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.

My only company on the creek during the entire day...:-)

Heavily weighted flies were necessary to penetrate deeper pools and faster than average current flows, due to recent rains. Most takes were gentle...

One-Feather Flatwing

Flawings are my favorite striper flies for hot summer days. They are sparse flies that can be cast with light lines, and they move so well with the current. I like to think of them as 'oceanic soft hackles', since classic wet fly presentations work so well with flatwing flies. I tied this one in baby bunker color scheme: white, cerise, lavender, gray, with touch of blue and yellow. The tail is one long, thin cream saddle, and two strands of rainbow flash.

Early Summer Moods

Pale emergers on the surface...



Hatching wets swung across...



Henri Bresson's La Peute, a French classic, fished either greased on top or pulled under...

Wit & Flatwings

My current favorite while tying flatwings...

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.

Red

Two red flies: "The Red Baron" Crease Fly (above) and the Bloodworm (below)

Going Deep...

When sun is high and surface is calm, heavy tungsten-head pupae save the day...short line style.

Firetiger Sea Habit Bucktail

Sea Habit (or is it a Pike Habit ;-)) Bucktail, dressed in the Firetiger color scheme... I hope it will work well for pike!

Rendez-vous with Mr. Pike on Jeremy's Lake

We arrived on the lake little after noon. The day was perfect-clear, sunny and with the slight breeze-a welcome relief for this moody spring weather. Jeremy skillfully navigated his boat toward shallow grass flats and undewater humps, searching for pike and elusive muskie. We were positioned upwind and started to cover the water methodically, varying our retrieves. When a good location was thoroughly covered, we would move to the next likely spot.

The water had a good smell, which reminded me of my happiest fishing days chasing striped bass in Boston Harbor. The salty tinge was lacking, but the fresh smell of grass and shoreline trees made up for it. Swallows were low, looking for insects, and a pair of grey herons flew up from the cattail field. I was fishing my retro-glass "warmwater-special", falling into its laid back rhythm, and teasing the red-yellow-white flatwing streamer, so that its long tail would sweep sideways. After several short strikes on the fly, I had a solid grab. Short glass rod was deeply bent, while the fish made a run straight toward the boat. Despite of the knot which formed in the line after the fish took off in a hurry, and Jeremy helped untangle, the handsome and healthy first pike of the day was landed.

Soon after this fish, Jeremy landed another one and slowly but steadily, the action was unfolding. We would change the location and find quick action with short pause between takes, or pick another spot which could be devoid of fish. After dropping two consecutive fish on flashy ALF-perch imitation, I decided to switch to my trusty Loomis Megataper graphite and the intermediate line. We were fishing slightly deeper water, and with the steady breeze, intermediate line was a better choice for achieving consistently deeper and straighter fly path. The line change proved to be a good choice, since it resulted in renewed action for both of us. We both got some fish who would run straight to the boat after feeling the hook. One flat showcased a magnificent muskie, who was obviously spooked by our presence, but confidently swam slowly under our boat.

Soon after, I tied to a fish who seriously strained my rod. It felt like a serious oponent-we both thought it could be a muskie, since it would not move too much, but felt like incredible weight at the end of my line. After changing several angles, I felt it moving, and started reeling in. It proved to be a smaller pike who ran so deep into weeds and logged itself into it.

We finished the day on the beautiful weedbed flat, where Jeremy hooked and landed a powerful fish. The richly colored pike smashed his big red streamer and gave out a spectacular fight, thrashing madly on the surface. Looking at each other, while approaching the boat landing, we said almost at the same time: "It was a good day!"

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 bass alley." The fishing started slow and I got the first fish on the black & brown Clouser minnow, after switching from the traditional stop-and-go retrieve to the hand-over-hand, saltwater style retrieve.

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 just irresistible. Perhaps the diffused light under the dark sky enhanced the fly's effectiveness. We snapped many photos of big, healthy bronzebacks. The short glass rod proved to be an incredible fish fighting tool-very easy to manipulate when the fish stubbornly sounded under the boat. Eventually we got caught in the quickly approaching rain and furiously ran for the dock.

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.

I guess things lake this happen to everyone occasionally, so this part of the story will have an old bass picture of the fish I took three years ago in Waterloo creek in NE Iowa (left-first photo), while fishing for wild browns in August. The fish took a dead drifted leech imitation-it was an accidental catch on the prime brown trout stream. I will hopefully fish soon with Harold again, but it is hard to forget nice shots of beautiful gamefish lost forever, taken in the almost unreal stormy light.

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 took a single fish on a surface fly and switched to nymphs, fished upstream dead drifted, on the greased leader. In fast water pockets I used large Czech nymphs for quick short-line action, but this particular stretch of the stream has only several sections where this technique works well. On my way back, I experimented with single and multiple casts of wet flies. The system with three flies (two droppers and the point fly) proved to absolutely deadly in comparison to the single fly fished first thorough the same stretch. Sometimes two fish would smack the flies on the swing, even though there was no major hatch going on. The fish showed no preference to the particular pattern, and I believe that multiple wets create an illusion of artificial hatch, which can sometimes turn the trout on.

Even though I am not a big fan of tandems and multiple fly rigs, since they hinder casting, this was an exciting and eye-opening experience. I did use straight line connections (no loops) and short droppers, which helped reduce the tangles. Glass rods and wet fly fishing techniques are really made for each other.

Wet Sedges

Traditional wets-caddis imitations, with bodies made of shiny dubbing...

Umbrella CDC Cranefly

This pattern imitates small yellow craneflies (genus Antocha) common on some Driftless area trout streams in the spring and early summer. It can be fished dry or wet.

Hook: TMC 101, size 18;
Body: Pale olive thread under doubled single strand of yellow super-hair, wrapped;
Thorax/Legs: Pale ginger CDC feather, wrapped four turns (concave side facing front), bottom clipped;
Front hackle: Oversize moorhen covert feather, one and a half turn (concave side facing front).

You can see some of my large cranefly patterns here and here.

The River of Many Moods II

Spring wind, grannoms, yellow craneflies, glass and cane, finicky trout...

The River of Many Moods

Anticipating some caddis action, I went to my favorite WI stream on Monday. Beyond my expectations, I was treated with the magnificent caddis hatch-sort of a repetition of my last week's outing... Caddisflies were abundant along the rocky stretch near the bridge, and I was sharing it with only one angler. I did explore further upstream and got some fish on nymphs, but returned to the first location. Fishing dries and emergers over rising trout is really hard to pass by. Fish were slurping caddis in rocky eddies, behind boulders, and often tight to the bank stones. The trick was to throw a slack line cast and hope that the fish would grab the fly before the current would drag it away. It was a dry fly fisherman's paradise-trout wouldn't even look at my soft hackles which worked so well the previous week in SE MN.

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 completed last Fall on McFarland's Dry Fly taper blank. The familiar rocky stretch was teaming with anglers upon our arrival, and we decided to fish Jeremy's favorite location upstream instead.

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 streamers to soft hackles, and had a wonderful time talking and making each cast count. On our way back, Jeremy explored the midge hatch with tiny flies and took the photo of emerging pale green midge (botom left). We walked toward out cars, while the moody trout were still rising along the silvery glide.

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 decided not to fish, since the wind was blowing in 20-30mph gusts.

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.

Little later I put the waders on and explored some corners where I previously noticed swirls of larger fish-spots which weren't reachable from the shore. Towards the end, the emergence ceased and fish would still take fluttering adults on the surface. I ended the day with several fish caught on dries in a narrow fast flowing side channel, under the low-hanging branch. None of the fish caught today went over 13", but the numbers made up for the size... Two consecutive casts would often produce either a take or a miss.

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.)

Split Thread CDC Midge

A hatching midge imitation...

Hook: Curved TMC 2488
Body: Split thread dubbing loop with black CDC fibers
Wing: White CDC puff

Soul Painting

In today's mail I received some wonderful illustrations of my favorite gamefish, from a good friend. Mark is ornithologist, a talented painter/illustrator, and a passionate flyfisher! Visit his blogs: FLYINTROPICAL and YUHINA ILLUSTRATION for more wonderful images and interesting flyfishing-related topics!