2nd time out for the 2012 season.

Jen and I had a good day on the river.  We were able to finally get out again, after my spring had a temporary interruption of two unplanned visits to the emergency room.  Which made this day together on the river all the more appreciated.  The day started out overcast and as we drove into Western Wisconsin the skies cleared up. 

 

We crossed a couple bridges on the quiet winding roads of rural Wisconsin passing by cows, turkeys, eagles, and a Lama (the fuzzy four legged kind, not the bald two legged kind).   We pulled off to a spot I vaguely remembered from two years ago thinking that it would be as good as any place to start.  We put on the waders, rigged up each of our 7' 4wt bamboo fly rods, and headed up-river.  We messed around for about an hour with limited success before coming upon a Private Property sign that made me decide to turn back.  It didn't say "Keep Out," but it also didn't say, "Come on in" either. 

 

On our way back, we had a young guy local who lived across the road stop and chat with us on his Arctic Cat four wheeler.  I wasn't thrilled when he pulled up as I just wanted to be left alone today.  But five minutes into our conversation, I decided I liked this guy and we continued to chat for about a half hour.  We traded a few fishing stories, how his maple syrup season was slow this year, and some knowledge of each others rivers and lakes, which really benefited Jen and I.  Turns out....we should have gone down river from where we walked in.  And that made all the difference in our day.

 

We parted ways and headed downstream.  We caught a lot of what I call firecrackers.  Brookie's in the six to ten inch range, that are so feisty and full of spastic energy when you catch them, and so brightly painted with their orange tummies and fins, black and white edges, and green marbled backs.  BAM!  They're just little sticks of dynamite!

 

The Lucky fly of the day!

The key was to use one of my favorite wet fly patterns that has a starling (or grouse or woodcock) hackle, black dubbing body with copper ribbing, and a few fibers of golden pheasant feather for a tail.  Oh, and kneeling definitely helped today as well with the water being almost gin clear and the bright sunshine, we had to reduce our presence to the trout. 

 

There was very little in the way of hatches today, just enough to make you hope some dry fly action would come about, but we only saw a few fish break the water chasing emergers. 

 

In one hole that had a some bigger trout in it, we spotted two snapping turtles hanging out in strategic spots that made for casting to the trout pretty hard.  That would suck to catch one of them on a fly rod, and since the fish were not big enough to get my adrenaline going, we moved along quickly form that spot.  Later we decided Spring was here to stay, as we came across two more snapping turtles that were "hugging," or some call it "shaking hands" with each other at the bottom of a short run.  Our own little version of Wild America I guess.

 

At the end of the day we headed back home and stopped in to one of my favorite post-fishing pubs, The Mainstreeter Bar & Grill in River Falls (who still does not have a website).  We had Supper there along with a frosty beverage and then continued on back home.

 

Air temp: 60's

Wind: Intermittent 0-10mph

Water Conditions: Cold/clear

Sunshine: Lots of it

 

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2012 trout fishing practice run.

First time out with the fly rod for this year and it went pretty well.  Had breakfast in River Falls at the South Fork Cafe with a pretty good sized group of the club members of the Saint Paul Fly Tiers and then left for fishing from there.  The sun was out, snow was melting, I'm guessing we were in the mid 50's for air temperature, spring was definitely in the air.

Based on information from the day before, our little sub-group of the club ventured over to the Rush.   We explored several bridges only to find that the river was blown out.  Total Chocolate milk. 

Without getting into all the drama this may have entailed, and losing the Canadian....again, we went back to the Kinni and rigged up.  Oh, and I found out that what Mother Feiker calls the Pig Farm, didn't have any pigs.  Yeah, I gave him a lot grief on that one.  Seriously, only my friends would name something after something that's not what it is.

Anyway, the Kinni was stained, but fishable.  We all caught fish, using wets and nymphs.  Small black Stone flies and midges were present, but there was no dry fly action on our stretch.  Bummer. 

The added bonus to being out on the river this beautiful spring day after being cooped up for four months was that I got to fish with my newest bamboo fly rod that Steve Yasgur had built for me.  It was a lot of fun, but I need a couple more outings with it to be thoroughly sure of it's fun factor.  ;) 

That's it, that's all I got for you for this report.

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Tough Trouting

Last Saturday Ed called me up to go fly fishing on the Kinni and of course I said "you betcha."  We had about 4 hours of fishing in before the rain pushed us off.  I caught a handfull of browns using small streamers, and Ed caught a trout on a fly he tied, which was a first for him.  Way to go buddy, keep at it!  It was my first time down to the Kinni since the high waters and you can see some obvious changes to the river, not all bad either, except that we didn't catch anything over 10" long.

  

As we were getting out of our waders at the truck, it started raining really good, which was about the same time that Ed realized he had misplaced his cell phone.  We looked quickly before giving up betting that it was somewhere inside the truck.  We then headed back into town to the Mainstreeter for lupper as the rain poored down.  By the time we were done eating, the rain was done.  With one more look through everything inside the truck to find Ed's phone, I spotted it...on the roof of my Toyota.  The miracle wasn't that it was there after driving into town from the fisherman's parking lot, it was that after all that rain, it still worked!

Yesterday, the Canadian and I went back to the Kinni for the evening and fished till dark.  Between the two of us, Ben caught the first, biggest, and most fish, by landing the one and only trout for the evening.  Even the worm dunker that was fishing below us was not catching anything.  Odd, he must have bought the cheap live bait.  We ran into a few people with nothing much significant caught, with the exception of one guy.  He said he caught sixteen fish.  Show off or liar, I can't decide which.  He, for what it's worth, said that he was using grey scud patterns.  hmm, the one fly in the kitchen sink I didn't throw in the water.  Go figure.  At our debriefing over supper at the Mainstreeter in River Falls, we decided to try fishing again Sunday on a stretch of river Ben knew of in southern Minnesota.  

Ben served up some great Sweadish pancakes and jam for breakfast.  FABULOUS!  Then he and Jen and I left Amy behind, and headed out the door to see what the fishing would bring us.  With the one minor issue of back tracking bit to a local DNR license agent after realizing that when Jen bought her MN fishing license at the Fly Angler this morning before drinking her coffee that she forgot to add the trout stamp.  REALLY GIRL? REALLY? GEEZ!!  So I got over my minor aneurysm, and she bought her trout stamp and we continued on to trout country.  Which, by the way, we did see a Conservation Officer driving around several times.  He never stopped to chat with us.  Dang, he could have seen Jen's brand new shiny unused trout stamp!  Just kidding Jen. Kinda.

We fished for half a day and then decided to pull the plug.  It was pretty damn hot, especially wandering in the woods in waders with our sleeves rolled down to the wrist due to the amount of stinging nettles around.  It was a bright blue bird day and not a single cloud in the sky for cover.  To add to the day, the trout didn't get the memo we were coming to play as they were not really active or feeding.  I caught three brookies, Ben caught one brown, and poor Jen caught none (must have been the bad trout-karma for her earlier "trout stamp incident").  One of the brookies I caught was on one of my latest wet fly concept patterns that stayed up until 5am tying this past Friday night.  (Note to Yaz: it was the black/silver variation of the flies I gave you on Saturday).

Even with the fishing not being on fire for us the past week, I have hopes that this coming weekend will get better.  The forecast is optimistic, with temperatures easing back a bit, and as the end of inland trout season comes nearer, the trout gods need give up something for us to reflect on during the upcoming winter.

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A good weekend

Friday night Jen and I had a dinner date with Ben and Amy at a little Russian Restaurant called Moscow on the Hill.  It was pretty fun, the foods were good, the staff was fast, and several vodka shots tastings were had.  They had more choices of vodkas and specialty drinks then there are pine needles on a tree.  My main entree was a pork dish with apples and almonds inside it, and it was very flavorful.  Jen ordered a salmon fillet with dumplings on the side.  She raved about the dumplings.  I tasted the salmon and thought it was the best I'd ever had in the Midwest.  The appetizer was very good as well, it was a smorgasbord of things, and surprisingly, we all were digging the beat salad the most.  I' would definitely do it again.

Saturday morning Jen and I ran around picking up the house a little, wrapping presents, and last minute shopping.  Ben stopped over after his shopping was done for the day, and we set up to tie flies around the kitchen table for the next four hours.  We did take a brief break with a quick visit to the Fly Angler down the road, as I needed some more hooks and beads for the pattern I was tying.  We just plain enjoyed the day, a couple of cocktails (our friends bourbon, spiced rum, and crown paid us a visit), tied a few flies, had Christmas music on in the background.  Later on in the evening I did some consolidating of my many random post it notes listing flies to tie and made a consolidated list that was more manageable to read then my various chicken scratches on yellow squares.  Overall, I'd call that a good day.

Sunday we didn't leave the house.  I made a hearty breakfast, we paid some bills, spent some time  on both the wisflyboard and then on the Flytyingforum websites, opened our stocking stuffer gifts to each other, and then I was back to the fly tying bench with football on in the background and VH1's top 40 videos of the year.  Inspired by a fly pattern I saw online today and by the theme of the flies I'd been tying the past week or so, I came up with a neat pattern.

Hook:  TMC 3761 #12
Thread: 8/0 Olive Uni-Thread
Tail/shuck: 2 strands of pearl accent flashabou
Body: Ultra-wire green (size brassie) and Ultra-wire copper (size medium)
Thorax: Black UV Ice Dubbing
Hackle: Hen English soft hackle