The beauty and awe of the Driftless area is in part due to the numerous springs that are the primary source of our coldwater, without it we would not have the wonderful place I call home and my back yard. I am possibly one of the most fortunate people on the planet and this video will hopefully put you in my boots for a minute. My creek comes from the ground, in the world of trout streams there are very few that originate this way. Driftless Love.

-the w.f.f.

Music by Winona native Mike Munson, I ran sound for his set at the Midwest Music Festival this year and this song really caught my ear, it just felt right for this video.

• Caddis in the Afternoons starting around 1:30pm
• It’s just beginning so you should have some time yet, a good week or more.
• Charcoal Gray Body, Tan/Dun Wings in #18/20
• A #16 Worked Well for Me, They will get larger as the hatch progresses.
• Grease your fly and your line, drag them across the surface and hold on.
• Enjoy the beautiful weather that is coming our way again. Go Fishing.

I don’t see my family all that often and truth be told (oh man am I gonna get it for this) I live in the boonies for a reason, I like solitude and doing my own thing. Maybe I’m selfish…maybe I’m smart, all depends on how you look at it I guess. I wake up a bit sore (you know, from the prior entire day of fishing) to hear the sound of a Yamaha crotch-rocket squeal past my house. Yep, I knew it was my brother immediately. We are very different people but I’ve really grown to appreciate him and he drove down from the cities on his bike at 5am to go fishing with me, that’s pretty cool. He was basically frozen so a bit of breakfast and some coffee got both of us straightened out. He doesn’t have gear of his own so I put him in my stuff and we got going close to 10am. I couldn’t decide on where to go, I wanted my brother to catch a few fish despite his inexperience with a fly rod or trout and given the lack of bugs the day before I was in a quandary. I knew the creeks could be a zoo considering the fact that most anglers would be out getting some sun on the first nice Saturday this season and so picking a spot to go was really giving me a hard time. Finally I just decided to start driving and in the end I pulled up to the exact same spot I had fished the day before. Why? Because I knew what to expect and that meant I had an edge which might allow me to get my brother a few fish. I knew other places might put off more bugs but I also figured they might be more crowded than the spot I drove to.

So we pull up to find no one, I was almost shocked. I figured the hike downstream we would have hiked past someone but we lucked out. My brother hadn’t touched a fly rod in a year, almost exactly a year and prior to that it had been a year before that. The creek was clear the same as the day before and despite the slightly later arrival at the creek things were pretty much a repeat of the day prior. Minimal bugs in the air, minimal rising but the trout were aggressively crushing a streamer, after a bit of coaching my brother was casting decently enough to nab a few brown trout on a streamer, he lost many due to poor line management but he was enjoying himself as the clear water afforded him the ability to see the trout dart from below up at his fly. Around 1:30pm we sat down on a most excellent run and started tossing a #16 BWO, the wind wasn’t helping again but the trout wanted that fly and even though it took quite a while and a bit of frustration he landed close to a dozen brown trout from that run over the course of an hour and a half. We finished with the dry fly and moved upstream where he missed a beast just before we had to call it a day. The trip ended a bit early due to the bonfire and food that was going to occur at my place in a few hours, by 5pm we had hiked out and split calling it a successful day getting my brother into a bunch of brown trout despite his inexperience with a fly rod felt pretty good, he does well every year picking it up quickly and paying attention to my suggestions without becoming too frustrated. Check out this grin on his face, that’s a guy who lives in the concrete jungle of the twin cities and who for one afternoon got to appreciate what I try not to take advantage of….my back yard.

Bugs…Beer…Browns…. My yearly excuse (birthday) to take some vacation time occurs during one of the best times to be a trout angler in S.E. Minnesota. The end of April, typically rather nice, bugs about, hungry fish too. This year I lucked out, three days sandwiched between two seven day long periods of nastiness. The 25th was a quick precursor, more of a warm up my casting arm, to be followed by the 26th and then the 27th. The 26th involved a four mile hike on the way in to turn around and fish my way back out. I wasn’t in any big hurry, I parked around 9:30am right behind a fellow who sat in his truck sipping coffee waiting for the urge to go catch a fish. We chatted a bit, I asked if he minded if I parked behind him and I assured him if I did so that he wouldn’t see me again the rest of the day, he did not. I hiked, then hiked some more. I took a water temp at the first riffle I crossed, 48degrees on the dot at 10:15am. I checked rocks, saw a decent number of free living caddis larva and a few Baetis looking ready to pop but not a ton. The recent high water events had scoured most of the creeks pretty well and I’m wondering if a fair amount of the invertebrate population went downstream in the Wonka river. That translates into two thoughts, the first…fewer hatching insects, the second…hungry trout.

Downstream four miles (give or take a tenth of a mile or so) and I was staring at near gin clear water and to make it even better I only passed one other angler on the hike in, a bait fisherman who was contently perched on his bucket. The entire hike in I was looking for rising trout and saw nothing, I thought I saw one rise but I can’t be sure of it so I’m going to go with nothing. I started swinging my usual, streamers. Why? Because I wanted to move quickly. I felt like hitting every nook and cranny for almost four miles of creek, that’s hard work and you can’t linger too long in any single place to make it happen. I’d take a few trout from each spot, toss to where I thought the big one was and move on. I tried a handful of different streamers in various sizes including a new smaller streamer I think is finally ready to be released for public viewing. All in all things couldn’t have gone better, fishing upstream I was stripping layers off and down to a t-shirt by 1pm.

At 1:30pm I saw the first rise and then another and a moment later another. I put on a good stretch of 5x tippet and a #16 BWO, I then removed one of two Ranger IPAs from my bag and sat down. I watched the fish while I drank the first just happy to be outside in the sun again watching trout do their thing. When that bottle was emptied I started swinging, the wind didn’t help any but trust me, I wasn’t complaining one bit. I managed a good dozen trout from that spot over the course of the next hour and a half. When I was satisfied with dry fly fishing for the day I pulled the second bottle from my bag and sat back down to watch those trout keep on going. I didn’t see much more for rising after about 3:30pm and I didn’t see much for bug activity other than the few BWO’s that came off during my time on that single run. I should note that while fishing those dry flies I heard a bunch of rocks slide down the bluff above me, I looked (expecting to see nothing or a squirrel) to see something I’ve never seen before, what I believe was a coyote. It was up a good ways and watched me the entire time, it was tan and had a long bushy tail. I’m not an expert but it was bigger than what I imagined a coyote to look like. That animal climbed to the top of the bluff watching me as it went then stood on a rock for a good two minutes before leaving my sight, very, very, cool. I should also note that I did see several deer carcasses around that area and two were pretty fresh, one still had meat on a section of a hind leg that had been removed.

Upstream a good mile I’m back to swinging meat and the trout are darting, charging, and slamming it. It was a damn good day and by the end of it I questioned if that wasn’t the best use of vacation time I’ve ever had. It might have been the sun and the scenery, that combined with the eager trout, either way it was a day to remember. So I’m fishing across from a cut bank when I hear mud dumping into the creek, not unusual in any way except it continues and continues. I look back to see a basketball (or larger) sized snapping turtle dig it’s way out of the bank and drop into the creek then promptly dive to the bottom of a seriously deep hole. Shortly there after a TON of fish went shooting out in every direction. Sweet sight number two. Several hours later and my day was coming two an end, my pedometer logged me at over 9 miles by the time I got to the last stretch of creek I fished. I hadn’t caught anything huge all day, maybe a 16in fish around 4pm but nothing super small either. I was broke off once by a fish that felt strong but I didn’t see so much as a flash from that one, it wasn’t until the last cast of the day did I get to touch a nice 18 1/2 inch brown. I took one crappy ass photo of it too, low light and I didn’t dink around with him too long but hey, not a bad way to end a seriously excellent day. The birthday presents you give yourself are often the best especially if it’s a day fishing for trout.

• BWO’s at 1pm

• Dark Hendrickson’s at 2:30pm

• Gray Caddis at 3pm

• Sunshine, Green grass, No wind. Enough said. GO FISHING!

The 7th started out cooler and under clouded skies but it would end up turning around and becoming spring for a day. I met up with a friend of mine to fish a piece of recently scoured creek, the snow melt combined with a bit of rain had flooded the creek just enough to scour the holes out and clean some of the riffles up. White rocks clear of sediment and some invertebrates (there are trade offs with a bankful event) showed the power of water. In a few places the creek had blown way over her banks and attempted to channel a more direct path. We haven’t had many high water events over the last year or more, in fact I can’t think of even one event that sent the creeks out of their banks. Over this time sediment had collected throughout the creek we fished and the recent high water helped changed things up a bit.

Slightly stained water and rising water temps equal one thing to me…streamers, including my new test subject (more on that later). Fly chucking, moving through every inch of creek we fishing upstream hard. By the days end we would cover about four miles of trout water and touch quite a few brown trout, oh and a single brookie. The sun came out about an hour after arrival, the wind was low and for the next five hours we fished under glorious conditions. The trout were active, smacking my SMB regularly throughout the day. Carl landed a few nice trout including one that had a frog leg sticking out of it’s mouth? Think about that for a second, that frog leg was good sized and the trout maybe 13/14inches, that says something about their appetite and with a big meal on it’s way down that trout smacked Carl’s streamer hard wanting more. I was broke off by one fish I didn’t get a look at but it felt good, haven’t been broke off on 3x tippet in quite a while. All in all we had a blast and we took full advantage of the time we had knowing that the coming week would bring, rain, snow and ice and put a halt to the warm weather that was much appreciated.

No BWO’s were seen however the midges were out but only a scant few trout were surfacing all day. The rocks I did inspect showed plenty of Baetis nymphs but they all looked a bit immature yet and I would still give them another week of decent weather before they start going hard. If we get a fast warm up over a short period of time in the next couple weeks I wouldn’t be surprised if BWO’s, Grey Caddis and Dark Hendrickson’s all begin to come off on some of our creeks.

Just a bit of my life from the perspective of my new camera. It’s going to take some time to get used to. Do me, my hard work and your eyes a favor and watch it in HD. What’s the point of a nice camera and editing work if it looks like crap. Enjoy, I know I did.

Music: Balloons by Foals off the Album Antidotes (I’ll be seeing them live in Minneapolis on May 20th)

I’ve been out a couple days now, the spring run off is affecting creeks in every area of the Driftless Area. My advice (experienced Driftless Anglers may choose to disregard my thoughts here) is take time off in a week or so and go fishing, this weekend we are set to get rain which will likely help finish the snow off but will turn already heavily stained water to chocolate again. If you are determined to go fishing (and I don’t blame you) look for those smaller creeks with shorter watersheds that typically run gin clear, move towards the headwater areas or areas of high spring concentrations. These locations will still be stained but more likely to be fishable. Another word of advice, take a water temp, better yet… take two or more. Temp the creek on arrival and an hour in. If the temp drops a degree and the fish show signs of slowing take off or risk blowing your afternoon fishing to shut down trout. If the water temp climbs a degree or more you should see sustained fish activity and possibly an increase. Get out earlier in the morning, fish a streamer, watch for BWO’s and again pay attention to that water temp, your looking for ~48 degrees for BWO’s to hatch. If the creek begins to turn chocolate on you… take off and spend your time doing something more productive.

On another note, I implore those of you who frequent our trout water to be good stewards of the resource. The MPCA (Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) manages feedlots and the associated run off. If you see an over abundance of manure run-off do the trout stream a favor and report it. Call the County MPCA office or the DNR and speak up, I know sometimes it can seem like a helpless battle but if those who love the stream don’t fight for it the problem will only continue. The same goes for set-backs and buffer strips. Consider the fact that the MPCA allows 4,000 gallons of manure to be spread on an acre of farm land. Well, when spring comes late and farmers have filled their manure storage facilities they become eager to spread their abundance on snow covered frozen ground. It’s legal to spread it…as soon as it turns to run-off and enters the creeks it becomes illegal. Note these sites and call someone, email, map it on Google Earth and put it in the correct hands. I have it on good authority that many gallons of manure run-off hit one of my favorite creeks in the last week as a direct result of this situation. It didn’t result in a fish kill this time but the long term implications on the invertebrate life are not being considered and without a stable food supply the trout we love will suffer.

Good luck this spring, get outside and go fishing.

-the w.f.f.

The fishing was damn good today, I opted to get out today knowing that snow melt would be causing problems soon and right I was. With air temps climbing and the overnight lows staying in the upper 20′s/low 30′s the spring run off has begun. The creek I fished today started the morning with a water temp of 39.5 degrees at 9:36am with a bit of stain already visible. Those numbers were a bit discouraging as I was hoping to run into a BWO hatch, I knew the water temp would have to jump quickly for that to happen. The rocks showed a handful of mature BWO’s but most need another week or so of development before they will be ready to pop. Quite a few mature Ephemerella Subvaria crawling next to the Baetis tells me that if the air temps rise drastically some creeks will have BWO’s and Dark Hendricksons hatching shortly. At 11am the water temp was 41.5 and by 12pm it had risen to 44 degrees. Midge showed up thick around 11am but only a handful of rising trout led me to keep fishing my streamer. By 1:30pm with a water temp of 46 degrees the first BWO’s I’ve seen this year showed up to bring spring into view. By 2:30pm the creek was well on it’s way to chocolate milk and it was time to take off. I landed a good two dozen trout on a new mini-streamer I’m calling the Beamer between 6 and 14inches with two pushing 16 today, strong aggressive strikes came left and right. My thoughts are that much of the water in S.E. Minnesota will be unfishable through the weekend and into next week, I’m glad I was able to get out today before the chocolate took over.

I had been getting the itch to fish all week and by Wednesday it had become too much, some vacation time was requested and with that I put together a plan that would have seen me hiking into a remote area I’ve never seen. Plans change, even the best laid plans. The original plan saw myself and Carl hiking deep into a stretch of winter water, it involved lunch creekside, I opted for the typical hotdogs, Carl was unimpressed. Steaks, the guy brought STEAKS! and we cooked them over a fire the same way I would have the hotdogs. The steaks were awesome, I might even go so as far as to say that those steaks were the best meat I’ve ever cooked over a fire with a stick. I’m getting ahead of myself, I guess I am still thinking about that slab of meat dripping onto the snow as I bit chunks off of it while it was dangling from a two pronged stick carved moments before flesh met flame. Damn it was good.

The morning commute took a bit longer than expected, the plan was to be at the creek early around 8:30 or s0, turns out due to a slow start on my part and witnessing a multiple vehicle car accident on the way and in my coverage area (I’m on two volunteer fire/rescue departments and currently working to advance in my medical career) I stopped, donned turnout gear and did what I could while my friends and fellow members were on the way. That’s a whole other story but helps explain why we were more than an hour and a half late getting to the creek. Slower safe driving put us creekside staring into a slightly raging creek that was brown, not Wonka chocolate river brown but enough that it was discouraging. We opted to continue anyway, we had already driven the distance and gone through a multiple vehicle accident to get here. An attempt was made but after an hour of fishing and hiking it became obvious that our efforts were to be wasted if we continued.

This is when it’s always a good idea to have Plan B ready. I must be off my game; Plan B didn’t enter my mind even in the slightest. I wasn’t taking into account the several days prior and all the warm weather, wet snow combined with a long watershed. The combination made for a river that was up but in fact receding, the high water line was a good couple feet up from the level we found it at. You’re never too old or wise to be humbled, a good plan was crushed. Sitting on the banks we had to devise Plan B on the spot. If this water was blown what was fishable? I didn’t just drive this far to turn tail. Two choices came to mind and we opted for the closer of the two, the clouds that began the morning were dissipating quickly and soon the sun would be shining.

At Plan B we got to work, I fished a new smaller mini streamer I’ve been working on recently. It pulled a 10inch brown out quickly but wasn’t the best choice for this much smaller lower/clear creek. I chose to stick it next to tree limbs and any dark hole I could find, I missed a few others over the course of the first few hours. By 12:30 or so a decent number of larger #18/20 midges were around and a pretty good number of little black stoneflies could be seen crawling away from the water. Bugs were out, the sky was turning blue and the sun was now out in its full glory. Rising hadn’t begun and rather than continue up we opted to make those delicious steaks I mentioned earlier. We sat, cooked our lunch and watched waiting for a rise, it didn’t happen. We continued upstream, just kept going looking for spots to put a nymph or small streamer waiting for the opportunity to put on a #20 Griffiths Gnat.

Around a few bends and through the thick forest we came upon maybe the best part of the day, save the slab of meat that has me still drooling, the pod of fish with a few strong risers. The approach was a good 8-9 on the difficulty scale, trees everywhere, low clear water. It wasn’t going to be easy. Carl gave it a shot from behind a downed tree, it didn’t happen. I opted to belly crawl through the snow and cast from a laying position, my second or third cast saw a small trout bolt for my fly but I bungled the hookset. It was lost, the trout came back and began rising again but they wouldn’t have a dry fly of ours. I put on a #20 Miracle nymph and pulled two out easily and missed atleast two others. Sight fishing, seeing the fish turn and estimating your flies location with relation to the trout’s mouth…that’s driftless.

We sat on that spot for quite a while and afterwards moved upstream looking for other risers to fish to, none were found. The day had worn on and after close to two miles one direction it was time to turn back. It was a damn fine day to be a trout fisherman in S.E. Minnesota, sun on my shoulders most of the time I was out, low wind, beautiful scenery, this is what the winter season is all about for me. Thanks to Carl for coming on another trip and bringing the meat.