Trip Report: Fishin' With Tim in the Woods

Today my friend Tim and I got up early and hit a local trout stream in the rain. Temps never got above the mid 40's but we both made it through the day comfortable, for the most part. I got a pretty significant hole in my waders so my feet got a little wet. I can't wait for wet wading weather!

Right off the bat I picked up this little tiger trout! A tiger trout is the sterile offspring of a brook trout and a brown trout. This was only my second tiger. As we continued upstream flat waters gave way to fairly constant rippling. We noticed a ton of midges and a few spare Mayflies. We both changed flies a lot.

This decent trout sipped a quill bodied mayfly emerger from the surface.

This guy took down a size 20 Griffiths Gnat. He put up a solid fight before swimming into the net. The trout pictured above looks like he got hit by and eagle, otter, or heron.

 

 As the afternoon proceeded we continued to nail 'em on various emergers and dries. Between the two of us we tried WD40's, Comparadun BWO's, Parachute BWO's, Zebra Midges, midge emergers, Matt's Midge, and Quill Bodied Mayflies. We also landed a few on Scuds early in the day.

 Tim landed this beauty on a dry! At one nice run that was flush with fish Tim pointed out a fish surfacing no more than 10 feet in front of us. He told me to catch it and on my first cast the fish came and sipped it off the surface, maybe my favorite fish of the day. I hope to get out again soon but we'll see what work, family obligations, and the weather have to say about it!

Trip Report: Eagles and Trout

Today I headed northward to fish in Wisconsin with my friend Sean today. I was excited to take the river road in hopes of finding eagles. The river road did not disappoint and by the time I pulled in next to Sean I spotted 130 eagles! Of course I had to stop for a few pics.

 I struck first blood on a few small ones before Sean pulled in this foot long brown. This stream was small and crystal clear making long and accurate casts a must.

 I landed this well figured brownie on a pink scud. Often I'll barely hook 'em with the pink scud but these guys took the fly like the meant it. Sean fished with a number of pink squirrel variations and other small nymphs.

 This stream had a ton of woody debris and a rocky substrate with intermittent areas of sandy muck. It was also prone to flooding. Wisconsin has a generous stream access law which only required us to remain below the high water mark when wading through private property. This made getting around pretty easy.

 All the fish we landed had really nice, light coloration. With Sean feeling under the weather and me itching to get back to the eagles we parted ways around 130pm.We hoped to find fish rising to small mayflies today but we had no such luck.

I took a little different way home and I found a great little brook trout stream by accident! I landed four browns and 7 brookies in a little over a half hour. Most fish came from one, long, deep pool.