Iowa's clear creeks

These are not trout streams. However, they are just as pretty and hold smallies, carp, and others.

A River Runs Through it

Poets talk about "spots of time," but it is really fisherman who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone. I shall remember that son of a bitch forever. - Norman Maclean

I recently read this book on my phone using the kindle app. I want to make a trip west.

fighting bullying with babies

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/fighting-bullying-with-babies/

some random thoughts...

Since I moved down to the driftless area a few years ago, I’ve been struck by how common the act of trout fishing is here. I’m not sure if ‘common’ is the best word for it. But what I’m saying is that although the season’s change, the fishing doesn’t, at least not that much. For example, yesterday I fished a nice blue-winged olive hatch, something I haven't done in a while. I had a blast. At the same time, there were some pretty good sized brown trout spawning in the shallows. It was a pretty cool day. Yet I couldn't help feel that it wasn't all that different from fishing a month ago, and that it won't be much different in another month. The fishing is always good here.

Contrast this will the furry of fall steelheading. When the fish are only around for a short period of time, you better get fishing, or you’ll miss it. For me, that aspect of fall steelheading drove an impulse that I largely lack right now. There is no urgency to fish because I know that I’ll be able to experience pretty constant action on these streams regardless of season.

Yesterday I spent some time just sitting on the bank over a gravel bed watching a couple of midsized (~16 inch) brown trout spawning. I was thinking about all of this and I felt lucky to have access to a resource that is so seasonally consistent. Everyday flyfishing is what I’ve started to refer to it as. It’s just a part of life, something to be balanced with other activities and obligations. It’s a low-key affair, nothing to get too excited about, yet something to enjoy. I also thought about fall steelheading and how it isn’t just another part of life. For a couple of months, it is life.

It’s tempting to try to make things into what you want them to be. But it’s much easier to just enjoy something for what it is. When I lived up north, I spent most of the summer trying to find an ‘everyday fishing’ experience, only to learn that fly fishing up there is mostly seasonal. Sure, there were some hatches that brought fish out, but those were pretty rare. Now that I live here, in such a constant environment, I yearn for the excitement that comes with fall steelheading.

But it’s all good, for what it is. –And that is all this ramble is really about.

The new Black River

I've been adjusting to life on a relatively different Black River. The recent flood completely wiped out the sandbar on the opposite side of the river and there is no longer a good place to stand over there. The floods also wiped out the little island that I used to stand on to fish the back eddy. Now the sandbar just upstream from the house is 5-10 feet above the water.

I've been casting stinky streamers for gar. I mean stinky literally as I have been experimenting with Berkley's night crawler scent on my flies as well as a homemade batch of garlic puree. So far I've had one hook-up in the past three outings. I couldn't hold the fish and it wasn't big. Gar a difficult, I actually think they are feeding primarily on insects right now. -But who knows?

Big Brown

I just got back from a trip up north in search of Steelhead. Also just got a new internet connection, so I'm trying it out.
Sam came along and we camped together. We met up with Andrew S. and Tim P. who were also looking for some steelie love.
Sam enjoyed life around the campsite the most.

Nice scene along the river.
Didn't catch any steelhead, but managed a nice 26 inch brown. Don't even ask about the finger in the fish's gills. Its the ending of a long story, I'll try to post it later. Not proud of it.
this pic turned out too dark, so I enhanced it.
later

Good ending to the WI Season

I've caught this big brown a hundred times this year... In my dreams. In reality I caught him once this Spring. Uncle Nate and I decided to end the Wisco season where we started it -- in search of big browns in Grant Co WI.

We didn't hook into any big browns. Still, a couple days in paradise on the spring creeks of the driftless area.

Wisconsin season ender

Uncle John and I closed the Wisconsin season out where we opened it, down in Grant County. You may recall that John landed a 20 inch Brown down there in March. So we were searching for big fish. We found none. Not even a hook-up with something big. In fact the largest fish either of us landed was 12 inches. As I reflect on the weekend, I wonder where those big browns are right now? I know we were fishing over areas that are likely to attract spawning fish, so it isn't like they were farther upstream. Maybe they just weren't hungry. Who knows, I guess that's why they call it fishing.

Despite not landing any lunkers, we had a great time fishing and landed a lot of 10 and 12 inch fish and it is always beautiful on a Wisco spring creek.

Flooding on the Black

After the 4.5 inches of rain we recieved on Wed, we got 2 more inches on Thursday. Region-wide totals were about 6 inches on average. This pushed the Black well beyond flood stage. The scene from our back door is incredible. Below is a video from our neighbors backyard and some pics as well. The river is fishable at around 1200 cfs and the long-term average for this time of year is well below 1000 cfs. It is cranking at around 70,000 cfs right now, that's a full order of magnitude higher than normal.

4 more inches last night

Since the start of May, the Black River has been fishable on 29 of the past 144 days, that's 20% of the summer.

9-19-10

Hit a creek with Dan H. over the weekend. We went in search of big browns getting ready to spawn. The water was pretty dirty on this stream, which I think limited our success. Nevertheless, we each landed 14 inch browns, which ain't bad.
Here is a 12 inch fish that took a nice photo.

The photos don't really do this fish justice. It went 14 inches and was really pretty.

Even the small fish were really fat. This is a 10 incher that just ate something big.

Small streams, big(er) fish, and dry flies...

For most of the summer I have been driving over a small stream on my way to larger, more productive trout waters. This isn't to say that this creek doesn't hold trout, because it does. It just doesn't fish well during the summer, at least not for me. But in September, this stream comes alive with fish that are disproportionately large relative to the size of the stream. Most runs are knee deep, and during the summer I presume too 'exposed' for larger fish to hold in them. But during the fall, as the bigger browns get ready to spawn, they move up into these runs and get pretty aggressive. Last September I caught a couple of 14 inch fish from these shallow runs and spotted a few others.

So it was with great anticipation that Sam and I hit the water this past weekend. We were armed with streamers and dry flies and our goal was to find some large fish sitting in shallow water. I started out fishing a black foam-bodied terrestrial with rubber legs and never had to change flies. The best fish of the day was this 16 inch brown (below) that rose out of a knee-deep run to take my fly. I lost one fish that was bigger (I think) after it went air borne and shook the fly.
Fish of the day!

From this run...

Small streams, big(er) fish, and dry flies-if only fall could stick around a bit longer.

Low Creeks

The creeks in my area are low and clear. These conditions make for some predictable smallies.

There were a bunch of frogs on the water. I smacked a popper along these rocks and that was the best producer.

Goat Roast

A week or so ago we were invited to a neighborhood goat roast. What, you’ve never been?

The whole thing started with a couple of guys talking about buying, slaughtering, and smoking a goat-doing it all from start to finish. Things progressed to the point where a goat was purchased and there was no turning back. On a cool autumn night down by the Black river, the deed was done. Here are the highlights in photo….

A lot of peopled warned that goat doesn’t taste good. But they were wrong, it was really, really, tasty. Of course, anything that has been rubbed down with spices and smoked for 4 hours is bound to taste pretty good.

The Goat

A very hairy goat...
Starting to look like food...
Oh yeah, smoky, spicy goodness.

Smallies

Fishing as a Dad

Last summer I fished like a mad man. This year, not so much. I'm working on his cast.

Featured drum caught in July or Aug?

Iowa August Trip

I'm in the middle of an August Iowa trip. After work last night I fished a pretty well-known pasture section of a pretty well-known wild trout stream. I was getting into fish pretty good with streamers when I noticed a bull in the pasture. This was a very large bull and he was not happy to see me. I very calmly and quietly walked downriver, hopped the fence and booked it out of there. I fished some other spots that are more marginal than the pasture and caught a couple of small fish. Some little fish were rising to a sparse BWO hatch and I caught a couple of fish on dries. Nothing special.
This AM I headed over to another creek. Here's a good story...So there I am rolling a scud and nymph along the bottom of a great looking corner pool when a large brown trout makes a perfect head-to-tail rise. As the fish returns to the water I think to myself, "wow, that was a nice fish". Then I think, "that rise was perfectly in line with my fishing line". Then I realize that on its return to the water, the fish is at a perfect 45 degree angle and heading directly toward my flies. Then my line tightens and it was on. Nice 17 (or so) inch fish. I was certainly in the right place at the right time. Right stream, right hole, right drift.

Iowa July Trip

A couple of weeks ago I fished in Iowa with John. You can find some highlights here:
http://flyfishingwarmwater.blogspot.com/

Pretty much every river was blown out from recent rains, except two. And those two fished pretty well. There really is nothing like camping in the far NE of Iowa where your cell phone doesn't work, and you are surrounded by steep bluffs, farms, and trout streams. The camping is also free, which means you can pretty much set up shop along any stream in the area. So easy, so good.

That one trip when Dan got a fly stuck in his nose.

On a 'family' fishing trip I met up with a good ole fishing pal Dan H. Dan has fished with me for years, going back to Grad school, moving through me have my first kid on my back, to now both of us having kids on our backs. Here are the pics and short narrative to describe the antics.

Here we are all loaded up and ready to go. With any luck both kids will be asleep in half an hour.

Ok, so not long into our adventure Dan catches a trout. I come over to show it to Sam because he likes to touch them. Dan holds up the fish so both kids can see it, fish flops and somehow lodges the second fly (Dan was fishing a two fly rig) into Dan's nose. Great.

Although the fly was stuck in past the barb, we got it out using the grip-it-and-rip-it method. Here is a youtube video of the technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKAAGWZskGg&feature=related

I learned it when a friend had to remove a hook from my finger one very cold November day. Remember that Snus?
Anyhow, it barely left a mark. And we were back fishing again.

And he's asleep.

Look at this handsome family.

We went on to catch a few fish that day. No monsters, but a solid couple of hours of fishing, with one memorable fly-in-the-nose.

This seasons flows on the Black River

It has been a rough season on the Black this year. Things started out great in April when I was sight fishing for Gar when the water was low. I spent most of May trout fishing, which in hindsight blew most of the opportunity on the Black. Since the peak flows in mid June I've been out only a handfull of times (during the lows on the graph). But even then the water is still higher than I'd like. I want nothing more than to gar fish tonight, but it doesn't look like it will be worth it.

The Native Ultimate 9.5

A while back some soulless bastard decided that he or she deserved my canoe more than I did, and took it. My canoe wasn't expensive, but it was the ultimate river canoe, 14.5 feet long with two seats for plenty of people and gear, but still small enough to solo paddle without much effort. It didn't track particularly well, but I got used to the way it floated me from place to place. There is a certain grace to canoes that kayaks, with their nimble and speedy nature, can't match.

I purchased a kayak recently, to replace the canoe. I did this on the premise that I will one day buy another canoe. But for now, a kayak would be a nice option. For one, I needed something that I could carry up and down the hill to the river easily (since I won't be storing it down there anymore). Secondly, I rarely take anyone out fishing on the river with me, so I don't really need the extra space.

After much thought and consideration, I purchased a native 9.5. Now if you read online about the native 9.5 you will get the impression, as I initially did, that this is a kids kayak. I was impressed by its open cockpit and size (9.5 feet and 40 pounds). After speaking with some gearheads in Madison and Minneapolis, they assured me that the 175 pound maximum weight limit was overly cautious and that although they were marketing the boat for kids and small adults, it had plenty of stability.

Already at Home on the Black!

So far so good. It has bit of a wobble to it when you first get in, but the secondary stability is good. I've fished out of it a couple of times now, with modest success. It is extremely quick and responsive compared to my old canoe. As I mentioned earlier, I had gotten used to the way the old boat used to glide around. This boat moves quick, which means that you pass over some fishing spots a bit too fast, but it also means that you can get back to them easily. I think I just need to get used to this feature.


Perhaps the worst design flaw on the boat, and probably the worst feature I've seen on any boat ever, is the lip on the side of the boat. The sides of the boat wrap around in a U shape, making it impossible to get all of the water out of the bottom of it. You have to unscrew a little port on the top of one of the sides and let the water drain out of it, which takes way too much time and effort. Perhaps I'm missing something here, but this seems ridiculous.

Another ridiculous feature is the seat. It is ridiculously awesome, rivaled only by my Herman Miller Aeron chair at work.



At 9.5 it is a small boat, but I have pleny of leg room (I'm 5'11). Dig the seat.

The Summoned Self

Some quotes from a nice article by David Brooks:

A 24-year-old can’t sit down and define the purpose of life in the manner of a school exercise because she is not yet deep enough into the landscape to know herself or her purpose.

Life comes to a point not when the individual project is complete but when the self dissolves into a larger purpose and cause.

The entire article:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/opinion/03brooks.html?_r=1&hp