Sunday, April 22, 2018

Trip Report: Beatin' Runoff

A buddy and I planned to fish out of his drift boat today but all of the larger streams in the area are blown out. He decided to stay home while I decided to see if I could beat runoff. After a text from a former co-worker indicated that the extreme southeastern corner of the MN driftless was almost snow free I decided to bite the bullet and go for a drive. I passed numerous streams of different sizes, all blown out. Without much hope I was relieved to reach my intended destination to find crystal clear waters, partly cloudy skies, and hungry fish. I was on stream by 845am. After striking out on the San Juan worm (not a great fly in crystal clear conditions) I tied on a size 16 zebra midge and viola!
 I stood at one pool and landed fish after fish. At one point I hooked into a decent fish of around 16-17 inches but he threw the hook pretty quick. Still, fish continued to gorge on the midge. One fish had a mouth full of the buggers when he came to hand.
I like this trout. He doesn't have the same spunky spots as some of the others. After landing 31 fish out of that pool I moved on. The sun came out as the morning went on and the fishing slowed considerably. Fish started surfacing around 10am and I noticed midges, stoneflies, and bwo mayflies on the water so I tied on a little bwo dry and managed a few more fish.
This large speckled sport took the dry fly along with a dozen or so others. By 1130am I hopped in the car and headed home to tie flies and work on a rod. 43 fish came to hand this morning, not a bad day at all!

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