BREAKING COVER

For at least the last decade of my life , my wife and I attend dinner at a local restaurant that has a picture hanging in it's entryway. I always take an extra second to stop and pay my homage to the best "capture" of the the ole king that I've ever seen. It has a gold dedication plate in the matting of the frame that is dedicated to the life to a former physician in the area. I expect the Ruffed Grouse meant as much to him, as it does to me, and probably the reason it was choosen for his memorial piece.
I've always admired it's captivating hues of color of that "magic hour" that we've all experienced among the Dogwood and Aspen, when the sun begins it's descent and the grouse seem to become more active than any other time during the crisp Autumn days.
I couldn't hide my disappointment when about five years ago I finally decided I wanted a copy for myself, and found out it was sold out many, many years ago. There were only a certain amount produced as it was one of Redlins favorite pieces, and all but a few copies were left at all. Those copies were selling for more than I wanted to spend.
This Christmas my understanding, beautiful, and tolerant wife surprised me with a copy of my own, which now proudly hangs in my office. I look at it everyday, and remind myself how lucky i am , in so many ways.

Streamer Weather and Smiles

After weeks of giving the spring creeks of our fine state the proper attention they deserve, I thought it was time to get back to my home water. This water has no improvements, no lunker structures, or nicely manicured paths in which to walk along the bank. As a matter of fact, it has quite the opposite. Carrying a flyrod through the jungle like atmosphere in which this stream provides is a lesson in patience, and humility. In this water, the roll cast rules. Visions of Brad Pitt or Tom Skerrit double hauling entire flylines across boulder infused mountain streams don't live here, but trout do.
What this little freestone lacks in appearance, it makes up in plentiful Brookies and a few large Brown trout. This being our last weekend in the "catch and release" season, I figured I had to get out even though we have a a 70% chance of rain. After all, Streamers LOVE the rain! We had many nice takes from brookies today, and I broke off a large brown in a hole that always seems to hold one of the larger fish we see every trip. So if you happen to catch a fish with a large yellow bugger in his mouth, I really caught that fish first! :)
Next Saturday the worm dunkers will take their fair share of trout back to the frying pan, where they are excellent table fare, but one less statistic to successfully breed for next season. I certainly have no problem with harvesting a fish every once in a while, but please use restraint with the "gem" of the Northwoods.

What NOT to do when fishing for salmon!

make sure to pause my music at the bottom of the page before viewing this.
warning; a foul word is used

Paite's Picturesque Cast

I took this shot of charlie from about 600 yards away, and thought is was just plain cool. i fiddled with it for about an hour and think it captured the elusive, "Charliecabra" in his most graceful moment. I felt it had kind of an "old soul" moment to this picture. Click on the picture to the full effect.

The Sun has set

All good things must come to an end, and unfortunately my trip is no exception. What an relaxing, rejuvenating,and refreshing couple of days. I learned some new things, tried some new tactics, and got to view my brother in law catch his first fish on a dry fly. What a rush of excitement that was. Wind has been a reoccurring theme this week, and today it remained unchanged. I really started to wonder how many days a row any area can have sustained winds of 20 mph? I can now answer that question without hesitation, I just need to leave. For those of you fishing tomorrow, you can expect winds of 5-10 mph, and 65 degree temperatures, sigh. I believe the hatches will be off the charts.
Today's plan had to be altered into fishing some smaller secluded streams surrounded by woods and cover, in hopes of making our casting strokes a little bit smoother. They were, and the fish also cooperated. Most of a our dry fly offerings were ignored, but the emergers hanging off the back fit the bill. It's amazing in a culture of trying to accomplish PURE deadrifts, how just a tiny lift can trigger an instinct and cause them to react, and I'm certainly thankful for it.
I feel lucky to have had such a great week, thanks to all those who participated in it, Kim, Paul, Charlie, Peter, Steve it was one for the books

Brookies and Browns

For a little change of pace I decided to chuck some streamers on a little brook trout feeder this morning before the infamous "Paul Wall" got down the base camp. I had a dozen or so hand sized brookies on a little yellow crystal flash bugger in a couple of hours. We had good cloud cover, but the wind was absolutely horrid again today, averaging sustained wind about 23 mph.

After lunch and Paul's arrival we went to stretch of river that he and I had fished probably bordering on seven years ago. It looked a little different, but some of those memorable holes that held good numbers of fish years ago, still produced like nothing ever changed.. The largest fish of the day was probably bordering 16 or so inches and had a golden brown color, much like I have seen in the northwestern Wisconsin streams.

It understandably took Paul a second to get his casting rhythm back after the dust had settled on his rod over the last couple of seasons. It didn't take long till the old SLT was easily lofting our imitations into the tightly secluded spots of old Mr. Brown. We always have a so many laughs, and a great time.

OLIVE another

We still had the wind, still had the heat, but today we also had a TON of fish! It didn't matter if we were using nymphs, caddis, or OLIVES, we had success after success for the entire outing. Caddis larvae and Scuds definitely outperformed the the other imitations we threw earlier in the day, consisting of a red copper johns and various midge larvae. WE dead drifted riffles, extremely deep holes, runs, and had the same results from these different types of water. It was great to see this water recover a little bit as it was one of the many that were heavily damaged during the great floods of this area 3 short years ago.
After refueling our bodies with the all time classic lunch of PB&j and a granola bar, it was off to an afternoon of dry fly exploration. We had seen good numbers of black caddis coming off. We both put our favorite black caddis imitation on and started to search the windswept water. Even with a good amount of natural bugs on the water, the trout seemed to be ignoring them? It was a little mind boggling.
Kim then said I'M "THROWING ON AN OLIVE", even though we hadn't seen any come off all day long. What happened next was an enigma of the best kind. Fish after fish eagerly inhaled our little parachutes, some even topping the 17 inch mark. All in all it was a fantastic day, spent with a grouse hunting buddy who happens to be one of the best "tactical nymphers" I've ever seen.

To top it off I got a nice wave from an Amish family in their horse and buggy on the way home back to basecamp. It was a good, good day!