I've been fishing a little here and there prior to this week. Fish have been eating size 18-20 bwo dry patterns and I've had a few 20-30 fish days, all 6-13 inches long. This week I took vacation and planned to fish both in the Driftless and in the Sand Counties in Wisconsin. Before I headed to the streams of the Central Sands I fished with my buddy Kentucky George. We met up at one of my favorite local waters at 7am and trudged in to a spot that I was planning to fish for a long time. As we hiked in I turned to Kentucky George and said "I think we have a 50/50 chance of catching a 20 incher today".
Not a 20 incher. I was super happy to hook into this fish though. The indicator slid through the slow current in a deep chute with my Pink Squirrel of Prey trailing five feet down, bouncing on the bottom. This fish put up a great fight on my Whitewater Valley Flies 9ft 4wt. After a few quick pics (thanks Kentucky George) the fish was released. I would have been content if this was the fish of the day.
This was the fish of the day! Kinda skinny but I'll take any bigass fish I can get! Not sure exactly how big she is but I'd guess a solid 20 inches. Same scenario as above. She swam back and forth covering a distance of about 15 feet, probably 7 or 8 times before going on two long runs. George put the net on her like a pro too. He got a video of the fight and got another after we netted her.
George was a patient photographer. He landed a few small fish but for some reason lady luck shined on me today! I landed around a dozen fish, almost all decent.
Around 11am I headed toward the Sand Counties to chase brookies.
I arrived around 3pm and trout fished until 7. The waters I fished ran with a dark tannin stain that concealed my movements well enough to fool a few little browns and brookies.
The browns were all around 10 inches and came with ease at most bridge crossings at a rate of 2-3 per bridge. This brookie took a Pink Squirrel of Prey. I only landed three brookies. One of the streams I most looked forward to fishing was running too high for me to wet wade although I tried. After easing into the water at thigh deep I took two steps forward and found myself balls deep in an ice cold, spring fed, Sand County trout stream. After two more steps I was over my belly button and it got a little tough to breath I took a few steps back, waited to acclimate, then continued upstream. I landed this guy before getting out of the water and scouting from shore. Problem was the whole area was really marshy. The area has received a lot of rain throughout the summer so waters int he marshes and streams is running high. I trudged around a bunch before deciding to focus more on bridges. At around 7pm I headed to fish the Wisconsin River before meeting up with a friend around 830.
I got this brute of a bass (smallmouth) on a little experimental streamer I tied up. I landed a few more before heading in.
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