Return to the "Driftless"

It's been too long, a year to be exact. I certainly wont make that mistake again.  I went back to an old stretch of river that I've fished many times, and like welcoming home an old friend, it was bliss from the moment I walked through the door.
I picked a rock to see what was going on for bug life, a few crawler mayfly nymphs , midge larvae all over the place,  a few sow bugs, and a freshwater shrimp. This made my selection of 'old reliable" fairly simply. I tied on my olive tungsten scud trailed by a juju midge, and by my third cast, I had already hooked into a plump little foot long fish.
This could have very well been the theme of the day. It seemed like we couldn't go five or ten casts without hooking up, and we weren't complaining, but yet we were a bit puzzled? This river had normally housed at least a few line breaking , muscle bound Browns, that made you realize the need for fluorocarbon a few times during the day. Where in the world had they gone?

Was it simply this crazy warm spring, and they weren't up in the normal holes? Or, was it simply that our cast, mending, and acumen wasn't up to par with getting the right to hook one of these fish yet? My guess is it's a combination of the two. A quest to the DRIFT LESS ANGLER afterwords made me feel a little bit better about the lack of larger fish. Matt had said this particular river had been fishing that way this season, and he had no idea why? Could it be there were to many takers last season, or a fish die-off, to many little guys for competition? I had no idea why, but to put that many tugs on the end of my four weight was just too great to put into words.
Nothing was truly "coming off" today except for a few sporadic egg laying black caddis, but I suspect that the next coming weeks it could really go off down in SW WI. I plan on being there when it does!
So for you readers of the blog, I'm always looking for fishing partners. It seems we all get way to busy in life, whether that be because of work, kids, yard chores, etc etc, DON'T LET THIS SPRING AND EARLY SUMMER GET AWAY! I let ALL of last year get away, and I'll never forgive myself!