Trip Report: Fishin' With Mike!

I originally planned to spend my weekend building a fly rod for someone but all of the components did not arrive on time. My brother in law Mike decided to make a last minute trip to the Minnesota Driftless and expressed interest in chasing some trouts this morning. New plan! We got on stream around 9am. It started out cloudy and mild but by the time we left at 11am the wind howled and temps dropped. We fished a headwater section of a local stream known to harbor skittish brook and brown trout. We noticed a few fish rising to midges when we arrived but we opted to fish the pink squirrel of prey.

Mike started the day with a decent brookie! His first brookie ever in fact! He also caught a little brownie, both on the pink squirrel of prey.

 This bad dude got in on the action too. I caught the majority of my fish out of three holes. I stayed low and tossed my fly deep through each pool/run. In one pool I landed at least 15 fish while in another I must have caught 20. As you can see from the backgrounds of these pics we fished in an area prone to windy conditions and today was WINDY!

 This was the big fish of the day. He wasn't huge but sure fun to pull out from under a rock in the midst of a deep pool. He took the pink squirrel of prey as well. After landing this chunker we headed back toward the car. As fish were surfacing sporadically on midges I decided to try fishing with a mini indicator and a black size 18 zebra midge. I found a pool where I could see at least 20-30 fish just sitting on the bottom. I turned to Mike and said, "I will now catch every fish out of this pool, it's all about confidence!" I proceeded to catch one after the other.

Almost all of the fish in the pool were brookies. I did land a few small browns as well. After landing around 40 fish total we decided to call it a day.

 Sexy!

If you'd like to purchase Pink Squirrels of Prey, Zebra Midges, or any other flies I may have in stock visit www.whitewatervalleyflies.wordpress.com