Some Might Call it Epic

This past week has been a bit absurd to say the least. After many hours on the road and in the air, I finally arrived in Northeast Wisconsin last Saturday and met up with Andrew Drasch and Tim Fischer to do a little exploring on the Menominee. We'd heard it was a great smallmouth fishery that should be picking up right about the time we rolled in. It was and it did. The first night sitting around the fire, organizing gear, and fantasizing over the next day's fishing had the three of us so amped up that I don't think anyone got any sleep.

Day one started with three or four smallies and two nice pike in the first half hour and the fishing kept up consistently enough that we didn't get back to our basecamp until almost 11pm. While most of the action was from the smallmouth, there were plenty of smaller pike in the mix, so the 40lb. shock tippet was a good choice to avoid losing our perch patterns.

We spent the second day on what the Wisco boys call a flowage (the rest of the world calls it a lake) created by one of the many dams on the river. Pounding the shore with baitfish patterns was the ticket for smallies in the two to four pound range as well as small pike and even a muskie.

Working our way into a weed-choked slough that seemed perfect for largemouth, I tied on a big hairy topwater pattern and started drawing strikes in the patches between weeds. After a few fish clobbered it and didn't stick, I cut the weed guard off and proceeded to nail two bucketmouths. The violent strikes that these fish destroy a fly with are impressive to say the least, which would probably account for my big shit-eating grin in the pictures. The larger of the two was not at all happy about my fly invading his space and put on quite the show when he decided it was time to destroy.

Not long afterwards, Andrew decided it would be a good idea to break my 8 weight on the biggest smallie of the day and we got mocked by some good ol boys zipping by in a little outboard. Quote of the day goes to one of these goons, apparently totally boggled by our motorless driftboat: "Dude's rowing!" Our lack of motor notwithstanding, we appeared to be having a hell of a lot better day than those guys. Pulling off the water long after dark once again, we were already formulating our plan of attack for the next day.

We decided to head back to the same stretch of river for day three and fished it a bit more effectively, focusing on the areas that produced well the last time. It paid off big, with pretty consistent smallie action in the morning and a bunch of lively pike through the afternoon and evening.

After such good fishing and spending three days with two world class ball-busters, I had a bit of a hard time getting back on the road to head to Idaho. Little did I know just what we were in for, but more on that later. I feel I should point out that in the slideshow over on the right there, I appear in a picture with a baitcaster. I admit it, I went there. After three days of throwing an 8 weight nonstop 50 to 75 feet on every cast, my wrist just couldn't take any more and needed a break. It didn't take long before I was back on the flies, I got bored with not catching anything on it. Bait is sissy.

Three Days to Go

With just a few days before I drop kick northern Wisconsin's fish population Chuck Norris style, I did manage to get out in our now normal crap weather with Mark and find a fish. Yeah, one. Apparently it was the coolest take Mark's seen in a while, he was freakin out from his perch above the fish. My only view was downstream through horrible glare looking at an orange indicator. Even though it was one of the trickier presentations I've had to deal with in a while and I was pretty sure my cast was way off, the fish got up and charged a #10 black bugger from about 15 feet away. And then we proceeded to get rained on in 40 degree weather for the rest of the day without even a look from another fish. Oh well. Wisco, prepare for war.

It just won't stop

The weather has been staying consistently awful around these parts lately and the fishing has been a bit challenging as a result. Sustained wind in the high teens or more every day gets real old after this long. Fortunately, there are still plenty of active fish out there. The rainbows have been coming through pretty consistently and are making for some fun excursions off the beaten path. Apparently the word has gotten out on just about every sweet spot around here that involves less than a mile of hiking and the pressure has been absurd. With the snowline steadily receeding, more and more is opening up that the baitchuckers won't get into. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

And not a single whitie...

Two words: cut bow. Mark and I headed out to look for big rainbows for the past two days in a location who's name I seem to have already forgotten. Bummer for you, it's really good.


We fished one spot Monday and got into some pretty interesting water chasing the big bows and cutbows in steeeep fast water. Incidentally, I did land this fish after chasing it over two waterfalls. I was a good 20 feet vertically lower than where I had been when I hooked him.

We were both pleasantly surprised by how much fight these fish put up and by the end of the day had the sore arms to show for it.

After spending the night at what is probably the coolest campground I've seen in a while, we headed down the road and proceeded to get our asses handed to us. After 5 or 6 hours of abuse we finally gave it up for a lost cause and cruised out. Not totally discouraged, we stopped along the way to look for carp and found...cutbows. We also found some carp and after landing two out of the first pod we saw, we worked into a small bay and started firing bugs at another pod. The carp seemed like they couldn't care less if there was an easy offering in front of them, but the nice cutbows hanging out with them took notice and we got in several good chunky ones.

Blackfoot Carp Classic

It's baaaaaack! The Blackfoot Carp Classic will be May 21-22 this year at Blackfoot Reservoir, of course. As always, the tournament is a fun fundraiser for someone in the fishing industry who needs a hand. This year it's for 3 month old Laney Holman, daughter of industry rep Peter Holman, who is having some serious health issues. Teams of 3 can enter and pre-registration is required. The fee is $25 per person per day and includes a sweet Carp Classic 6 hat. There will be breakfast served both days which you can get in on for $5 per as well as raffles for some great gear.
If you're interested, drop me an email and I can send more info and the registration paperwork. See you there!

Gold Rush

What do you do when the weather at home is downright miserable? Head to Idaho and beat up on carp, of course. After getting shut down at Blackfoot (still very frozen) we headed over to the kiddie pool and found some dollar menu sized fish in the margins between the ice and shore. While they weren't big by any means, they did make for a fun afternoon.

Rainbows Again

Mark and I headed out today to some seldom fished water and while it wasn't exactly the best all day, there were a few highlights.