fishing with Dave, 2001

My good buddy David and I had loaded the john boat in the bed of the pickup. I backed the truck out of the garage and immediately hit Dave's Chevy Lumina with the corner of the tailgate. Put a nice hole in the rear side window. I remember telling mom I hit Dave's car and that we were leaving for some fishing. We caught the fish featured in photo. Sometimes a few dings happen on the way to catching fish. 

warmwater fishin'

I'm home visiting family in NW Iowa. Spent some time this morning tossing streamers on the pond. Summers growing up were a routine of painting houses, playing baseball, chasing my girl, and fishing/swimming in the quarry. I don't make the visit home very often. It's fun to give the old pond a visit.

picked up crappie, bass, bluegill and perch

Iowa Trout Streams

Trip Report: May 13 & 14

Started my weekender on a small Iowa Put & Grow stream. This is a challenging little stream with anything 10"being a big fish. Large boulders serve as the deeper holding spots for the larger fish. Awesome scenery and no one there but me. I love those streams where you're surprised if you see another angler. Coulda fished this stream all day, but it was off to larger water to meet up with Nate.

This was a one night camp trip.  Thankful for no wind--tarp stayed up both days. 

Fished streamers, dries, nymphs, and the catching was excellent. Just what I needed.

Go North Son

I had a dream last night. I was on French Creek and the wild browns were dancing and everything in my world was good. I'm headed to NE Iowa on Friday -- and everything in my world will be good. 

from the bench

All the reading, blogging, tying, and thinking about fishing doesn't satisfy my hunger for being on the stream -- it makes it worse.

Here are a couple new patterns using some cool streamer skull heads. As well as some tinkering with deer hair heads. In both patterns I've loaded a lot of weight onto the hook. The skull heads are nice and heavy. The deer head pattern has a moderate sink rate--wrapped two layers of wire on the shank (otherwise I'm sure it would float). Deer hair is sweet for shaping heads but it's so buoyant and I want these guys to sink.

Adding drama

I don't typically do too much photoshoping to my pics. Mainly adjust the dark/light balance & crop. With these pics I've bumped up the drama filter. Some good memories tied to these fish. enjoy.

Do you remember this fish, Tim?

gnarly old brookie. Nate remembers this fish.

little bow in the current

big bow from big run

April Browns

The stream gave me a couple b-day presents. Two browns that were 19-20ish. Nate caught some luck also with two big ones of his own. It was a slow day of fishing and then all of a sudden we we're catching these beautiful big browns. I think we better repeat our b-day trips next year. I can't remember having better.

John's Bday

I helped Johnny celebrate his birthday over the weekend in Iowa. This was a family trip so we only fished for a few hours, but we came upon a stretch of river loaded with big fish. When I say loaded, I mean fish > 15 inches in almost every run.

John finished up by landing two 19-20 inchers and I landed a 20 incher. The photos turned out great. What a weekend! Typically we fish for days just for a chance at one or two big fish, his weekend we found some nice ones in short order. Happy B-day Uncle.

Black Eyed Snakes tonight in Winona-I'll be there, will you?

-Neck hurts today, great show as usual!

Fishin the Pond

My 19-month son will stand by me while I catch panfish from the backyard pond. He's really into all animals. For now dogs are at the top of his list. Soon enough it may be fish.  

BTW, that's the 3wt I recently built - tossing dries. Perfect for this. 

shallows

39 degrees--carp begin active feeding. 41 degrees--carp begin pre-spawn move to the shallows. I'm patiently waiting for the local waters to recede and warm up a bit.

9' 3wt build

I finished my first build a couple weeks ago. It's a 9' 3wt shown here with my 18month son doing some field tests. I had a blast building this rod. Learned a few things that will help the next build. Like make sure the tip top gets enough cement. I fished this new rod last week in WI and the tip top started to loosen. I kept fishing it and ended up breaking the tip top off. So I lost about a half inch of rod tip. Conveniently I had a larger tip top at home that I was able to remedy. I made the right choice to build my first rod as economically as possible. I found the best deal on a 4pc 3wt blank and the cork real seat is much less than the alternative. Tossing a dry fly with this new 3wt is pretty nice. I doubt the half inch I lost between the first and second guide make a difference. If you think it does, don't tell me.

Shown with new tip top

Driftless in March

A few fishermen met this past weekend for celebration and fishing. A great time was had by all. Needless to say the catching was good. See Nate's post for more pics. I'm already Jonesing to get back to WI for more.

19" bow on brown samuri

13" Brookie

this brown was a snake, long and skinny

A year older and not much wiser

A couple friends and I hit the road for a three day fishing tour of the Wisconsin Driftless area. The more I fish, the more I consider it like a bag of skittles. I love all the colors. Red is like swinging a streamer for a big brown, orange is casting little BWO’s to small trout, and yellow is dragging the bottom for something nasty. I love it all, even the yellows. This trip had all of that and a ton of fish.

Below are a few highlights. Johnny will post better photos that he took. Thanks to Dan H and Tim from Riverblends for helping me forget about getting older.

-John, match this up with your photo and see if it was the same fish you caught.
Mouse fishing at night. -Kidding...
-

Not my photography here, this is all John.

Season Opener (of sorts)

Today is the opening day of the Wisconsin trout season. I am at home with the kids today and tomorrow. But yesterday, I fished in Minnesota. I treated it like it was the opener. Fish were really active, chasing midges on the surface and streamers below the surface. I fished a little creek that has two really deep holes and a bunch of pockets that hold big fish. The stream also has a ton of nice runs, but they all seem to be loaded with small fish. I caught a bunch of fish, but two stand out above the rest.

Frist, I landed a 20”, football of a brown trout (see photo). This was an absolute pig of a fish. I took it from the bottom of a deep and dark pool. I caught it on a burnt orange and brown samurai that Johnny Rotten tied me for Christmas. Merry Christmas eh John. The smuggler performed well on the big fish, flexing completely into the handle, yet maintaining a decent backbone to move the fish around.

The second fish gets overshadowed by the pig brown, but is more meaningful to me. The other fish pictured below came from a corner pocket, about 2 feet deep and with overhanging branches. To get a fly into that pocket, you of have to hit about a 6 inch spot and get your fly under the branches. Typically, I botch the first cast in this spot and watch fish spook downriver. Yesterday, I hit it on the first cast and nailed a nice 14 inch brown.

The trout season is officially open!

Photo Journal

 I use photos to help me time my Iowa fishing seasons. Browns in March. Carp on the small tributaries of the Cedar in April.  Big cats in June. Smallies May-Aug. Here's my calendar for the next 5 months.

I can't say I have a favorite species--I have favorite places. I like a wadable stream without a crowd. On my local warm water streams I rarely see another fisherman. 

March

April

May

I don't catch these brutes on the fly. The trick is 5"-7" live bullheads.

June

July

The box is getting there

I used to have a ton of fly boxes, one for nymphs, one for dries, one for large dries, a couple for streamers, etc... Now I just carry one, the same one all season. So while I probably won't be fishing hoppers on Saturday, they are in there, along with some flies that I probably will fish. Enjoy. And yes, that is the smuggler rod- all cleaned up and ready for action.