Took a friend fishing the other day, woke early and drove for more than an hour to get streamside. That’s an hour for me… and over three for Paul. Coming from St. Paul this guy woke at 3:30am to get to my place at a good hour for the drive to the stream. Boots hit the creek at 8:05am with a water temp of ~52 degrees. The creek had very minimal stain bordering on clear but the deeper holes were a bit off providing good conditions to pull trout out with heavy streamers. I stuck on the fly of the month, a #6 Black Kiss My Leech and put Paul on the first hole we came to. A couple missed strikes and we moved on, I put my leech on the tail end of a pool allowing it to sink a couple feet before picking my line up. Again I can’t stress enough how many fish I have taken recently  just by simply raising my rod to bring my streamer up and out slowly, often an aggressive fish is following close behind. This morning my leech was trailed to the surface to be crushed by a nicer 15+inch brown. Shortly after Paul landed his first fish of many for the day and we busted ass to cover as much creek as possible in a single day.

By noon we covered a good mile of creek pounding each spot with streamers only lingering if fish were caught with any regularity. The trout were on and aggressively hitting a streamer all morning. I wanted to get Paul a bit further from his usual fishing haunts and cover as much of this water as possible. Rainbow bridge (a spot known for it’s stocked rainbows), gave up nothing and we moved upstream. I was a bit disappointed, I was hoping Paul would get a Brown, Rainbow and Brook all on the same creek but after striking out at Rainbow bridge I was pretty sure we’d only see a Brook and Brown. Turns out I was way off. Upstream just a bit and the rainbows were out numbering the browns which is very unusual, typically I notice Rainbows in a very specific spot on this creek but today they were everywhere, more than a mile from where I would have guess I’d find them. Paul nailed his fair share of rainbows stripping his version of an SMB back to his feet but as the day would have it the Brookie would not be seen, a goal for next time. We worked alot on roll-casting and getting a weighted fly up and out of the water with a smooth motion, this keeps your weighted fly as close to the surface of the water as possible when you go to start your roll cast. The result: less tension from the water on your fly allowing it to roll out nicely despite it’s weight. On a side note: I landed the first fish I’ve ever caught with someone elses fly stuck in it’s mouth… I promptly removed both flies and let the fish go about it’s way. Not the brightest trout…

Further upstream we busted out of the woods and found ourselves in a trimmed cow pasture, a beautiful dark dogger was seen but not caught, it moved on my fly and despite my best efforts refused every presentation. The bluff walls around us were sporting the beautiful colors of fall, many leaves were hampering drifts but the weather couldn’t have been nicer. At ~1pm we made a choice to travel into the unknown, unknown water for the both of us. A much smaller creek giving up brown trout and creek chubs as we moved upstream. My opinion of creek chubs is grim as where there is one there are usually many and they will often hit your fly before a trout can. The flipside to that coin is that where there are brown trout and a ready food source like the Rosey Cheeked Creek Chub you will find larger trout. The second creek had a few interesting attributes, the first and most notable was the swarms of #20-22 Trico’s that I was spotting at each riffle we came to, at 1pm in late September… that’s quite interesting but few trout were rising. The second notable item would be the stain on the creek that was clearly not mud but something else all together.

The final note would be that as we fished upstream we caught fewer browns and more creek chubs. I ended up loosing the one KML that had taken every fish up to that point in the day. I decided to swap to a heavy as hell #8 Hairball with a tungsten bead and nymph some deep water, then something spectacular occurred… I caught a Carp on a trout stream, on a designated freakin trout stream. It was awesome! Trout and Carp love the Hairball, my 3wt looked like I had 6lbs of Brown trout giving me hell and all from a tiny carp. This thing was so small I bet the ones on the Columbia are born bigger! This fish totally made my day and I wanted to stay and tempt more but time was running out and another hour long drive was in order so we split, and that’s how Paul and I spent the last Saturday of the season, catching many trout and one awesome carp. Crazy.

Slide Show

That would stand for Super Secret Sexy Streamer Stretch. Say that five times fast… Better yet? Hike around the Driftless Area for a couple years looking for the most amazing piece of streamer water holding some of the largest trout in high quantities, then if you find it… keep your mouth shut. It’s approaching the end of the season and the trout are putting the feed bag on in anticipation for the fall spawn, this means big fish looking for a big meal. I’ve been spying a new stretch of creek for a while now waiting for the right moment to tackle some steep banks and thick vegetation, with the cooler weather it seemed like the time was right. Sershen and I got on location and made a decision to hike downstream to point A, fish up to point B quickly then concentrate our efforts from point B to point C, a thickly wooded section of creek that just looked daunting. My fly of choice was a #6 Black Kiss My Leech as I have exhausted every last Sprinkle Me Baby that I own, the only ones left sit in the ceiling of my fishing vehicle, the only real trophies other than photos I collect when big trout strike. Conditions were about as good as I could have hoped for, a bit of overcast on arrival with the creek stained a bit. We knew this could turn out disastrous with few fish caught while struggling through a thick forested mess, on the other hand the potential for hooking into large fish lay on the other side of the coin. I guess I’m a gambling man and I’m of the opinion that unless you hike it and put your flies in the drink you really don’t know what’s out there, you have to see it with your own eyes.

Downstream ~45min later we were at point A. That’s right, 45 minutes of hiking through thick ass brush, weeds taller than the average man and more burning nettles than I think I’ve ever cursed before. Along the way the first of many trout was nabbed as our path forced us to cross the creek in a particularly tasty location, a deep drifted Kiss My Leech very slowly brought to the surface revealed a 14inch Brown trailing it only to strike within an inch from the surface. My experience has shown when drifting anything really really deep bring it up slowly, so many times I’ve had a fish trailing the fly all the way to the surface. I look at it like this, if the fish strikes, excellent. If not you now know a depth that a fish was holding at or at the very least that you were able to get deep enough to find a trout along the way back to the surface. If you arn’t getting your flies to the fish they will not strike. So the first fish showed its ugly face… literally. This fish looked like it picked a fight with a Heron or something, the jaw was busted in several places and was all bloodied up yet it still nailed my fly…

Downstream at point A we took turns presenting streamers to tasty looking water spending only a few minutes in each location. It’s important to spend enough time to be confident that your flies are getting to the right locations in the creek but not so much time that your wasting your afternoon. We tag-teamed specific runs and others we split and each took solo. Point A to B went quickly and a handful of Brown’s ranging from 13-15inches were caught before I managed the first dogger of the day. 18inches according to the tape, this trout caught me a bit off guard as I had pulled a smaller 15inch fish out just prior to hooking this guy and was not expecting much to come of a second pass, I was wrong. Several nice head shakes and this fish was working me over pretty well, I thought about reaching for my net as I hollered back to Sershen for assistance but ultimately opted to keep my hands on the rod and line which kept this fish from wrapping me around a tree limb. I eventually moved him to a shallow section full of mud and scooped him up with the net. Dogger #1.

We moved upstream and the #6 Kiss My Leech could do no wrong, it hit the creek and the brown trout turned and hit it just as quickly. The strike to hookup ratio was almost 1:1 by this point and things were looking excellent. We reached point B and took assessment of the thick jungle. We opted to hike the forested edge at first but I got sick of that after attempting to climb a steep bank up and out of the creek only to end up sliding face first into a bunch of nettles. Shortly after I hopped in the creek for good and made roll casts to any dark or deep peice of water basically continually moving upstream until I found something super tasty: like this, at which point Sershen and I would take turns attempting to pull something out.

This water was giving up 12-16inch Brown’s left and right to the Kiss My Leech, for a good hour I could do no wrong just put the fly on the fish, often they hit it so hard I didn’t have to do much to set the hook. As time wore on we began noticing the random aggressive rise and shortly after Sershen pegged the cause, big, ugly, flying beetles. There were so many that at one point I took more than one to the head and neck. I came to fish streamers through big ugly Driftless water so I stuck with the Kiss My Leech as it was kicking ass, Sershen opted to try a foam beetle pattern after loosing his streamer to a snag. He did manage one trout but before he could land the fish and retrieve his fly we watch the fish wrap him around a tree branch, shake once and take off. The streamer was re-applied in short order.

Bouncing through the creek bank to bank is not the ideal way to go in my opinion but some situations call for it. The fish, despite my un-coordinated trudging remained eager to eat and relatively un-affected by my presence. I managed a nicer 16inch Brown along with a handful of 14-15inch fish along the way, they were promptly released without me so much as touching them, a simple grab and twist of my barbless fly put the trout back in the creek and kept me making casts and landing fish. We worked the wooded section up and came to a couple deep spots that deserved a bit more attention but only a couple shadows were seen, it was the faster deep riffles that held the bigger fish for the day. Sershen, after putting on a #8 Hairball, pulled two nice fish from a deep riffle then turned around and landed an 18inch female sporting a serious gut. This was the icing on the cake, Dogger #2. With both of us content and promising it wouldn’t be long before we were back on this water we quickly fished back to the vehicle with Monarch butterflies following us on our way out.

Slide Show

So it went that the last day of the catch and keep season I went George hunting. I had spied this trout several times throughout the latter half of this summer season, I watched her come out twice on previous attempts but hesitate at the last moment only to slink back to the hidey hole thus eluding my net. Armed with a #6 Black Kiss My Leech, one large splitshot, 3x tippet on a 6ft leader and a big net I made three casts before I saw her come out. She moved and again hesitated, I thought I missed my opportunity but decided to cast to her again as she had not tasted hook. On a down and across swing (she had moved downstream from me after following my fly on the first attempt) I watched her come up and nail my fly ~3inches under the surface. This fish felt like a hog, I didn’t realize how much of a hog until I got her into the net. She taped at exactly 22inches and was probably the largest fish I’ve caught in terms of girth to date. And so it went that on the last day of the catch and keep season I nailed a George, smiling in the sun, knee deep in the creek I let this fish swim from my hands, splashing my face as she returned to the place she came from. Flies will take big trout around here, persistence helps, so does a big net and 3x tippet. Note: the crappy out of water photo was taken in a heart racing moment with adrenaline pumping, a typical scenario that I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy a handful of times in my short career fly fishing the Driftless Area.

Slide Show

Fished a creek with Sershen yesterday, we’ve been able to get out a handful of times lately and it’s been good. I’ve advocated creek dueling with a friend before. I dig talking trout, tactics and everything else while fishing with a good friend. Everyone has that person who matches their style well and things just work, simple. Simple is good. Once onstream we hit the creek hard and hiked close to a mile downstream without stopping or checking the creek out much. We moved far from the banks and took in the forest around us. Cooler air temps have created excellent afternoon fishing this August with hoppers hopping and BWO’s popping.

I fished a #8 Yellow Hopper first hoping that the pasture we found ourselves in had seen its share of these creatures and the fish would readily rise for a big meal opportunity. My instincts were right on, shortly after dressing my fly to ride high I was into wild brown trout. We fished a larger creek offering with it the opportunity to spend an afternoon in knee deep water tossing flies, I typically avoid standing in the creek but if done properly one can take quite a few fish from a single run even standing next to your prey. A bruiser took a swipe at my fly as I drifted it through a small piece of pocket water, it came riding by quickly and I think he simply missed the mark. I enjoyed seeing his backside flashing me before he dove for the depths.

We took a handful of trout with Hoppers and Stimulators as we worked the pasture up, splitting runs apart back and forth was common place, we also randomly drifted apart at times to get entire riffle/run/pool sections alone. The depth of the water was pushing me to see what a streamer might produce but the lure of the rise had me and it took a while to put the SMB on. Eventually working through a forested section I switched flies and roll casted my streamer to the opposite bank as we moved upstream. A handful of BWO’s ranging from #18-22 were seen and netted in my hat but few fish were surfacing. Working a deep hole a couple brookies chose to give up a picture with the Sprinkle Me Baby, I love catching brookies and I love seeing it go down even more. I watched as my fly drifted deeper and deeper until a white mouth opened wide and with that a tight line.

We pushed on but the setting sun forced us off the creek and to water closer to home before the day would be done. The first stop gave up a brown and two rainbows in ten minutes while a swarm of mosquitoes took their toll on exposed flesh. These super skeeters cut through shirts, pants and even my buff. Normally bugs don’t bother me but this was the exception. Ten minutes was all I could handle and we were off to the last spot of the evening. On location we peered through the weeds to see a scant few stocker rainbows, my dinner stop. I knew a few were around and with previous experience at this spot I slapped on a #8 Hairball and a single splitshot. A nice roll cast to sink the fly as close to the weed line as possible follwed by a short dead drift into a swing resulted in a handful of rainbows for dinner. Bows take the Hairball all day long. I found a smaller 8inch fish that took my fly as I dapped it on its face to get hooked and off only to get right back in line for another round with the Hairball. I figured this fish would only give it up twice but a decent drift with a twitch at the end put him right back on my Hairball for a third and final time. With dinner in one hand, my rod in the other and the sun setting behind me we took off for home. Brown, Brook and Rainbow, damn Southeast Minnesota has been good to me.

Slide Show

Stopped just for twenty or so minutes to fish a spot I’ve spied a George hanging out in. George is code for freakin’ big brown trout, the kind that break tippet and leave you speechless standing on the bank holding a limp line. The first cast hooked this guy. I enjoyed the smaller fight he put up then promptly sent him swimming so I could concentrate on finding my larger target. I knew the section I’d seen him at last time but saw no signs until a forty foot cast put my fly just upstream of a tree covering a portion of the creek. I let it sink to get under the branches then began stripping my fly back out when I saw the shape, big, dark and moving fast. He didn’t strike and instead gave me just enough to keep me coming back, the big ones tend to either hit it or quit it. I tossed my fly for another couple minutes hoping he would change his mind but no luck. Next time…

Slide Show

Started another day in the heart of the Driftless Area of Southeast Minnesota onstream at ~7:30am. The creek was at normal flow and gin clear. I picked a challenge this May morning, a long hundred yard stretch of very slow moving trout water slightly weeded up and about 4-5ft at its deepest along the far bank across from me. Over forty feet wide with a fair amount of obstacles behind me I chose my backcasts well and relied on a rollcast the rest of the time. In my first two years fishing the Driftless Area I spent many hours here landing few fish and getting snagged on high brush and trees quite often. Now, a bit wiser I got hung up only a handful of times and spent two hours figuring out what the trout wanted and how they wanted to see it. Upon arrival I noticed the wall of Alliaria petiolata (Garlic Mustard) moving out of the forest and into the field adjacent. It’s moving fast and is borderline unstoppable, note the pictures below that illustrate its progression through this field. Soon it will take over and the diversity of this forest will be at serious risk to this invasive specie.

A #14 CDC and Elk was trailed by a #16 Sparkle Larva about 12inches down and after that a #16 Hot Yellow P&P. With the low light in the early morning hours I contemplated tossing a streamer but the slow moving gin clear creek made me think twice about tossing anything heavy. I didn’t want to start the morning sending trout fleeing upstream only to disturb the fish I would eventually be casting to. I also witnessed a handful of slow rises, I thought midge and damn small too. This made me confident that the fish were active and near the surface, thus the choice of a dry/dropper rig. I wasn’t expecting the dry to get much action and it didn’t but it makes for a good indicator and with this slow moving weedy water I didn’t want my flies to sink to the bottom and get hung up fishing a no indicator rig. I make my choice to fish an indicator or not based on the situation and the water, here it was important to keep the flies where I wanted them 12-18inches below the surface of the water. Interestingly enough it took a couple long, almost two-three minute drifts before my #14 CDC and Elk slowly sank, I set the hook on a 6inch Brown sporting some beautifullycolored fins. The #16 Hot Yellow P&P was the only one of the three to take fish but it did and I’m confident that it would have continued to catch more but slowly and with the fish all likely to be small.

The next twenty minutes saw two more smaller Browns come to hand but the action was slow and I knew they would take something else more readily. I also knew there were a handful of nice 18-22inch fish cruising this area and with that I swapped to a Black #8 Kiss My Leech. I chose the KML because I tied them much lighter than the SMBs I’ve been fishing which I was hoping would help keep the fish calm with less of a surface impact. A couple casts in and fish were following but few were striking, I missed two and landed one a bit larger at 12inches. I kept at it moving slowly upstream making long casts across the slow pool working my flies back to my feet but the fish remained hesitant and time was running out. I decided to swap to a less flashy #8 Hairball with a tungsten bead, on the second cast I felt a strong tug. The first of over a dozen lay at my feet just over 12inches. I doubled back and sat for a couple minutes sipping my coffee before proceeding to work the entire stretch up again with the #8 Hairball. The sun that greeted me at 7:30am was now hidden behind a thick layer of clouds.

Working up-stream going slow and staying as low as possible I began picking off trout ofter trout. The #8 Hairball was the fly they wanted and would take readily. When fishing streamers I typically try any number of retrieves and this morning the fish wanted a very slowly stripped in fly, almost dragging it across the bottom. A number of strikes were missed but a nice 19inch female Brown rolled and showed me her colors jumping a few times attempting to shake my hook to no avail. She came to my net and we hung out for a minute before I sent her back to the creek. I continued at it until my hourglass was almost empty, I landed a bunch of fish in the 12-14inch range and lost one that was pushing 20inches for sure. I watched it roll as I was stripping my line in, it tasted enough hook for me to know it wouldn’t be striking my fly again. With that I took off for work as the sun came back out and turned up the heat on the creek.

Post Note: Invasive species are here and our presence affects their movements. Learn what you can about them and know how they are spread and move. That knowledge can help you keep your effect on the environment around you to a minimum. Garlic mustard seeds in its second full year after the plant dies for the season and the long thin stems filled with seeds catch on clothing or fur. Deer spread this stuff quite rapidly and the seeds stay viable in the soil for up to 10 years. When I’m out during the time of year when the plant dies I wash my boots off afterwards to try to get any tiny seeds off, waders too. It should be noted that just being in a forest infested with Garlic Mustard you run the risk of picking up seeds from prior years and spreading them say clung to your boots in mud. I’m not sure how much of a potential risk that would present but something to think about year round. I’m hoping this helps me from spreading it to other areas I love. Forest diversity is important.

Slide Show

Just another day around here. Woke early to take advantage of a couple hours before work. I see little reason to waste the day sleeping when there are trout to be had. This is the “busy” time of the year for me and as such I stow my gear in the car, it goes everywhere with me, you never know when an hour will appear and with trout this close I’d kick myself if I left my rod at home.

Onstream earlier at ~8am. I took my time due to the brisk air-temp that was making me wonder why I fish mornings and not more evenings. The usual mug of black stuff in tow and a #8 Olive SMB rigged roadside. Yawning I spied the creek from a ways out and became concerned. I knew the area got a bit of rain but this creek was looking much better just a day ago. I had chosen this stretch of this creek and my thought was to fish or go home. I fished. Second cast after a short upstream hike made the morning. Heavy, heavy stain on the creek, borderline mud and my streamer has a nice 14inch fish pulling it towards a tree branch that I can just barely make out through the turbid water. Good thing I got into fish early or I might have hiked out right there thinking nothing was going to see my fly. Next bend and another Brown came out, fishing the shallower edges rather than the deep pools payed off with the heavy stain. I tried fishing some of the usual deep spots but the stain was too great and I think most just couldn’t make it out unless I literally stuck it right in their mouths. Quite a few nipping trout, just tugging the tail of my streamer rather than committing to the ride. I almost got frustrated on a corner pool that I must have had ten fish do this exact thing but I was enjoying the cool air and hot coffee with plenty of creek still in front of me.

Upstream a bit and I had taken a couple more in the 10-13inch range. I figured out why the creek was stained as I turned around a bend. The herd, cattle. Fishing pastures can have its downsides, you might get a nicer backcast but you’ve got to deal with the bovine element. Cattle…better than corn I guess. The air temp rose quickly and it dawned on me why I fish mornings, sweating your ass off is no fun. I typically stay out of the creek if I can avoid it even in the warmer weather. Trout feel, see and hear us coming a mile away before getting into the creek. I fished upstream until I ran out of morning to enjoy and headed to work. Fishing before work, satisfying.