For everything I can catch on a fly rod. It is my goal to acquaint myself with all varieties of fly fishing and fish that can be caught on the fly. Thinking about it, I live on the Mighty Mississippi River with a large variety of fish and places to fish. So with that, when the moment struck for me to play around with my 3wt on a recent cloudy/windy/generally crappy day I made lemonade… out of sunfish. I played around with various streamer patterns and eventually settled into a few sunfish taking, of all things, a bright yellow Baetis nymph I tie for trout. It just looked like it would work so I went with it and it did. Funny to see my strike indicator slowly walking away from me, I laughed. I will be on the lookout for more opportunities to take warm water species so you should be on the lookout for more from, The Winona Fly Factory.

Stopped by another stream near by and took these the other day.

In an effort to prepare myself both mentally and physically for the winter season that I have geared myself up for, I took the dog out for a while to see how my gear was suited for the cold. I dawned thermals, pants, an extra long sleeve shirt, pants, insulated hip waders, wool socks, coat, hat and gloves. I realize this experience will differ from actual fishing in that I wasn’t too near water, I didn’t get my hands wet and I was moving quite a bit. I was pleased to find that I was not cold even after more than an hour and it was under 20 degrees out and the wind was blowing hard near the river, conditions will differ when I go fishing. I would have gone out for much longer but I had the dog and her leg was getting cold, you know the steel plate doesn’t come with its own heater but she did very well, even kicked up two deer. This is one of those, I wish this had more to do with fly fishing posts but I’m certainly thinking about it.