A quick run for some post work trout occurred this day. Bring your gear with you, you never know when you’ll find an opportunity to bump a trout. With little time to spare we met on the banks of a creek I know and love. Time was the issue here (not much of it) maybe an hour and a half to wet a line with a decent amount of hiking involved. Sershen was going to leave the spinning rod in the car but I convinced him to bring it along, there are a few spots that fly angling just isn’t an effective option here. On stream we hit a spot that has rolled a few larger trout but nothing would stir and remembering the time constraints we continued upstream after a handful of unsuccessful drifts resulted in both of us snagging a tree limb on the bottom forcing us to break and re-rig our line. This is streamer water, the fish are perhaps fewer and farther between but the rewards can be great, however going deep and losing a few heavily tied streamers is a common place event here.

Upstream at one of three specific locations I sat back and allowed my friend to cast a big, heavy homemade spinner up and into some ferociously fast and deep trout water. Less than a couple seconds later and he was tugging his line taught landing his first trout on a homemade spinner. We landed a couple more but not the big one we were after and with the tight time frame we moved on quickly, a couple drifts here and there on the way upstream to the next location. A random rise here and there was observed but few adult caddisflies were in the area, again this is streamer water. The big and ugly. I put Sershen on a spot I call the Fridge due to the very old and very large refrigerator that has carved out a nice hole in the stream but again nothing stirred. Upstream and a handful of browns less than 14inches later and we had split up a bit when from the other bank and downstream a bit I hear a whoop and a holler. Heath had gotten his fish of the day, a nicer 18inch brown but due to my poor location no photo was taken, he simply wanted the trout back in the creek. We fished for about twenty more minutes and hiked out but before we did I stood on a high bank, made one pass with my #8 SMB and saw what I believe to be a brown trout/shark hybrid stir and leisurely give its location away then scoot off to a deep dark hole. When they move slow enough your heart rate will jump pretty quick…I’ll be back soon.

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Fished for three hours from ~1pm to ~4pm, hatching Caddis were beginning to show on arrival and continued to swell reaching a peak at ~3pm. Fish were caught on a #18 and #20 EHC with a Greyish Wing and Black/Grey Body. I fished a pupa trailer for the 1st half hour or so and picked up a handful but dropped it after the trout really began concentrating on surface adults. I lost count of how many trout were caught after 25 but it was substantially more than that, fairly easy pickings with a dead drifted EHC. The “wave” phenomenon that I had documented previously this season occurred again with long lulls and no rising, when the trout began rising again they would swell to a boil then drop off abruptly. The rising sections seemed to decrease in duration as the afternoon wore on with the length of the lulls getting progressively longer. There also seemed to be a relationship between the wind and rising, the windier it got the fewer fish rose, likely because the caddis just weren’t hovering over the stream during the wind gusts. I attempted various presentations and was surprised how many fish would take a sunk EHC stripped in like a streamer (very interesting). I attempted skittering for a while but found a dead drift producing more successful rises. I fished a single spot and didn’t move more than fifty feet but suffered a bit due to my choice of casting location, my belief is that when dead drifting a fly that is supposed to riding high any amount of drag can turn fish off, especially when they have so many perfectly safe choices swarming around. Due to my casting location I was crossing a couple currents leaving my “dead” drift a fairly short time frame before any drag would set in even when mending. I did fish a couple #18 and #20 EHC Puffs when the going got tough and I wanted something that would ride high but as with most things CDC after the first good dunking it lost some of its effectiveness. The afternoon ended with a fair amount of observation and camera work. Honestly I’m not thrilled with most of these photos the sun seemed to be working against me and I was trying different settings on my camera. Note the darker appearance of some of the caddis.

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Woke early again (~5am) to prep gear, coffee, breakfast and to spend a decent amount of time assessing precipitation totals and weather conditions. The wind was predicted at 20mph from the West all day long. Walking out to the truck at 7am was not encouraging, gusts up to 35mph were going to be common during the day and this combined with recent rainfall totals would determine the creek I ultimately ended up fishing. Picking a tight valley that ran perpendicular to the West wind would be critical in turning the lemons I was given into lemonade. With my mind set on one location I left the house to meet the guy I’d be fishing with for the day.

I met Paul parked off a side road, after a short hello we left for the chosen location. Parking, I was again a bit concerned regarding the wind and air temp, it was cold with the blowing wind and I knew it would hamper the days progress if we were unable to escape it. A  bit later and a couple hundred feet down into a tight valley we were pleasantly surprised to find minimal wind with the occasional gusty moments that almost dictated we stop to avoid making poor casts into the wind. We chose a short hike downstream after viewing a fellow with similar thoughts on avoiding the wind fishing upstream from our access. The morning saw us chucking streamers into higher stained water with the water temp at ~44°F around ~9am. The creek was still up a good six inches which created faster flows and deeper water. 

We got a couple strikes earlier in the morning but nothing stuck and we didn’t dwell on any one spot for too long. In retrospect I think had we sat alittle longer and maybe added more weight (I was already chucking the upper end of the weight spectrum I typically use) we might have stuck a couple more but the higher flows really seemed to hamper our flies ability to get down and stay down. We fished a few shallower riffle areas with minimal success, the first hour saw no fish come to hand. We progressed upstream and fished a couple areas out of the wind hunkered next to the bluffs enjoying the simple fact that we were able to pick a location that provided us with decent conditions given the situation. Still no trout to hand by ~10:30 or so, Paul had switched to a two fly nymph rig and my stubborn ass  chose to continue tossing the SMB despite its lack of action for the morning. Here is where I admit to myself that I should have given nymphing a shot for a while, some good nymphing water around and I chose to toss a #6 that was getting me nowhere. 

Upstream and maybe a half hour later on a down and across swing I hooked up with the first fish of the day, a small 6-7inch brown. After continuing with the same approach and getting nothing we continued on. Around the next corner we witnessed perhaps one of the saddest things I’ve seen fishing the driftless area. A dozen or so cattle had gotten loose from their pasture on the ridge and wandered down to the creek, with the females were two calves both very young. A howling moo came from one of the cattle that was stuck in the mud to its shoulders, nothing could be done. The cattle, exhausted lay in the mud. We moved on and saw yet another in the same situation, both looking very stressed. Their was little we could do to help get a full grown cow out of the mud stuck the way it was and rather than linger we moved on.

Upstream we came upon the angler we had seen earlier in the morning. From behind I spied a backpack that looked very familiar, the white hat, it was a friend of mine. I hollered out and interrupted his fishing like a boob (sorry about that one man). Paul and I let Wendy B. fish out the area he was on then met up for a couple minutes to say hi and discuss the morning. After a couple minutes we parted ways allowing Wendy to continue upstream while we hung back to tempt a very fishy looking location. After adding even more weight to my rig I managed to get down deep enough to tempt a couple moe browns but the fishing continued to be slower for us.

Paul had yet to land a trout and I wanted to shake the skunk for the day. We moved upstream bumping into Wendy on his way out. He provided delicious cold pizza from the house of Berrell which was a welcome brief lunch for our day, thanks for that one man. Paul switched back to streamers but we both continued to struggle to bump a trout. Upstream and almost out of time for the day saw us fishing a couple deep spots when I look over to see Paul smiling, gripping a nice 14inch brown with a flashier looking streamer hanging from its jaw. We took a couple photos and sent the brown downstream. Paul informed me a minute later that he caught the fish on an SMB that he had tied, that was a day maker for me. We hung around a bit longer but continued with the slower than average day. Pleased that we were able to avoid the skunk and the wind we turned to hike out. Downstream I checked in on the cattle, one of the two had been able to escape the mud. The rest of the roaming cattle seemed to have moved on but the one still lay stuck close to its neck in the mud. We fished one last spot on the way out but our luck wasn’t changing and we excepted the end of the day. Thanks Paul for a good time and some good discussions along the way. On a follow up note I did contact the MN DNR and the Winona County Conservation Officer regarding the cattle. I gave a detailed description of the area and was told they were going to contact the potential owner of the cattle before nightfall.

Woke early to arrive creekside at ~8:30am, took a gamble on a spot I’ve caught great caddis hatches in the past this time of year but found high flows, severely stained water and in-active trout. Based on the conditions I swung an SMB during the morning hours landing a handful and not much more. I took water temps every half hour to track any hatch potential but other than the scattered BWO and #30 Black Midges no other insect activity was seen. Water temps started at ~42°F at ~9am and warmed to ~48°F by 12:30pm. I fished until ~12:30pm when I became convinced that the high flows and colder water was not going to put off the hatch I was hunting for.

I blew out and decided to stop by a second location to see if the bugs I was searching for were around. At ~1pm the first glance at the creek from a ways away showed airborn trout, the caddis were here. I parked and hiked straight to the creek, put on a #18 Grey Caddis imitation and sat on the first run I came to landing close to fifteen smaller trout (<12in) and two slightly larger ones, all browns. After picking off quite a few and taking bug photo’s I progressed upstream. I came to fish a dry fly and thus I passed on any piece of water that didn’t show signs of rising fish, I wasn’t going to swap flies just to swap back a minute later.

I continued upstream picking off a handful of fish at each location. I finally came to a large open section that provided excellent fishing conditions, rising trout with thousands of caddis in the air. I observed several fish taking flies not from the surface but actually launching fully from the creek to snipe the food from mid-air. During the two hours I spent tossing dry flies here I noticed the rising come in waves, it seemed that in a moment the fish would all come to a halt and refuse to rise then a couple minutes later they would all begin the boil feverishly rising in rhythm. In these three hours I must have touched close to fifty trout all on the #18 Grey Caddis imitation. I didn’t take the time to dry out my fly after each fish, rather I fell into a pattern of catching a couple on a high floating dry fly after treating it with floatant then when it wouldn’t float well on it’s own I made a couple false casts and allowed it to sit half in the film, this continued to produce fish. When the fly was so saturated and I didn’t want to stop I simply allowed it to sink and fished it like a wet fly and sure enough it continued to snipe trout. When the rising died down I took the time to dry my fly out and applied floatant for the next wave to come. At ~4pm I had to leave the creek despite the hatch continuing to bring trout to the surface.

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Day off. Chose to fish the am hours, lower air temps with a trade for lower winds. It seems typical as of late that when the opportunity to fish arises the weather turns sour. If you don’t go you won’t know. I’ve been eyeballing some new water for a while now, I hit it the day before and landed a beauty. I figured with dry flies likely out of the picture due to low airtemps I’d go searching deep dark ugly spots for anything that would take a fly. I was onstream at ~8:30am with an airtemp approaching 40°F. With a bit of stain from the night before the creek was looking good. Just a bit of stain would allow me to get in a bit closer, something I’ve come to take advantage of. I pulled three flies from my box and stuck them in my chest pack, all #6 SMB’s the Black, Brown and Olive, the deadly trio. One decent sized split shot and I was swinging at every nasty looking snaggy spot I could effectively cast to, passed up quite a bit of water but when I knew I could land the cast I put my flies in the creek.

In the past I’ve passed opportunities like this over. Larger, faster, deeper water. Searching water. I passed on it in the past because a guy can spend all day searching for fish and get nowhere fast. With that said it there are ways to fish these types of spots that can make it more productive. 1st, lose your fear of loosing your flies. No guts…NO GLORY. Don’t be stupid and loose fifty flies but if you haven’t hit bottom or gotten snagged then your missing opportunities. Concentrate on getting your flies down, deep. This means mending, fishing upstream and adding more weight, again if your not setting the hook on a rock or debris every so often your probably missing the larger fish hanging out. 2nd. Try, try, and try again, then move on. You can waste a day dead drifting a fat streamer through deep ass pools, it’s good to try and as long as your confident that your fly is getting down you can be alright walking away from the darkness of that 8ft deep plunge pool.  I’m still learning but today proved that I’m getting the hang of it, lost one fly and landed a handful of freaking nice fish.

Back to the morning, landed the first 13in brown and moved on. Took my time as I was in no hurry and enjoyed my coffee staring down at snaggy water, deciphering it, watching the currents. You can use the stream to your advantage by sinking your flies in a spot where the current naturally kicks them down to the bottom, the trick is recognizing those spots and sinking the cast, like the swish from a basketball. Nothing but net. Speaking of nets, I know they are a pain and I’ve been known to leave mine at home but if your fishing a #6 anything and not carrying a net your doing yourself and the trout a dis-service. Along with the net downsize that tippet. 3x is what I fish when chucking streamers as of late and damn am I glad I do, these two things can get big fish in and fast allowing you to release them quickly. Point in case, snaggy water with undercuts, tree limbs and fat fish. I sent my SMB through a handful of times with no results. I kept at it, I hadn’t gotten snagged on the bottom. A moment later my light went taught. When bigger fish hit and run for cover you’d better be prepared to lay into them, bend your rod and hang on. Both of the nicer fish from today took the #6 Brown SMB and immediately dove for cover under flood debris, great habitat and a great way to lose a fish. Make a choice, lay into that fish, turn it’s head and get it to the net or give it enough slack to hang you. I learned that today, never have I had to put so much force into my rod to keep a fish from wrapping itself around debris.

Both the nicer fish came from water that was about 4ft deep with debris or a cut bank for cover. After landing the female brown my heart was pounding and I was smiling as I was sinking a foot deep in muck. I had to jump in to make sure she didn’t get to the downed trees. Less than an hour into my morning and I had what I came for, adrenaline. I sat on the bank and drank coffee for a few minutes before pressing on, now the day could be spent leisurely tossing flies confident that the big fish of the day had shown it’s face. 

I pulled a 14inch brown with some excellent spotting from a deep 4ft run and thinking there may be a second fish to be had I tried one more time. As I was lifting my rod during the the tail out, a flash and splash. Something big smashed my fly less than an inch from the surface and I nearly fell on my ass, no joke. This fish and I danced for a couple heart pumping minutes, he dove for a tree branch and I moved to pull his head as hard as I could. Remember the net, this fish would not have given up its portrait without it. Less than twenty minutes apart and I landed back to back nice sized browns. I spent the rest of the day doing much the same, deep drifting my SMB. I landed a handful more with nothing less than 13inches, in this kind of water they are fewer but they are bigger. I took off at 12pm, right as the wind picked up and the rain started falling. If you don’t go, you won’t know. Glad I went out today.

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The day of the official opener I fished a creek that put up fewer but perhaps larger trout. This day was not about large fish, it was simply a trip to my favorite isle of the super market. I expected to find at least one other angler hanging out tempting their dinner as well but to my surprise I had the creek to myself. I even waited until the best part of the day with regards to the weather. I rolled up just before 1pm, geared up and made a short hike downstream. I enjoyed the sun, tried to avoid making any casts during the wind gusts and slowly fished each dark looking spot along the creek. I picked this particular creek because it offers a large quantity of smaller to medium sized brown trout. I only took fish that taped between 10 and 11 inches, everything else above and below went back to the stream. I fished a two fly rig consisting of a #8 Black Hairball and a trailing #16 Black Thin Nymph, both consistently took trout at a 1:1 ratio. I harvested three fish and then began to get a bit more picky for the last two. Just a reminder here, in S.E. Minnesota once you have knocked that fifth trout you are no longer allowed to wet a line, you have to be finished. I fished upstream noticing the occasional mayfly here and there but no rising trout, some smaller #18 Baetis were coming off and a couple larger #14 Hendricksons were emerging as well. I saw two, literally two caddisflies over the course of the afternoon. I tried a #14 Dark Hendrickson pattern despite the lack of rising trout and managed one five inch brown, shortly after I went back to the Hairball/Thin Nymph rig.

I fished until it was getting close to dinner time then sat on a single run and took the last two fish I needed to round out my limit. Responsible harvest is what I practice. That may mean different things to different people and that is fine as long as you can sleep at night. I’m proud to bring home food, especially when I know the amount of resources involved just getting me to the creek. I harvest Brown trout ranging from 10-11inches when they are in abundance and I plan to have fish for dinner. Fresh fish… so fresh I just took it from the creek. Rainbows are fair game as they do not reproduce naturally here in any abundance and are stocked for the purpose of maintaining a put and take fishery. I spare the brookies no matter the size, they are just too cool and too few for me to harvest them, I can easily find browns I would rather eat. Not every location is going to meet my requirements for harvest which is why I take note of locations that perhaps put up larger numbers of smaller trout and choose those locations for harvest, to thin the herd a bit to allow some to grow larger. My rules for harvest are just that, my rules for me, they work for me and I can enjoy the act without any ethical issues. Each one of these trout were grilled and served for dinner that evening, they tasted great and nothing went to waste, in fact even the remnants will feed my pine trees over the next few weeks.

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Found a stream with a couple buddies, managed a handful of fish casting the Sprinkle Me Baby into the wind. Cold and crappy out today, think to last year this time… Fished only a couple hours but enjoyed every minute of it, basically alone on the opener, the stream to ourselves we split up and each picked a couple of spots to try. The wind and roll casts. I got lucky and landed this fish, despite the option to harvest, this beauty went back to the creek un-harmed.

Snuck in a couple more hours on the creek, again looking for Caddis to assess. This particular creek put off the first boil hatch I had ever seen, if you were driving by you’d swear the water was boiling with the number of rise forms occuring. Today a handful of caddis could be found here and there bringing a fish or two to the surface every so often. In the past I would have likely ignored those couple rises and just stuck a nymph on. I just didn’t want to fish a nymph, I wanted the rise and I didn’t care if it was going to be from a 4inch trout, of which I did land a couple. Each run that I witnessed atleast one rise occur while observing I opted to fish first with the #16 EHC (I’m working the pattern specifics out, more later.) Enevitably every spot I chose to put the EHC on first I landed a handful or more with the dry fly. This is a confidence booster, presentation. I fished a couple deeper spots with the #8 Black Hairball and basically spent most of the day looking around and enjoying the sun then split when rain came. I found a few larger stoneflies along with a bunch of wildflowers, the first I’ve seen this year. The largest fish to surface for the EHC was a 13in brown looking healthy, the #8 Hairball took one 14inch brown and a handful of smaller ones. So the important thing here…learn where/when a hatch has the potential to occur and follow it. My bet is that if you pick it right you can fish this particular hatch for a month maybe longer. It is in it’s infancy on this creek, over the next week or so it will ramp up and knowing what I know now, next year I should be able to fish dry flies for a solid month bouncing from creek to creek.

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After my recent Sunday outing that saw a massive caddis hatch, a discussion with other knowledgeable anglers in our area has lead me to believe that what I have referred to as the “Gray Caddis” hatch was incorrect. I’ve been fishing a different hatch. That’s not to say I was completely wrong, the Gray Caddis hatches during this same period and perhaps some of the hatches in the past included the Gray Caddis (i.e. two or more hatches were overlapping). There is some debate as to what specie I was witnessing come off but what is not debatable is that it’s the same specie I’ve been running into for the last couple years. I didn’t stop to pick up adults when they were hatching in force on Sunday, that was a rookie mistake I won’t make again. With that said my curiosity had to be satisfied so I went searching for more of those same caddis hoping I could find a few hatching to gather more information for the weeks to come. Along the way I managed a handful of Browns on a #8 Black Hairball and in between I did toss a #16 EHC for fun…I love rising trout and rise they did, even with minimal hatching adults the EHC took fish after fish, crushed upon subtle impact.

General Notes/Observations:

• Two Sizes of Caddis Adults found: #16 and a #18 (Referring to Body Length).
• The #16 Showed a Lighter Colored Wing w/Olive & Black Abdomen/Body.
• The #18 Showed a Darker Colored Wing w/a Mostly Black body with a spot of Olive.
• The #16 and #18 were found mating so I’ve got to think they are the male/female of the specie.
• Legs on Both were Black changing to Cream or Tan at the end of the legs.
• There were more of the #16′s around than the #18′s by 2:1 easy.
• A Search of the substrate and riffles showed a majority of the tubular cased shells were sealed for the beginning of the pupating process. I am not sure if this is the larval form for this adult or not but it was the only larval form pupating that I found in quantities that would support this hatch.
• Catching Caddisflies and documenting them with a camera even under good lighting conditions is difficult, especially when your searching for the few that are around. Also, remember that a photo taken doesn’t necessarily represent the colors of the natural 100% all of the time, lighting plays a huge role in what you take home with you and reference later.
• Note the width of the body on the #16, something to think about, maybe break out of that perfectly Mayfly tapered body mold for a change, after all isn’t it size, shape, then color? Size and shape of these bodies are not consistent with the standard Mayfly.

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