June 2nd, 2014

• Fished from ~1-4pm
• Sunny Skies and High 15+mph Winds
• Lots of Dandelion seeds in the air and creek surface.
• Airtemp 81°F on Arrival
• Water Temp 62°F on Arrival
• Rising began around 1:30pm
• Lt. Hendrickson Hatch During the entire time.

I fished just a few hours but man was it a productive few hours. I haven’t landed this many trout in a while (note: this may explain the crap photos, I was having too much fun with the fish). I walked from the car downstream to a deep run/pool I kind of figured might be a bit stained from the recent rain and sure enough anything deeper than a couple feet had some slight color to it. I thought perhaps at first to go with a streamer but something pushed me in a direction I haven’t gone since winter…I opted to nymph today. I tied on a #14 Orange Scud and one of my personal favorites the #16Hot Butt Peacock and Partridge. I’ve always had excellent success with this fly during the spring emergences and it is particarlly effective when dead drifting to a depth and then made to rise with the raising of a rod tip. I’ve had many many fish bolt from the bottom of the creek up after the P&P when on the rise.

I have to admit I was pleased with my casting into the wind a two fly rig with an additional splitshot. I only had to untangle my flies once from a gust of wind resulting in a snag with a tall weed, other than that it was smooth sailing. The first cast brought in a 10inch brown and I had a strike almost every cast after that fishing my initial spot. Around 1:30pm I watched the first rise occur but I was enjoying the two fly rig (Scud in the lead with the P&P trailer) so I opted to keep it on. I watched the first Lt. Hendrickson fly to the trees above me shortly after. The wind made it hard to catch one to confirm my suspicions and of course I forgot my favorite hat which happens to double as a great bug net so the one I did catch got mangled. The size and color was spot on for a Lt. Hendrickson. Note the horrible picture…

The P&P out fished the Orange Scud 3:1 easy and more importantly the largest fish were taking the P&P over the fatter #14 Orange Scud. Roll casts were critical today considering the two fly rig combined with the increased wind. The best fish were all holding far up in each run and almost everyone hit hard and fought hard as well. I lost one that was a good 18inches but landed another six more than were between 15-17inches so I wasn’t complaining. The Lt. Hendricksons continued to hatch through the afternoon and were still hatching when I opted to walk off the creek (my garden needed my attention for a few hours). I fished the two fly nymph rig the entire day simply because it was so effective. Over the course of the three hours I touched over 30 trout with 6-7 of them over 15inches. This resulted in a focus on the fishing and less so the photography for the day and I’m good with that…

Photo Credit: The Driftless Exposure

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