The day was more about meeting up with a few friends of mine who happened to inform me of their camping plans not to far from my home but I managed to sneak a few hours of fishing in before they were to arrive. I had planned one route but as fate were to have it I made a wrong turn not thinking and decided to roll with the punches. I picked a spot that was close using this new route and drove, satisfied just to be in the moment of driving to my fishing destination.

Recent rain had muddied the stream a bit but I decided to press on. I had fished this spot once before and found it to be barren despite the appearance of greatness at the time. I don’t like writing a stretch of trout water off until I’ve given it a few attempts with failing outcomes each time, today was this spot’s second chance. With nothing rising and the heat on I rigged nymphs and attempted to go deep but found nothing but rocks on the bottom. I lost a few flies and managed to get almost no strikes, I did miss the one for-sure strike I had. After two hours of getting nowhere in the sun I pulled out to move closer to the final destination. Read the rest of this entry »

Woke at 4am to prepare myself for a bit of a drive and a full day of fly fishing. Met Wendy B., consolidated and slimmed to one ride to take to the trout stream.  The plan was to fish in two areas, one in the morning (7am-10am) and one later during a potential hatching period (11am-4pm). The morning went well, the small stream was an interesting environment and after some discussion we were rigged and ready to catch trout. I managed to fumble almost immediately requiring me to cut my line and tie everything on again, bummer but certainly not the feeling for the day. 

We fished for almost three hours on the first stream, Wendy B. nymphed quite a few trout out from here while I only managed to get one and I didn’t land it. It took a PT in shallow water, jumped three times and with the last launch shook his head once and said have a good rest of the day. It was a decent sized brown and would have been the larger fish for the morning, I would have liked to shake that fish’s fin. After a while nymphing this smaller stream the water temps were rising and we moved on to larger water in search of dry fly opportunities. 

We arrived and I took an initial water temp of ~59 degrees, optimal water temp for hatching Light Hendricksons and as we found out, about a million other insects. We didn’t see much for rising trout, Wendy let loose taking fish after fish on a nymph rig, I waited and decided to rig a dry Light Hendrickson pattern trailed with an emerger pattern. While Wendy was nymphing we both noticed a rise from a larger brown at the head of the pool, I waited for one more rise. As Wendy worked the nymphs I moved to put myself in position to cast to the rising Brown at the head of the pool. Third pass was the ticket and with that Wendy and I were taking trout from the same hole at the exact same time, fly fishing with your friends can be a blast! This one fish made my day, I saw him, understood what needed to be done and set myself up. I made a cast across the current and managed to mend enough line upstream to keep the fly drag free just long enough to fool this beauty. 

Although I took the one on a dry fly we found quickly that right then at that stream at that time dries were less than reliable. Although a trout might rise once in a while it just wasn’t worth it to try and force a rise, so many bugs were present it was also hard to determine what dry fly to use. At one point I saw Light Hendricksons, March Browns, Two Caddis species, one was for sure the “Little Black” Caddis (Chimarra aterrima) and stoneflies. Nymphing any one of these patterns was the sure ticket to trout. I managed to catch one of the many mayflies I saw flying around, I believe it was an Adult March Brown, not a sub-imago or “Dun”, the wings on the fly had clearly molted from the earlier stage and were the mottled clear/black you see in the picture.

We decided to move one last time, check out another stretch quick before packing it in. Saw a few more rising trout, I thought about nymphing but I decided to try taking one or two on dry flies, I attempted and failed, probably should have stuck with nymphing. Fishing with a like minded person can be excellent, we were constantly asking questions and trying new things. It’s great to bounce depth/weight amounts off another person, one might get the itch to switch to dries and if that works then both switch up. Also we discussed different approaches, where is the best location to cast from in a certain spot and what kind of drift are you looking for, two brains are better than one.

We had a great day under sunny skies and after getting alittle tan we packed it in for the day. I had a blast and I got to fish and explore totally new water and it will be very close to where I am camping this coming weekend, how nice. Other quick notes, there are bigger bugs in bigger water, I will be working on tying some large stonefly nymph imitations for areas like this. Also, June seems to present an interesting challenge due to the variety of hatching insects, I will be working on several “attractor” dry fly patterns that might help produce a rising fish when so much is going on. 

Thanks again Wendy, I had an awesome time as expected.

Update: After going back to the Jar with the March Brown I thought was an Adult Imago was infact a Sub-Imago at the time of the photo above, I know this because I found this the next day with a dead fly that had clearly molted, I wish I had seen it. I guess this is me admitting my ignorance.

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The plan for this outing was to experience something new, the invitation came and the opportunity arose to learn, study and hunt. This time not for trout but something different…the carp. I hooked up with with Wendy Berrell Friday morning in the mid-early am, grabbed coffee and were off. A few things to note right away, this trip was drastically different from my usual routes. We drove rather than hiked, we fished in populated areas often with others (not a bad thing), saw more trash than I’d ever seen while fishing (a bad thing)…humans, and fought harder than I’d ever done before to land fish. I used an 8wt rather than my usual 4wt. Funny how I use a rod thats just one or two wt. over what it should for trout in my area and I did the same for the carp but I was greatful to borrow a rig to fish with for the time I had. I will be changing the rod situation, that will involve a 3wt and 6-7 wt. I will be doing this again.

So we started fishing and almost immediately I was onto carp. This is was my first time attempting to catch this species on a fly rod and it has it’s own unique twists. The way carp feed, the approach, the casts and the flies are all similar but different. I made my first attempt to carp on the banks of a river. I could see the fish, they were less than ten feet from the bank. We stood high above on the bank and tried to sight fish carp without snagging or spooking them, funny how fast there bulbous asses can scoot when motivated. My 1st was snagged, in the upper fin while trying to drift a fly basically straight into the target zone, within 6 inches of the vacuum hose (the carp snout). The second was all fair right in the mouth, hard fight even on an 8wt and I was getting into it right away.

We moved after presenting flies to several carp, the timing was good but we were searching for bigger tailers, actively feeding carp. These fish can be seen with their tails high peaking out from below. Finding sight fishable carp feeding like this is ideal, one can present the fly and attempt to observe notable changes in behavior to cue the hook set. We might have seen more of this but this is still early in the season and the carp need more time to warm before consistently activly feeding so we moved from location to location in search.

We stopped at several dams along the way and I had a blast blind nymphing for carp. In the space of three hours Wendy and I got onto several carp, one after another. A few were hooked foul and when this was observed I deliberately tried to get the carp off the line but after learning the depth and the needed weight to sink the flies to the carp I was consistently catching carp, and loosing flies (bummer). We caught not only carp but several species, including an 8lb Walley, I watched this fish run Wendy around the bridge pylons before he landed it. At one point, in the sun with two very taught fly lines, we were both waist deep in carp. Casting the 8wt was very different, gave my arm a hell of a work out, that and the constant carp action running me all over the place.  After hours in the sun the action cooled down and we moved on with the search for sight fishable tailers.

Finding many, many carp but few actively feeding, we got some grub and headed for camp. We decided ahead of time to camp at a location near water on the way home to save time in the morning. Camping lite we pitched the tent (incase of potential rain), made a fire from the scraps around us in the dark and fell asleep under the stars. Waking early we hit more carp water before heading home. Wendy was spot on taking two morning tailers, including the Bertha of the trip, at 15lbs this was the fish we were looking for. We moved to one last location to try blind nymphing another dam.

I caught several small fish of varied species all trip and this morning saw a bullhead, perch, whitebass (I think), and a large mouth bass. Wendy caught a few more but I hadn’t felt the pull I was looking for, thats what it is, more of a pull, they pull back once the line goes tight rather than with a trout that tugs on a streamer, I was looking for one last fish before the trip was over. It came, standing in the spill way of the dam, once hooked the fish ran, and then ran some more, more than I’d ever felt before. Wicked, damn wicked. I held tight, tried to give him breathing room but not let him man-handle me, I for some reason knew we were close to the time we wanted to leave and with the watch on my chest pack I noticed the time, 10:55. The time of the hook up. In and out, left, right. 11:05. Pull. Hard. 11:15. I just played and at this point I was getting worked, with an 8wt. I started really leaning into this fish. 11:30 We saw the fish, it looked big, it should have, and then the pop. Slack line and a scale on a hook, his momento for me to remember him by. Must have been a foul hooked fish but it sure seemed close to his mouth. I would have really liked to land that fish but I know there will be more sight fished carp in my future.

I learned alot from this trip. I know I like the challenge of taking tailers. I know I don’t appreciate the locations as much but it has its place and time. Interesting how this happened over the trout opener, made me stop and think about the tag line under the title at the top “Learning to Fly Fish in S.E. MN” this is me being true to that. This summer there are many plans in the works to take warm water species as well as trout. Thanks to WB for the company, guidance, flies, gear, dinner Friday night (made it up with breakfast), and being a like minded person.

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