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

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Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado...that's where we are going for a one week vacation.  Jen and I spent the whole weekend preparing for our upcoming vacation with her immediate family (about 11 of us all together). 

Jen and I plan on the usual itinerary of some fishing, some photography, some hiking, and hopefully a lot of smiles, relaxation, deepening of my zen practice, and checking out some local watering holes.  We also hope to add the greenback cutthroat to our species list, and the potential additional twist of catching some on my 13' Tenkara Ayu rod that I have recently been fishing with that I bought from Kinni Creek Outfitters.  I don't think that will be too hard, especially since Jen and I booked a 6-hour trip with a local guide from Kirk's Fly shop that was recommended to us by my fellow Tenkara buddy, Eric.

We are adding another twist to this vacation in that Jen her younger sister will be in the Highlander with all the stuff for the vacation and the brother-in- law and I will be riding separately on our motorcycles out there.  I've got a '08 Yamaha Raider 1900, and Troy has a Harley Davidson Fat Boy (96cc I think.  I'm used to metric engine sizes and not sure how that works for a Harley.  Using the Harley engine measurements, I think mine is a 113). But I digress and it doesn't really matter cause, they are cycles and we are riding.  This trip should be a a great adventure. 

Oh and another thing, about five miles away, is a small 13-acre lake I loaded with trout that I want to visit due to it's name, Sprague Lake.  Sprague is one of the six or so spellings our family has that I found while do a lot of research on Ancestry.com, and thought it would be neat to see and maybe take some photos while fishing.  The adventure starts this Friday!  We will be staying at Moraine campground, which from what I have read, is very very basic, which is the way we like it,  Perfect!

The proposed route is the most direct route, but should be a heck of a lot more scenic then going through Nebraska.  We'll be going west via I-90 and have several of us meet up in Sioux City, SD for the night.  Then continue on through the bad lands the next day towards Rapid City or Cheyenne for Saturday night, and finishing up the drive to arrive at the campsite Sunday morning-ish for check-in. 

Updates on Operation Schultz Family Vacation 2012 to be continued.

 

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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

 

 

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Moth Video (Cercopia)

Video clip of a moth (Cercopia) that was found at the Cottonwood fly shop Thursday morning.

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Last Day

Saturday was our last day of fishing for Mother Feiker and myself.

 



The weather was great, with 70s' for the air temp, and NO RAIN.  We agian signed up for the 3-mile to Bighorn float, and probably didn't need to.  We floated down river for only five minutes when we pulled to a bank to fish at the old school house to LOTS of rising fish.  We could have walked that.  They were fun, tricky, and hungry all at once.  Some would take comparaduns, some took midges, others only took parachutes, a couple took a trico pattern I had that I snipped the tails off of.  It was a smorgesboard.  We fished that spot for way too long, but it was hard not to when they kept biting.  finally at 2pm we moved on as we still had another 9.75 miles of river to float. 

 

We found several more areas of rising fish, that we successfully harrassed before and after the Bay of Pigs, and we also had some luck by the Twenty Dollar hole.  There were other places that we could have fished as well, but we pretty much determined our stops by who ever needed to pee.  You may be laughing, but that what we did.  And it worked out and we caught lots of trout that way.

It was great that we could end the week on a good note....but wait.  Did someone forget to arrange a shuttle for us?  When we got to the landing, both my vehicle and Andersons' vehicle were not at the landing.  I know we asked for a shuttle as I made the arrangements and gave Thor the keys.  Great.  Effed again!  Luckily three guys that had pulled in to the landing offered me a ride back to camp so that I could try to resolve our little surprise.  I grabbed Kurt, got the keys the keys that were still in the fly shop...something of an explainaition that was offered by the camp hosts of "they had a dabacle" and missed voicemails between the shop closing in the morning and reopening in the afternoon and three vehicles were not shuttled as a result of the communication breakdown.  Well, we had two of the three vehicles.  So in effect, effed again...twice. 

 

Really though I had to blame the Bob's.  Both have had thier history of shuttle debacles and they happen to share this expierence with me for good sport I guess.  They've both had issues at the Bighorn a few times, then there was the time at the bass outing two years ago when everyone forgot about them, and then there was the Brule where the Canadian forgot the key in the first truck so they couldn't get in the one at the second truck.  So they are pretty much seasoned veterens in this situation. 

 

Anyway, everything worked out, we got the boats back to camp, had a bloody mary with our dinner - it was taco night!  And just hung out for awhile out on the patio lauging about lots stuff including the "shuttle debacle."  

Sunday we packed up, showered, paid our tabs, and were on the road by 10:30am.  I dropped off Bob at his place just after 1:00AM Monday morning, and I was home about 2:00am.  Jen woke up and we started talking about the week for a little bit and then...a big flash and the power went out at 2:30AM.  Effed again...



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Friday



Big Bull passing through.

Friday we had a cold front come in and we may have reached the low 70's for air temperature.  It was a little chilly.  The hatches were not going well at all and very few trout were rising.  This was not good for the dry fly head hunters.  Mother Feiker and I are thinking that we need a patch or flag to hang on our pontoons that says something along the lines of the Happy Head Hunters or Head Hunters Anonymous and have a logo with a fish head that has a bone going through its nose.  We may have been out in the sun too long, but we think it would be fun to get something made up for our dry fly sickness we had this week.  We did the ten mile float from 3-mile to Bighorn landing and only saw two fish caught all day and both were people on guide boats fishing nymphs. 

 

Pretty horse and pretend horse.

On the way down we stopped at the corral, and we were pretty much kicked out as we were waiting for a hatch to start.  We had cow, a bull, and a few horses, and a pretend horse come into our area.  One of the horses even went so far as to walk directly through the spot where the fish were, thrash around and then came back to shore.  I found it comical, except for the part when the bull got too close for my comfort trying to cross behind us on a narrow path.  And turns out that any threats made to the bull about how it would taste with A1 steak sauce are pretty much ineffective in these situations.

 

 

Horse walking through our fish.

We floated almost half way down before we even wet our lines, and then I think I only fished 20 minutes before the rain put down the only pod of rising fish that we had seen all day.  We tried fishing a little longer as the rain came down, but it was "casts of hope" rather then anything else.   

 

 

 

 

 

Cold hamburger

In addition to the rain, we had more cows crossing the water were fishing in the flat water just above the Bighorn Rapids.  We seemed to be magnets for the farm animals.  At least I think the cold water got the best of him as he let out a pretty good beller once he got the other side.  Talk about revenge is best served "cold."  It was fun to watch the sparrows.  They were out by the hundreds swooping just above the water and circling back catching something in the air.  They were doing that all day, and it was ok until we started casting, then it felt as if you had to be careful and time the casts so as to not catch one of them as they flew by.

 





Fishing dries in the rain.  "Dry or Die!"

That night we got back to camp and Thor had made an awesome Pheasant dinner with wild rice.  Jim, and the normal crew as well as Kevin (one of the local guides) all feasted on this 5 star meal.  And then it turned out to be a good night for drinks, cigars, and story telling.  Not a bad way to end the day despite the fishless day.



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Encore Thursday

Today was similar to yesterday.  It was hot, we were getting more dry fly action, and we had a rain storm that forced us to hang out on the banks for an hour or so due to very high winds.  But after the storm was done, unlike yesterday, the hatch continued on and we got to fish for several more hours.

Ed and I fished for trout, while the Bob's were trying for some carp that were rising.  Both hooked up twice each, but the broke the leaders on the hook sets due to the aggressive takes.

Pretty much everyone we talked to today had a great day and lots of opportunities to catch fish and ours seemed to be a bit bigger today, averaging around 20 inches.

We also fooled around with the video camera today and we might be able to figure how to get some of that posted in an abbreviated short video.  Hopefully the section were we drifted by half dozen turkey vultures on the side of a cliff turns out.  They looked kinda out of place on the bank that was almost straight up and down. 

Today's pictures:

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Wacky Wednesday

We did okay yesterday, but it was a hot one.  Several of us had got a bit dehydrated and sun burned floating from 3-mile to Bighorn landing.  Today got a bit more exciting on the same float.  It was supposed to be in the 90's today, so we dragged our feet and didn't get on the water till about 10:00 am. 

The dry fly action was going pretty good in few spots, mostly on BWO parachutes and cripples size 18.  We saw another bull snake swimming across the river, a couple of muskrats, and then a prairie dog.  The Prairie dog was swimming at me from the opposite bank and when I moved to grab my camera it was about 2 rod lengths away and realized he shouldn't land on me and continued on passed me to the bank. 

Sometime around 3 or 4 pm, a front moved in very fast, the temperature dropped about 20 degrees and a thunderstorm blew in.  The rain was hard and almost felt like hail.  Feiker and I scrambled toward shore and when they started to blow off we scrambled to save them.  Anderson was laughing and then he bolted off toward his drift boat as it started to sail away from the shore.  If I had to guess I think the wind was probably around 30mph or better.  Luckily, four of the five of us know Montana well enough that we had rain jackets packed.  We learned that our cigars were storm proof as they kept going all through the down poor.  So they are now a MUST for future trips. 

All the other boats on the river were paddling by, but we were not trusting that 1) our kick boats would stay upright in the storm, 2) that our rods wouldn't attract lightning, 3) our aluminum oars wouldn't attract lightning, 4) that we would have any control of steering our boats.  So what else were we to do but waited out with cigars and Leinenkugals.  Everything passed and an hour later it was done. 

After the storm cleared up, the hatch was done, so we pretty much just floated the remaining five miles of river to the landing hoping for rising fish.   We didn't see enough to make us stop at any one spot.

Then at the end as we were coming up to the Bighorn landing.  Bob threatened the other Bob that he was going to crush him, then after passing him he actually ran his boat into mine while laughing manically.  I suggested that we need to pull his captains license, but since he doesn't have one it turned out to be an empty threat.  :)

We got back to camp, had grilled steaks, hung our wet gear up and called it a day. 

up river

The Drive In

Who let the dogs out

Incoming thunder storm

During storm

Bent rods in storm

After the storm

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Day 3

Today we did a ten mile float from 3-mile landing to Bighorn landing.  Skies were clear and we hit the high 80's.  We had more luck fishing all dry flies all day.  Most of the success was on BWO parachutes and compara duns.  We caught enough to keep us happy, but they were not too easy to catch today.  Pretty much all browns were caught today, maybe because the rainbows we saw appeared to be setting up in the gravel bars to spawn. 

The two major highlights were that we watched about a 3' bull snake swim across the river to us and I was able to get some pretty good pictures.  The other was that Mother Feiker and I came across a about a dozen very large carp in a side channel.  We tried our best to hook one, but we were not victorious with any of the flies that we threw at them.  Probably for the best, as I don't think we would have had much of a chance controlling them on 4-weights.  The trout that we caught in the area were fun.  The water was skinny, so they would just explode and take aggressive runs after taking the fly.  It was great.

Last but not least, learned today that my new Cabela's boat bag was not waterproof as I was led to believe it.  So I ended up with a bit of a mess with the stuff I had stored in it.  But tomorrow most of the issues should be pretty much dried out and I'll have to line it with a garbage bag for the rest of the trip.

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Day 2.

Last night we got to wet our lines, but the fishing wasn't easy.  It seems the Dry fly fishing has calmed down a little from the week before.  The other three others that I went out managed to get a fish or two eahc, but myself.....it was a different story.  I had a dozen takes, but couldn't execute any lands.  It was not a pretty sight as I may have voiced my opinion about that to the fish while I was trying to get them.  My buddies were laughing at me.

Today was better, we staked a spot about midday and we were able to catch a decent amount of trout on dry flies.  They were fussy, but it was very rewarding.  Not sure what the deal was for me, asI threw pretty much every variation of BWO's I had (since that is what was hatching) and got nothing.  The Smoke Jumper turned out to be my answer and I landed almost a dozen brown trout in the 15" to 18" range. 

Water was clear and 48 degrees, and the air temperature reached the mid eighties.  Some harrasment on the stream from Kevin (one of our favorite guides on the river) and from Thor and Jim Schollmeyer.  It was all in good fun of course.

Here is a couple of pictures of the day. 

Anderson and Ed

Schoolhouse

Barber John

Smoke Jumper

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Almost there

A couple of more hours and we will be checking in!

Bighorn 2012

I've got all my gear together for the annual spring trip to the Bighorn River.  I've grabbed a few last minute items this morning as I wait for Mother Feiker to finish up his half day of work.  Then we are on the road to the wild wild west.

 

So far the forecast for the next ten days is ridiculously beautiful.  It may be the nicest spring vacation I've ever had out there.  Having said that though, maybe I just jinxed it. 

 

I'm so excited I can barely wait to get started and get out of town!!

More to come as I'll be bringing the laptop with.  Some of the guys are bringing video camera's this year and we may be just dangerous enough to figure out how to make our video clips to share. 

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Open Tying Night

Last night was open tying night at The Fly Angler.  Several people showed up to tie with Mike, mostly members of the St. Paul Fly Tiers Club.  It was a good time!  Just before the tying began upstairs, one of my buddies working at the shop put together a nice set up that made me drool.  Seriously...  I only held it for like eight seconds and immediately handed it back.  It felt soo good and the cost of the set up....well let's just say I had to put it back or Jen may have started looking for a burial plot for me.  What was this set you ask?  It was a 8'6" Winston Boron IIIx 4wt, with the Abel Super 3N reel.  Simply AMAZING. 

Once I got upstairs and situated, I tied up a dozen of these Zebra midge variants.  It was the standard pattern but with a red butt that I saw in one of the shops fly bins.  Then I tied a few with a caddis green butt using a gun metal beadhead instead of the copper.  Made for what looked an like an upside down caddis.  Hopefully it will work for me. 

For those interested the next:

• The Rush River Clean Up on April 21st,
• MN Bass Expo 4/20 - 4/22 in Blaine,
• Open tying night at the Fly Angler is May 7th, 6-8pm,
• Club fishing outing on May 20th, 
• and as always, every Thursday night is the Fly Tier's club meetings.  I think there will be some trying their hand at tying tube flies on April 19th.

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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.

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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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