• AT: 8:46am, DT: 3:50pm
• AAT: ~36°F, DAT: ~37°F
• WT: 8:46am 42°F, 11am 44°F, 3:50pm 46°F
• Wind Nil until 2pm
• Clear Water on Arrival
• Midge in the Snow on Arrival

I planned to assess the water where I parked then hike downstream but after taking initial water temps and checking the rocks, the trout rising at ~9am were too much for me to walk away. I told myself one or two then downstream, a dozen or so later and it was 10am. I was fishing a longer (11ft) leader and had some trouble getting it to open up completely with the slight breeze coming at me. I moved maybe 6ft in the first two hours, thinking to the recent reading regarding the speed of sound through water. Trout less than twenty feet away and my clunky boots grinding the gravel. The midge in the morning were larger,  #20′s with a few #22′s mixed in. As the day would have it the trout did not stop rising.

I fished the first two hours in the same spot in just my long sleeve shirt with the net handy quickly landing trout and cleaning up my fly. Landed quite a few fish with a single #20 Jujubee Midge, nothing over 12inches and nothing under 7inches a steady hard fighting group, most were picked off by sight, waiting, fishing to the rise in rhythm. A handful came as pleasant surprises when a poor cast was allowed to drift long or an unintended target swooped in for the take. At 11am I had fished the run through and either put down or caught every fish that was rising, some remained striking the surface in upstream reaches but they had slowed and were in slower slack water. I put on my coat and hiked downstream.

Swung a #8 Black SMB for quite a while getting nowhere. Looking for a bigger brown or rainbow but neither were seen. One long distance release on a brown that looked to be roughly 14inches. I rigged a #8 Hairball and trailed it with a #16 Black Swimming PT, my Dark Hendrickson (E.Subvaria) nymph imitation. The PT took more fish than the Hairball but it got a couple in. The afternoon was kind of slow, hiking back upstream fishing a pocket here or a run there picking up a bit of trash as I went. Sad to see such an excellent fishery with such life littered with aluminum and plastic, in my time visiting here this seems to be the rule and thus the name Trash Creek.

I rounded the day out hiking further upstream than I had planned but I saw aggressively rising trout and didn’t want to waste the opportunity. My #20 Jujubee Midge fooled three but the rest weren’t having it, size does matter. The majority of the afternoon midge were much closer to #24/26. I swapped back to the #8 Black SMB and fished a couple more deep holes managing a handful of 12-13inch browns. Hiking upstream I took note of brown puddles created by perhaps a concerning amount of cow manure coming from a pasture area upstream. Piles of manure all the way to waters edge, this can’t be good for the water quality. Trash Creek, bummer. I finished and hiked out taking a final water temp (46°F)  in the same riffle I took the morning assessment.  Final Note: Ephemerella Subvaria and Baetis were here in large quantities, Baetis in the slightly slower water upstream from faster riffles and the Subvaria all over the rocks in the fastest part of the riffles. Get ready, provided things go well with the melt April looks to be excellent.

Slide Show

Enjoy a minute from the Feb. 14th outing. Remember to change the video settings from 360p to 720p in the lower right corner after the video begins playing. It will take alittle longer to load but well worth the wait. Thanks Wendy B. for another excellent day on our Driftless Creeks.

The Field Report

• Arrival: ~8am, Departure: ~4:30pm
• Airtemp: Arrival ~35ºF, Departure ~42ºF
• Wind: NW 18mph at 8am slowing to 8mph at 4pm
• Water Temps: ~12:30pm 39ºF, ~2:45pm 41.5ºF
• Midge in the snow at 10:30am, Rising trout at 1:15pm

Wendy B. and I met roadside a bit before 8am under sunny skies. The wind was predicted to be a beast for the early morning hours dying down as the day wore on. We chose a spot that did not compliment the wind well, right in our faces for most of the day. With that said it posed minimal comfort issues but made casting a pain in the ass. After hiking in a ways we broke up and began casting nymphs. I played around with a #12 Hairball (tan) trailed by a #16 Pink Hot Spot Scud for a majority of the day. I know we sent most the fish at the first few places scattering, the wind was a hindrance the first hour or so. Winona County was under a wind advisory until 9am on the 14th. Just ask my 50ft white spruce that came down while I slept the night before.

Fishing was a bit slow the first couple of hours, we hiked and fished looking for good places to get out of the wind and into the sunshine, had their been no wind I would have been in a t-shirt most of the day. We sat on a few runs and I eventually landed a fish around 10am. Picking up a couple nymphing, the #16 Pink Hot Spot Scud out fished the #12 Hairball 2:1 easy over the course of the day. Wendy B. was successful with a #14 Orange Scud earlier in the day. We hiked upstream, the plan was to fish a while then access a second stream to finish the day out.

At site two I took an initial water temp and checked the rocks. Interesting how one stream will put off midge like crazy and the next puts off tiny black stones in large quantities. We had hoped to find a reason to fish this second site as far as the winter regulations would allow but after half a mile we hadn’t found what we were looking for. At 12:30pm we stopped in the sun and out of the wind to make lunch. I often want to bring lunch and stop to eat but rarely do, today the longer hours and distance travelled through thick wet snow almost demanded re-fueling. I managed to bust out a crude fire in the snow with a lighter and what nature had to offer around me in a reasonable amount of time. Wendy prepped kindling while I prepped the site and got the tinder needed to get flames roaring. Fifteen minutes later we were stuffing hot dogs topped with all the fixings down enjoying the moment in the snow. Trash packed away and fire covered with a foot of snow we busted out to find a trout, a decent lunch in less than thirty minutes.

We thought for a bit about hiking a ways and fishing something we both knew but decided instead to peek around the corner, glad we did. Once back on-stream we noticed rising trout almost instantly, consistently rising trout, launching trout. After watching a handful of brown trout propel out of the water we dropped our gear to rig 18inches of 6x tippet with a #20 Midge Dryfly. A few minutes later on my second drift a smaller brown came up for my #20 Jujubee Midge. We thought about splitting up but if done properly back to back trout dry fly fishing can be fun with a friend. The one who wasn’t fishing was taking pictures and landing trout with the net. I continued with the Jujubee midge but found that once the CDC wing was slimed the fly was useless. I believe it has its place in my box for finiky trout that demand the look and behaviour of this fly, the first two drifts showed why CDC can be so effective. I opted for a #20 Midge that had hackle rather than CDC for the wing/legs. We continued catching nicer back to back browns ranging from 10-13inches over the course of the next hour or so, we would have landed more if the wind hadn’t fouled a fair number of casts up. Nothing like watching your leader and tippet blown straight back at you as your line is laying down on the creek, it could have worse though. The dry fly hour can make a day, it did this day. The trout ceased rising at ~2:30pm, the water temp was 41.5ºF. We continued upstream swinging streamers through a few deeper sections with minimal results.

On my suggestion we opted to hike 95% of the way back out and round out the day sitting on a few runs. This was maybe not the best choice, we busted ass through the snow and by the end we were both pretty beat. We split up and each took a spot. I swapped my rig to the #12 Hairball (tan) trailed by the #16 Pink Hot Spot Scud and began picking off brown after brown. The nymphing was almost as good as dry fly fishing, I couldn’t keep the fish off my line had I tried. A couple of times I lost a fish as it struck my flies emerging from the water as I prepared to cast again. In forty minutes I must have managed close to dozen brown trout from 8-12inches and one pushing 13inches from the single run. I lost twice that for sure, takes ranged from aggressive to sluggish making it difficult to anticipate a strike, sometimes your line would twitch and others it would come to a very slow stop. The sun began to hide behind clouds and the air temp seemed to drop a bit signaling the end of the day.

The Bug Report:

With the warmer weather I spent a bit of time checking rocks, beginning the count and assessment of the hatches for the coming season. I hope to get out to a few places I’ve caught decent mayfly and caddis hatches the last two years to check the rocks and see where I should concentrate my efforts come spring. I can tell you now that the Dark Hendricksons are on the rocks. Ephemerella Subvaria were pretty thick on the creek we fished, the wing pads still have a ways to go before they are mature enough to hatch but provided we don’t get major flooding the Dark Hennies should be good to go. Other bugs spied…everything! This creek is alive. Caddis larva of all kinds, Maccafertium nymphs (either Light Cahills or March Browns), Giant Water Beetles and Leeches all clung to rocks I examined. 

Slide Show

During April the Hennies should be coming off in large numbers. In anticipation and preperation for this I am re-visiting both my online resources and the books I have to re-aquaint myself with one of the areas, and one of fly fishings most well known hatch, the Ephemerella subvaria.

1st lets discuss water temperature: ideal hatching conditions will, according to my sources, occur between 2-4pm when the water temp rises between 50-55 degrees. It should be noted that on hotter days the time may extend to later in the day when water temps decrease back into the 50-55 degree range.

2nd when imitating the nymphs of Ephemerella subvaria the size is important. The naturals that I took from streams in our area averaged about 11mm, this may be 1mm short, my book states 12mm and that sounds right seeing that these nymphs still have time to develop. The book source I’m using is Hatches 2 by All Caucci and Bob Nastasi which recgonizes that within Ephemerella subvaria there are several color variations and that you should tie yours according to the naturals you find in your streams. The ones I’ve collected recently were dark brown with hints of red, also these nymphs are much wider and thicker than say the Baetis nymphs that you might find.

For dry flies I’ve read and been told that size 14 is the most common size for the Dark Hendrickson in S.E. MN. They are tied in various colors with different wings/post. I tied these with a golden brown Antron wing, other options are lemon wood duck or dun antron. I’ve seen the body as dark brown, grey and the hackle as dun or brown/both. I used dun. I hope these serve me well.