Showing posts with label Flyfishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flyfishing. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2008
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Change
Last week I fished two lovely spring creeks-one in SE Minnesota, the other just across the border, in NE Iowa. I noticed the lack of aquatic plants, due to the recent floods-especially noticeable in Iowa, which suffered severe flooding. The creek's topography changed drastically. Slow pools became quick runs, and exposed gravel contributed to the very clean appearance. There was some damage to the banks due to erosion caused by raging currents. On the other hand, trout were just fine, happily feeding on nymphs in deep pools. There were no hatches, so I fished nymphs and deep running leech imitations during the mid-day pretty much exclusively on both locations. While the fishing was slow on Minnesota stream, trout were more cooperative on Iowa spring creek, even though you had to work for them.
Casting a beetle imitation to a lonely riser under the tree, without much luck...
These are some aquatic plants commonly found in spring creeks. (L to R: starwort, watercress, water buttercup. Plant drawings are public domain images, courtesy of Wikipedia.)
I haven't seen any thick water buttercup beds this year in SE Minnesota, since floods scoured the bottom and cleared the silt... Plants provide shelter for trout and nurture diverse colonies of aquatic invertebrates, such as BWO, scuds/cressbugs, Simulium larvae, certain caddis species, snails, etc. You can see photos of the same SE MN stream, taken last year here and here. It is always a challenge to land a decent sized trout in the middle of the weed-bed. Weeds also contribute to that classic pastoral look typical for chalk/limestone streams, regardless of their location.
NE Iowa spring creek after recent floods. It is much wider at certain spots, and you can see uprooted trees, fallen on the bank.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Before the Storm
We arrive on the stream with the ominous light falling into the softness of the evening mist. March Browns (Maccaffertium sp.) are hatching quietly...
My wet imitation is inspired by Irish mayflies, the ones ghillies still use on loughs Sheelin and Corrib... an old fly in the New World.
I throw a gentle cast and yellow glass rod moves the line in a slow style. Fly line and the fly tango together on the rippled water surface... Little trout rushes to join the dance...
A quick pose before the freedom... Heavy raindrops are falling, while the thunder from the East speeds up our run to the car.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
The Gamiest Fish and Lost Pictures
It is hard to write about exciting fishing adventure when the photos of the trip disappear...not to mention the disappointment of the fisherman/photographer. That is exactly what happened to me yesterday, but here's the rest of the story...
I spent two wonderful days exploring NW Wisconsin with my friend Harold. We fished the small weedy spring creek for native brook trout on Saturday, with the lightest rods and dry flies. Yesterday, despite of all the tornado warnings in the area, we sneaked out several times during the afternoon in his fishing boat out on the lake Wissota, to chase ravenous smallmouth bass. Harold lives on the lake and knows its intricacies inside out. We concentrated our efforts on the rocky stretch known as "the
The wind was dying and dark clouds were signaling the approaching storm. We drifted further downwind, and the fish were turned on. We were getting hits every several casts. I was using my "warmwater special" I built last Fall on the vintage Lamiglas blank. It handled precise casts required to place the fly tight to the bank, literally inches from the shore rocks. After several more casts, I switched to the floating fly-a version of Gurgler I tied some years ago (top photo). This combination of fiery colors and rapid movement fish found
Finally at Harold's home, we started downloading fresh pictures and quickly found out the terrible truth: the compact flash card from my camera was dead! All the pictures were gone, the memory failed irreparably, even though we were watching them just minutes ago on the camera's display.
Backtracking now...several days ago I visited my favorite trout stream (left-second photo) with a friend, and spent an exciting afternoon wet and nymph fishing for wild brown and brook trout. Fishing upstream, I
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
The River of Many Moods
My friend Jeremy (casting on the picture) and I hit the same stream yesterday, hoping for the repeated action. The day was a carbon copy of the previous one-everything looked so right for the new explosion of caddis acitivity. We both fished 4weights (top photo.) Jeremy used his beautiful Norling hollow-built cane rod, while I fished the glass rod I
The water had magical feel to it and pastel green banks were full of life...spring flowers, red-winged blackbirds, grey heron and the restless osprey-everything but the black caddis! While we got some fish, both browns and brookies, caddis were completely absent.
We found some BWO's and midge activity, threw everything from
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Spring Caddis
After the weekend snow flurries, today was the first nice day this week... and I was lucky to be able to spend several hours on the prime SE MN spring creek. Amy joined me for the trip, but
The stream was slightly high and little off-colored, but nothing too bad... We arrived around 11:30am, just in time for the caddis hatch. The first rises indicated fish taking emerging pupae, right under the surface. I love this type of fishing, since I can use soft hackles in combination with my glass rod, to swing them or fish them upstream, dead drifted or sometimes with subtle twitches. Very soon the fish were boiling everywhere... This particular stretch has nicely manicured banks, so I just grabbed my wellington boots and started casting. Fish would usually take the fly savagely. At moments there were so many naturals on the surface, that it would take several repeated drifts to get a trout. I switched to a bigger fly, one size larger (a soft hackle with bright green biot body, speckled brown hackle, and ostrich head), and noticed that bigger fish would often grab it.
I was trying to identify today's caddis and compared the photos at troutnut.com. SE MN hatch chart lists two common early dark caddis species: Cheumatopsyche sp. and Chimarra sp. As you can see from my photos, insects are definitely not completely black, but have dun/brown wings. My best guess would be the first of the two species-Cheumatopsyche sp. (Little Sister Sedge.)
Monday, April 21, 2008
Mayflies of Spring
Both Wisconsin trips started in similar fashion... I would drift
On both days I found pools below riffles where stacked fish would gulp little olives. The feeding on rainy Thursday was so intense, that the churned surface full of swirls and boils reminded me of blitzing
I started the day with Waterloo Leeches, Siliclone Sculpins and the super-fast polyleader. Size 2 sculpin didn't prove too big for average Waterloo browns, fished off the bottom in slower pools.
I had to leave around 5pm so I wouldn't miss the family dinner... Fish were still rising along the rocky bank, enjoying the mayflies of spring.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Small Wild Browns
Suddenly, the sun is breaking through the clouds and the fish are
The sun is playing hide and seek and it finally disappears. The shadows deepen, while I take one more glance at my favorite open stretch. The wind picks up and I can feel the cold seeping through my waders. It is time to go...
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