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.

The Writer in Isolation

I've been writing a lot lately and searching for advice on it from one of the greats....

"Talk is a danger to writers. More than that, talk is a positive, ugly menace. Talk is so much easier than writing , its satisfactions are so immediate, that some of the need to write is all too easily lost in it. It may be true that no man will talk himself out of being a writer if he has it in him to write, and no doubt some men have capacity for both. But I think the frustration of enforced silence is good for most of us. Young writers who meet in groups to discuss their own work would be better at home writing more and talking not at all; and old writers who yield to the incessant demands of service clubs and other organizations are bleeding energy they need for the vastly more important business of writing. Even service club members can read if they would; and if they want a writer's words, the printed page is where to find them....

In the end, all writing is isolation. A man observes and absorbs readily enough among his friends. He may test ideas or sharpen argument or search for encouragement in talk. But he must mature his thought, develop and control his emotions, plan his work, alone. And he must write it alone."

Roderick Haig-Brown
The writer in isolation: A surprise exploration of a given subject (1959)

Supplies coming in for the 9' 3wt

 Cork reel seat. From Jann's Netcraft.

Practicing some guide wraps on a broken scrap rod before I tackle the real deal.

The jig and dryer.

SE Minnesota

Not much to report, some pretty small fish. I was expecting some biguns, didn't find any. Will be back.

Tree map of the budget

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html
The above link will take you to something called a squarified tree map. It is of the Presidents proposed budget. I love squarified tree maps. We have been using them at work to condense and display huge amounts of long-term data. As it is used in the link, it is a very nice way to show how much money would get spent and where.

It’s probably time to start hacking away at National Defense, Social Security and Medicare. Or maybe we should cut spending on Natural Resources, since it comprises a whopping 1/16th of the budget, and because clean air and water aren't really needed, nor wilderness, fish, wildlife, birds, etc...-Sarcasm.

Rod Wrapper

I finished building a rod wrapper / rod dryer this weekend. I bought the motor from Jann's Netcraft. http://www.jannsnetcraft.com/rod-wrapper-parts/028090500002.aspx . I picked up some bolts & nuts at the hardware store. The rest of the build was materials I had. I used an old lamp to power the motor. Used an empty mono line spool and hair tie timing belt to slow the factory 36 RPM to 17 RPM. Now my blank and components just need to arrive and I'm ready to build my first.

Helpful rod building links:
http://www.rodbuildingforum.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/FlyrodFanatic#p/u

Climate Wisconsin

http://climatewisconsin.org/

From warming trout streams to decreasing ice cover, lower lake levels to extreme heat, Climate Wisconsin tells stories from a rapidly changing state. While this collection of stories and research is a starting point, there are many more stories of change waiting to be told. Have you noticed changes in your community? Maybe you know someone who is changing the way they live because of climate change.

Iowa

We're approaching a heat wave in Iowa. Next week would be a good time to fish. Goodbye backyard snowman.

New 'to me' bamboo

I came into an unknown bamboo rod a while back. It had a few guides missing, and the ferrules were loose. It was a modified rod. You could tell that it was originally a 3 piece, 9 foot rod, but someone had cut the but section, took the ferrule from it, drilled a hole in the handle of the rod and then sunk the ferrule into it. This made it a 6'10" rod. Folks call these 'banty' rods. I took all the guides off, sanded the blank, put the guides back on, glued the ferrules on, and varnished it. It casts a 4wt line pretty well. A little investigation on the handle and the reel seat indicate that this was no doubt a South Bend model #59 ca. 1950.The South Bend Company put a patent on this handle, calling it 'comefficient' a combo of comfortable and efficient. -It is comfortable.
Added the writting so if I loose this thing, someone will know it was a South Bend, modfied to a banty rod.
Its a pretty straight stick, which says alot for a 60 year old rod.