8,000', and some of the spots we ended up visiting was between 12,000' to 14,000' in elevation.  We were flatlanders in foreign territory. 

 

We saw elk, lots of mule deer, big horn sheep, moose, gray jay's, fuzzy cute birds called Clark's Nutcracker, smelly llamas, the puppy-like marmots, and pikas.  I have to admit I really liked the marmots and pikas and they made me smile and laugh often.

 

We drove up Trail Ridge road is a must for anyone that goes out there.  I really enjoyed visiting the Toll Memorial Trail that is right off of the road.  There were marmots, pikas, a neat marker at the top of a bolder pile at the top of the hill, and wide open views of many mountains in all directions surrounding us.  Further up the road was the Alpine Visitor center which had a great view and the mountain side was littered with mule deer sunning themselves.

 

We hiked around Bear Lake, Sprague lake (and fished this lake too), several other hikes that led to water falls.  The major trek being up the Longs Peak Trail by Peacock pool on up to the beautiful greenish-blue Chasm Lake, where Jenny dipped her feet into the 35 degree snow melt lake.  Jordon and I went a bit further and dunked our heads in, but Andrew took the prize for stripping down to his boxers and totally jumping in.....twice.  The second time was for the photo for proof of craziness. 

 

Wednesday, Jen and I had a day fishing with a guide.  We fished the Big Thompson river, the St. Vrain river, and the Alluvial Falls where we caught brookies, browns, and Greenback Cutthroat trout.  Our luck was on Hopper and midge patterns like the mercury midge and the RS2.  Later that day is when I landed my first fish on my Tenkara rod, a 10" brookie that took a #14 Hemingway Caddis along the trail of Sprague lake.

 

The evenings were filled with family gathering around the campfire at our campsite with many conversations going on at once with suppers, munchies, cocktails, cigars, and stories to share.  We had three campsites for the thirteen of us, all in a row.  In the mornings we would wake up at sunrise and watch the deer walk among the tents while grazing.  They must have been on the Parks Payroll, as they gave us plenty of photo opportunities every morning.

 

Thursday morning Troy and Laurie headed out to Sturgis, South Dakota on the Harley where they would spend the next week of their vacation at the annual Sturgis motorcycle rally.  The rest of us broke camp Friday morning and all made our ways back to our home states of California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  Our 15.5 hour drive via Nebraska with the idea of making it back over two days, turned out to be a 17 hour drive straight through with a small forced break at the Perkins in Albert Lee, MN to wait a thunderstorm out that had winds reaching 55 mph.  Not the best thing to be driving through, pulling a loaded trailer late at night and having been on the road all day.  But really there was nothing between Omaha, NE and Des Moines, IA, and when we reached Des Moines I thought we could make it home with now issues.  We finally pulled in around 3am Saturday morning and immediately found the bed.  A very welcome site for our lower backs after the putting on over 1,000 miles on the motorcycle, long hikes in the mountains, sleeping on the ground all week, and of course after sitting in the truck all day for the drive home. 

 



Calypso Cascades

15 minutes earlier we had clear skies

Clark's Nutcracker

Toll Memorial Boundary Marker

face on this 30' tall boulder.

a Pika

Marmot

 


Moose

Breakfast time

Sprague Lake

Park Ranger & her 3 smelly llamas

Warning!

Chasm Lake

Silly Time!

Me with first Greenback Cutthroat

Jen with first Greenback Cutthroat

Greenback Cutthroat

www.critters-corner.com

My last weekend with Ed.

Saturday morning:

So for our last weekend hanging out together before Ed moves to Texas for his new job, we started off early Saturday morning.  We started off with breakfast over at the San Padro cafe in Hudson.  I highly recommend it to anyone and will be back there again.  We basically found it by accident as we were fifteen minutes too early to the nice cigar shop we wanted to check out called the St. Croix Cigar Company which had a large variety of products from my current favorite cigar brand, Perdomo Cigars. We were very impressed, and the guy behind the counter seemed to be an encyclopedia of cigar knowledge.

 

Then we moved on to River Falls to check out both the Kinni Creek Lodge fly shop and the new Lunds Fly shop out of curiosity and to maybe get some insight on what the fish have been hitting on.  We eventually did make it to fishing.  We started out fishing Lost Creek and worked our way up on the Rush river to El Paso.  Ed borrowed one of my bamboo rods to see what fishing one was like and I strung up another for myself for the weekend.  We had some success with sulphur parachutes #18 and comparduns #18, and white parachute BWO's.  Word on the river was that others had good luck using caddis patterns, but I did not have any success using them.  The trout must not have appreciated my artistic interpretation of the caddis flies I tied.

 

Saturday evening:

The reason for our fishing up to El Paso, WI was that our club was celebrating its 60th anniversary and the dinner was being hosted at the El Paso Bar & Grill.  We had a great turnout with many members and their spouses and significant others.  Everyone seemed to be having a good time.  Denny even set up a banquet table with some old club memorabilia, which I thought was a very nice touch.  To save us a lot of driving a few of us spent the night at the local Super8 motel; which sadly has been the nicest motel room I've had in a long, long, long time.  But it's not my fault, it's the fishes fault for not having better places for me to stay at when I go visit them.   



Denny's Table





Amy, Angie, and Jen



 

 

 

 



 

social hour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday morning:

Ed fishing bamboo for brookies

Sunday morning Ed and I had breakfast with Yoda and his saint of a wife, Sandy.  And we were off again fishing the Rush river.  The trout pretty much took to Sulphur parachutes and comparaduns, white post parachute BWO's.  Ed mentioned that it was kind of fitting that we fished at the Stonehammer bridge to catch his last Wisconsin trout before moving to Texas as it was the first place he caught a trout on the Rush when he moved here to Minnesota.  We had rising fish and the fishing was good until the bikini hatch broke out.  We had six girls in two piece bikinis and one guy in shorts trying to float the river on little black inner tubes.  While the scenery was appreciated as they all modeled their swim suits very well, they put the fish down dammit.  The last gal who was a little behind the rest of her group was not so impressed with the decision to float the 40 degree water and said she would rather be fishing with us then floating in the cold water.  I told her that this was the first time in the ten years of fishing this river that had seen anyone try to float it.  Too bad, I didn't have an extra set of waders for her.  Anyway, Ed and I adapted and we sat on the bank of the river and lit up a couple of cigars and waited for the fish to come back.  It didn't take too long and they were back rising. 

 

Sunday afternoon:

After a good morning on the river, we left for lunch at the Silver bridge in Martel.  The club was having one of our monthly fishing outings and grilled brats with sour kraut were on the menu!  I think we had around 15 people or so attend.  After lunch, one of our newer members, Eric, was showing us his new Tenkara rod he bought the day before at Kinni Creek Lodge.  While showing us how to fish it on the section that goes by the park, he hooked five fish.  They all got off before he could land them....but he's still working on figuring that part out.  :) 



And that was our weekend.  Not bad if you ask me.  I wish Good Luck to Ed and his girlfriend Angie on thier new chapter in thier life in Texas, even though I warned them numerous times that Texans live in Texas.

Doe and a fresh fawn

 

 

www.critters-corner.com

Three bearded guys in a boat.

So we went up and spent the day with my parents along with my aunt and uncle on Goose Lake.  We had a great time hanging out, showed off my new motorcycle (a 2008 Yamaha Raider) to my parents.  Both seemed genuinely impressed.  For Easter dinner, dad worked his magic in the kitchen and made his great fried fish.  A huge serving of crappies along with the various salads made for a great feast.

 

photo provided by Trails.com

Afterwards, dad and uncle Keith and myself went out on dads boat and headed over to the crappie spot to see if we could replenish what we ate.  They handed me this thing called a spinning rod.  It was missing at least four feet of length and had this funny kind of real called an open face real.  Sure can't fly fish with this, especially with that slip bobber thing and crappie spinner jig at the end.  Dad assured me that the rod was the right length and to start fishing.

 

Luck was not on our side.  All that was caught was a bass in the first five minutes.  Dad claims that made him the best fisherman in the boat.  I countered that he was the worst since he caught something we were not targeting.  Uncle Keith shook his head and chuckled at the two of us.  I think he was just happy that I had taken over his anchor duties...something about he'd kept forgetting to bring it up every time dad wanted to change locations.  They had been fishing the previous two days with same amount of luck we were having, only with some added anchor drama.  The debate over who the best fisherman in the boat continues.  At least until we go fishing again.

A couple of hours on the water and we headed back to the dock, fishless and happy.

 

Weather:

a little breezy,

a little cool,

lots of sun, and

good fun.

 

Lake:

a little stained and in the 50's.

www.critters-corner.com

Deer camp

So two weekends ago, I went up to visit deer camp over opener to see old friends and my dad.  It was good to see the usual suspects and that they were all doing pretty well.  It had been a year or more since seeing some of them, and it was nice to hang out and bond with the traditional card games, story telling, and good natured ribbing.  Hunting-wise, the weekend didn't turn out so well, one eight-pointer (shot by Dean) out of six deer hunters in the 20-25mph winds is all we got.  I didn't do to well either, instead of deer hunting I bought a small game license and brought the 20 gauge over & under in hopes of getting a grouse or black squirrel for tying flies.  I find that grouse hunting is more enjoyable to me because I can relax as I put less pressure on myself when I am not competing for a deer in an acreage that isn't exactly overpopulated.  I only flushed one grouse, and it was gone before I could get a bead on it.  I also kicked up deer twice in some thick underbrush.  And both times I could not hear it running off into the woods even though it was within 20 yards of me.  I watched it's white flag bob back in forth out of sight completely stunned that I didn't even hear so much as a twig snap.  The odds were not in our favor this time. 

Even though the hunting wasn't so great, I did get to see a bald eagle circle over me just above the tree tops.  The highlight of the weekend was Carmi's video footage from her deer stand.  She captured a couple minutes of a grouse by her stand and almost ten minutes of footage of a bobcat chilling out.  It appeared to know that Carmi was there, but really didn't care.  It napped, it stalked a bird, and it stared at the camera, before scooting away.  Earlier in the day, the land owner had seen two adult bobcats and a kitten from his stand.  Very exciting stuff! 

As for the increasing stories and evidence of wolf sign in the area, I was not as impressed.  One pack of wolves actually treed an acquaintance of ours a few weeks earlier when he was bow hunting for deer across the lake from where we were hunting. 

As of last night, I heard that Dean got a button buck, making for two deer total for the camp.  Dad is still up there, so hopefully with a little luck he will get one too.  I'll cross my fingers for him anyway.

Steelhead closes tomorrow and we did not go fishing for them since my last post.  So now we wait till next fall to resume that game.  This weekend consisted of prepping the house for winter and freeing up space by bringing a lot of stuff over to our storage unit.  We did a pretty good job with our to-do list, but I am saving the Fly Tying room (a.k.a. the man room) for this coming weekend.  It might only be one room, but it needs a lot of attention.  It is in total disarray with fishing stuff, camping gear, and hunting clothes strung all over.  I think I can see what color the carpet is, sorta, maybe. Okay, I can't.  But, I do have memories of what it should look like once it is back in good order and prepped for fly tying season. 

www.critters-corner.com

End of our steelhead season...probably

Photo taken by J. Rawls

We continued fishing Sunday and Monday, but there was no catching.  We did have a great time in the evenings socializing and tying flies while watching YouTube videos of "Cows with Guns" and a clip of Richard Simmons doing a hilariously crazy appearance on "Whose Line is it anyways."  These are the moments to remember with friends!

I had reached out to several of my fishing buddies for reports of happiness, but sadly their fishing stories also lacked any significant catching. 

So unless the river gods "wave" a magic wand to change the "tide" of the "current" conditions, our season has "plunged" to an end for this year.  (bad pun, but I thought it was amusing)

www.critters-corner.com

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.

www.critters-corner.com

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.

www.critters-corner.com

This post is not really fishing related, but there is fish art pictures

So not really a fishing post, but it's been a while and I didn't want you all to forget about me.  So for Christmas, I asked Santa Clause to talk my brother into bringing his suitcase of pain tattoo equipment home.  So Santa did, and "B" brought home his Needles of terror tools of the trade, and I now have more ink.  Check it out!


Yin Yang Trout with a Japanese kanji symbol meaning "little treasure" on my arm.  This was inspired by a painting I had seen at a restaurant we stopped at for lunch out west on one of my Montana fishing trips.

The other one I had done on my leg was from a Chinese scroll painting that I saw years ago and fell in love with it's eye catching simplicity. This particular image of the black and red koi according to Chinese symbolism means Success.  Additionally, In Buddhist thought, fish represent freedom.  The enlightened state of Buddhism allows for unrestrained movement in the world, you will not be held back by life's illusions.  Not to mention, it's just cool looking.

Thanks again for doing this for me B!!!

http://www.critters-corner.com/

Steelhead on! (Oct. 10th & 11th)

Beep beep beep, whack the snooze button!   Beep beep beep, whack the snooze button!   Two hours later of that, and we got up and raced out the door at 6:30am last Sunday.  We were out the night before celebrating at a friends wedding reception and may have been enjoying ourselves a little bit more then the anticipated 3 hours of sleep could have cured. 

Jen and I headed up North to chase steelhead for two days.  Jen was really antsy to get up there and to cure her steelhead fever, which I found really amusing.  She had the fever bad!

We got our trout pants on and were in the water by 10:30am.  It was warmer then it usually is as was noted by something I normally don’t run into while fishing for steelhead.  MOSQUITO'S!  Anyway, we headed to a spot we knew to try our luck and within two hours, the Jen-orator had hooked a steelhead.  I was one hole down from her chatting with Mother Fieker when we heard yelling through the woods from her direction. We ran up the trail to see what was going on and Jen was in mid fight with her opponent!  She worked it perfectly to the net and it was a NICE 26” Buck with all the dark red colors on the cheek and sides.  It was awesome!  We popped the flask for shot in celebration, and I had a cigar on her behalf, and it was only 12:30p! 

We simmered down and got back to business fishing.  Jen had a heck of day, as she had many more takes and battles, (eight in all) but wasn’t able to get them under control and landed.  I admit that by early evening I was getting green and agitated as I hadn’t had so much as a head-shake while she was getting all that action.  But about 5pm, I had a steelhead strike, I set the hook and it was landed after some serious racing in both directions up and down the river and several acrobatics in the air.  I was just along for the ride and had little control over where it wanted to be.  It was a 22" bright silver steelie.  I was feeling much better after that.  We fished a bit longer then went back to the truck just before dark.  As for what they were biting on, they were hitting nymphs and eggs pretty much equally.  We changed into some dry clothes at the Brule Motel, and then headed over to the "Other Place" bar and grill for supper and cocktails with Mother Fieker.

Sunday was a little different flavor.  Jen caught lots of snags, trees, and frustration.  She hadn't had single hit to add to her frustration.  I missed a couple, and then when fishing one of the tougher spots I know with a lot of snags, I hooked into a Steelhead.  And she like going downstream....Alot! Every time I reeled in the line to get it close, she would shoot down river again.  I ended up wading after it a good ways until I could get it beached.  Another fresh chrome, this one being about 24 inches and heavy. 

I really like fighting these guys!  We fished a bit more then called it half way through.  We had a good weekend and knew we'd be back again in four days with the club thinking the peak of the run is yet to come!  If only thier run lasted the whole year! 

 

http://www.critters-corner.com/

Fall fishing, closing one season and starting another!

Brookies, Browns, Muskies, and Steelhead, Oh My!

Wednesday:

I left early morning and headed southeast to Vernon county to close out the inland trout season.  There was much uncertainty the night before at the Fly Angler trying to decide where to go since so many rivers have been impacted with all the rain, but I rolled my dice to see what I would find.  I rolled into Viroqua, WI and headed straight to the Driftless Angler fly shop for some local intel.  The guy at the shop was way helpful with where to go, where to avoid, and what the hot flies were.  Turns out the rivers North of town were cloudy to blown-out and the rivers south of town were clearing up really well. 

A total of twenty minutes spent at the shop and I was out the door to my first destination where I rigged up my 4wt bamboo rod for the occasion.  That day, with no exageration, I caught close to fifty brookies and browns.  Mostly all the fish were caught on nymphs.  The 15-20 wind pretty much blew out the Blue Wing Olives that were around and killed any hopes for a little dry fly action.  There was one rocket of a trout that shot out for the ant pattern I threw.  He managed to take my line over a big branch sticking out of the water, so when I crossed the stream to "save the trout" I blew a perfectly nice pool only to find that the trout attached my hook to the branch and had left before I got there.  The tricky little bastard conned me.  So not only was he not there to save, but now I had to wait a while for the fish to return to the pool.

At the end of the day, I set up camp and then went to town for a great German beer at Chilito Lindo, the local Mexican restaurant, run by a frazzled Asian girl.  I know, odd three-way combination, but it all seemed to work out okay.  Especially since my order was messed up the least by the cooks.  They must have been new.  I returned to camp shortly after and fell asleep to the sound of the Amish horse and buggy traffic driving through town near the campground.

Thursday:

I woke up in the tent to mid 30's accompanied by pretty damp surroundings.  Nice!  I packed up the site then made breakfast of oatmeal and peanut butter sandwich in make-shift cheap plastic water bottle.  That didn't go too well, I don't recommend making oatmeal in cheap bottles.  It kinda shriveled up and didn't mix as well as I thought it would.  Lesson learned I guess.  Oh and the cheap spoons I commandeered the night before from the gas station doesn't work too hot either when they were heated up by the boiling water.

Anyway, I found and paid the nice lady for using the campground and for my new membership to the West Fork Sportsman's Club.  After shooting the breeze with her for a bit I headed fifteen minutes West to fish, where I caught a really beautiful fall brookie that made my trip that measured twelve inches in a very hard place to fish with crystal clear water on a pink squirrel.

I moved on to another river 45 minutes East towards home and had a blast catching a bunch of browns, picking one to two fish out of a pocket of water, then moving up river to the next pocket for one to two more.  I did this pattern of "run-n-gun" a good ways up the river till evening.  When I was at the bridge earlier deciding whether to fish up stream or down stream, I noticed two signs down stream.  The one closest to me stating that it was open to the public for fishing, and the one back further stating "Beware of Bull."  Some land owner had a sick sense of humor.  Since I wasn't armed with a meat grinder or hamburger bun for a Bull-encounter, I thought it best to fish the other side of the bridge upstream.  I jetted home at the end of the day completely happy.   I stopped in for dinner at the St. Paul Fly Tier's meeting at Schroeder's Bar & Grill and reported the great fishing I had enjoyed to some buddies.

Friday: 

After a less then satisfying day at work, I headed up to Peters cabin in Northern Wisconsin

met up within ten minutes of his arrival, we settled in, set up our fly tying vises and cocktails and tied Steelhead flies until late while catching up and swapping stories.

Saturday:

Peter made a great fisherman's breakfast with the added bonus of some good tea that I brewed up.  We were out the door an hour later to our meeting point with Wendy from the Hayward Fly Fishing Company for a day on the Flambeau River chasing muskies.

Peter spent a little time with his special technique of casting flies in the trees, but that didn't slow him down from catching three muskies.  Must be some secret there I don't yet understand.  I caught my first muskie ever.  It was about 32" on a 9wt rod with a big 6" black and orange puglisi fly.  I got to keep the fly in honor of the occasion too!  It was a fun fight and I could hardly believe that it was finally going to happen.  The next thing I knew we had it in the net in the boat and my camera was Peters hands.  Way cool!  The weather conditions were pretty unstable, there were spurts of rain and heavier wind gusts with the sun shining at the same time for most of the day.  Wendy is always fun to spend a day with, and did I mention that I caught my first muskie?!

We returned back to the cabin to pack up the muskie stuff that we used to catch my first muskie, then I converted some stuff over to for Sundays fishing trip to the Brule River for Steelhead.  Once that was done, we celebrated at the local supper club with some cocktails, local micro brews (appropriately named "Mouthy Muskie Light", and the "Crappie Flopper"), animated discussion of various subjects, including each of us writing down on napkins the species of fish we had caught this season.  It was a fun mojo thing.  Peter kinda kicked my ass in that department as my count was 13 different species this year and his count was 23 or 24 species.  For the record though, he did have a minnow marked down on his list.

We moved on back to the cabin and with a little inspiration from our celebrating, some "interesting" flies were tied and then we talked ourselves into retiring for the evening so that we would be ready for more fishing the next day.  And maybe spend some time dreaming of the Muskie that I caught.

Sunday:

With the fading smell of the muskie slime on my hands from my first muskie, we packed our stuff up and closed the cabin down as we were not returning.  We arrived in Brule, WI where we stopped first to look at a potential fishing cabin in town that was listed at an attractive enough price for me to actually think about it seriously.  It could pass for a nice fishing cabin, but it is in the middle of town, which could be both good and not so good.  After a quick inspection we headed to the river to try our luck fishing.

The morning started out slow, but it was beautiful.  We had seen a ton of turkeys everywhere we drove over the past two days and the fall colors were putting on a show for us.  It was perfect fall weather in Wisconsin.  We decided to drive to a different location which proved to be the right thing to do.  Peter landed a 22" chrome Steelhead mid morning on a caddis nymph and I had missed my first take of the season, which made me confident that I was doing something right and that they were in there.

The very few people we ran into said they hadn't had any luck, which wasn't encouraging, but

in the last hour of light of the day on the third stretch of the Brule further down river, I "got on the dance floor" as Peter put it.  I briefly caught and fought a Steelhead long enough for it to launch clear out of the river and spit my fly back at me. I am pretty sure he stuck up his middle fin at me too while laughing at me.  And that was pretty much the end of the action for the day.  We changed out of our waders at the local gas station and headed for home very happy with ourselves.

www.critters-corner.com