WI Trout C&R Opener

Jen and I went fly fishing for trout over in Wisconsin today and we were skunked.  Which was better then yesterday when we "tried" to go fishing and every single place I knew and some new places we discovered had too many cars for any non-combat fishing.  It was more crazy then I had expected.

Today it was overcast and chili on the water, not terrible for a day off from work, but it could have been warmer or less windy.  Their was a good wind that was blowing up-river which didn't help things for a first fishing excursion of the year.  After spending so many hours on the Brule last fall, I had forgotten how skinny and clear my little local trout water is.  Wow!  Guess I am getting used to bigger waters, thanks to the Brule and Montana rivers.  The snow along the banks was also deeper and heavier then I had anticipated, but nothing to stop anyone with any decent sense of balance from getting out.  Jen used my 4wt Winston rod and I opened the season with my custom 5 weight bamboo rod hoping for some magic. 

We did run into fisherman today who said he had caught one on a #20 BWO, and the other half dozen where on a zebra midge.  We saw very few risers, but we did see some healthy brookies and browns racing up stream from us.  There was a brief hatch, but is was a sparse one, and nothing to write home about.

The lessons learned today were 1) leave a little earlier in the morning then we did to get a spot on the water, 2) my left foot of my waders has a small leak, 3) packing a lunch for the drive home would have been nice (I can only eat so many of those health food bars in one day before I getting tired of them), and 4) don't forget the cigars again (it's proving to be bad luck for me).  

Jen took a few nice pictures with her new pocket camera and all three of the ones in this post were taken by her.  She also got a small taste of how to fish dry flies, more to come on that later this season.