Trout Beast
- Kraftd
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Trout Beast
Before I dove in both feet on this hunting beast deal I was a bit of a degenerate trout bum. No trout streams within 2 hours and little kids and I put the flyrods away for the most part for 5 or so years and focused most of my energy on bowhunting for deer since it was a more consolidated season, I could do it close to home, and honestly was looking for something a little more challenging.
As my girls have gotten older they have taken to fishing a little, including enjoying tying flies with me, so I've been slowly trout fishing a little more over the last few years again. Ran to my cabin in central WI this weekend to clean up some trees from the storm and fish a little.
Friday night tried doing some mousing in the dark. Missed one fish, but with some cloud cover it was pitch black and I usually do a little better with some moon light.
Didn't get back to the cabin until 12:30 am, so slept in until around 6 and headed back to a different section of the river a couple miles back in the woods. This isn't wide open big western rivers, it's tight quarters fishing and I was a little worried I'd be too rusty to keep out of the trees.
I started at a hole with a nice log on the opposite bank with a #14 stimulator. I saw a trout rise at the head of the log and managed to drop the fly right where I was aiming for a few good drifts, but nothing. Nothing was hatching so I knew if they were looking up it would be for terrestrials. The water was unseasonably high and stained. I slid up to the next hole, a little tunnel in the tag alders with a nice granite boulder centered in the stream an about waist deep. A few more drifts and the brain got going. I dug out my terrestrial box and grabbed a little bigger deer hair hopper with rubber legs I had tied up a while back. First drift along the rock and a gorgeous 17 inch brown smashed the fly. Just needed a little more of a profile to get them off the bottom in the stained water.
Kept working up through the tunnel wet wading in the cool water and finding openings to drop the hopper, missed a few fish, then got to a perfect looking spot where the tags pinched into another big granite boulder with a log sticking out from the left bank. First drift off the log I had a 14-15 inch fish come out of the water after the fly but miss. Two drifts later off the opposite side of the rock I watched a head porpoise out the way a big fish usually does and hooked into 20+ fish that luckily came straight downstream at me and I was able to get in the net before I think he even knew he was really hooked, which was good becausse I was rolling with a 2 weight rod!
Big boy came off the right side at the tip of the rod, hit about 12 feet from where I was standing waist deep.
Got one more about 15 incher for dinner and missed a few more. Hit a smaller stream in the evening and got a mess of little brookies and ran across both a wolf and big bobcat track. Not a bad Saturday in the woods!
As my girls have gotten older they have taken to fishing a little, including enjoying tying flies with me, so I've been slowly trout fishing a little more over the last few years again. Ran to my cabin in central WI this weekend to clean up some trees from the storm and fish a little.
Friday night tried doing some mousing in the dark. Missed one fish, but with some cloud cover it was pitch black and I usually do a little better with some moon light.
Didn't get back to the cabin until 12:30 am, so slept in until around 6 and headed back to a different section of the river a couple miles back in the woods. This isn't wide open big western rivers, it's tight quarters fishing and I was a little worried I'd be too rusty to keep out of the trees.
I started at a hole with a nice log on the opposite bank with a #14 stimulator. I saw a trout rise at the head of the log and managed to drop the fly right where I was aiming for a few good drifts, but nothing. Nothing was hatching so I knew if they were looking up it would be for terrestrials. The water was unseasonably high and stained. I slid up to the next hole, a little tunnel in the tag alders with a nice granite boulder centered in the stream an about waist deep. A few more drifts and the brain got going. I dug out my terrestrial box and grabbed a little bigger deer hair hopper with rubber legs I had tied up a while back. First drift along the rock and a gorgeous 17 inch brown smashed the fly. Just needed a little more of a profile to get them off the bottom in the stained water.
Kept working up through the tunnel wet wading in the cool water and finding openings to drop the hopper, missed a few fish, then got to a perfect looking spot where the tags pinched into another big granite boulder with a log sticking out from the left bank. First drift off the log I had a 14-15 inch fish come out of the water after the fly but miss. Two drifts later off the opposite side of the rock I watched a head porpoise out the way a big fish usually does and hooked into 20+ fish that luckily came straight downstream at me and I was able to get in the net before I think he even knew he was really hooked, which was good becausse I was rolling with a 2 weight rod!
Big boy came off the right side at the tip of the rod, hit about 12 feet from where I was standing waist deep.
Got one more about 15 incher for dinner and missed a few more. Hit a smaller stream in the evening and got a mess of little brookies and ran across both a wolf and big bobcat track. Not a bad Saturday in the woods!
- stash59
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Re: Trout Beast
Happiness is a large gutpile!!!!!!!
- Trout
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Re: Trout Beast
Nice fish and nicer looking water!
- Lockdown
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Re: Trout Beast
Man that looks like fun!
Your “sleep in till 6” comment made me laugh. Our idea of sleeping in differs just a hair
Your “sleep in till 6” comment made me laugh. Our idea of sleeping in differs just a hair
- greenhorndave
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Re: Trout Beast
Nice man.
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Sometimes when things get tough, weird or both, you just need to remember this...
https://youtu.be/d4tSE2w53ts
Sometimes when things get tough, weird or both, you just need to remember this...
https://youtu.be/d4tSE2w53ts
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Re: Trout Beast
Awesome! A little different but like you I had just started fly fishing again. I am finding myself wishing for opening day success in the elk and deer woods so that I can enjoy September and October fly fishing. Reading the water, predicting how the fly will drift for a realistic presentation and then trying to execute that on the first cast is addictive. It’s kind of like your “first sit” in an area.
- Kraftd
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Re: Trout Beast
tbunao wrote:Awesome! A little different but like you I had just started fly fishing again. I am finding myself wishing for opening day success in the elk and deer woods so that I can enjoy September and October fly fishing. Reading the water, predicting how the fly will drift for a realistic presentation and then trying to execute that on the first cast is addictive. It’s kind of like your “first sit” in an area.
Yeah, it's insanely addicting. Growing up I skipped plenty of rut days chasing salmon and trout in the Lake Michigan tribs or late smallies and pike in the rivers too!
I don't think I could live out your way and hold a job between hunting and trout!
Ryan, most nights I'm asleep by 9:30, so early is all relative! I get up around 5 most days to get some work done before the world can bother me. I'm a morning guy, serves me well hunting and fishing!
- greenhorndave
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Re: Trout Beast
Yeah, spring scouting and hunting have completely overtaken the salmon and steelhead run river fishing for me. Not complaining, but the two are kind of mutually exclusive from a free time and timing perspective for me.
It is a blast though. Glad you got out there and had a some success! You even caught a buck! (that is the correct term for a male trout, correct? In this case, that big brown)
It is a blast though. Glad you got out there and had a some success! You even caught a buck! (that is the correct term for a male trout, correct? In this case, that big brown)
----------
Sometimes when things get tough, weird or both, you just need to remember this...
https://youtu.be/d4tSE2w53ts
Sometimes when things get tough, weird or both, you just need to remember this...
https://youtu.be/d4tSE2w53ts
- Kraftd
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Re: Trout Beast
greenhorndave wrote:Yeah, spring scouting and hunting have completely overtaken the salmon and steelhead run river fishing for me. Not complaining, but the two are kind of mutually exclusive from a free time and timing perspective for me.
It is a blast though. Glad you got out there and had a some success! You even caught a buck! (that is the correct term for a male trout, correct? In this case, that big brown)
Yep, buck is used for trout and salmon too.
I've been doing more steelheading the last couple of years and focusing my deer scouting more in season, and honestly, I feel like the in-season gets me on deer better and I'm not missing out on something else I really enjoy. Helped to put five years into learning a lot of land I suppose, but its been working for me!
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Re: Trout Beast
Man I'm a trout fishing fanatic! Those are some solid browns kraftd. Fly fishing is the #1 reason for my lack of spring scouting but that's okay because trout get put on the back burner come deer season.
All the techniques, fly tying, leader building, gear maintenance, research, scouting etc etc to get on big wild fish consistently reminds me exactly of the work it takes to get on mature bucks!
All the techniques, fly tying, leader building, gear maintenance, research, scouting etc etc to get on big wild fish consistently reminds me exactly of the work it takes to get on mature bucks!
- Jackson Marsh
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- Wetfoot
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Re: Trout Beast
Sweet looking stream. As beautiful as trout are, it's the environment that you catch them in that really gets me. Grew up in a non-hunting, hard core fishing family. Opening days were highly anticipated, but nothing compared to the amazing feeding frenzies of late fall. Of course the best part was having the streams totally to yourself!!
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- hunter_mike
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- muddy
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Re: Trout Beast
My dad used to fly fish and I never asked him to teach me. Would you like to adopt a degenerate 42 year old from Iowa and show him the basics? I'll even buy NewGlarus!
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Leading the way for habitat and management information
"It's a good thing you don't need commas and colons to kill deer" -seaz
Leading the way for habitat and management information
"It's a good thing you don't need commas and colons to kill deer" -seaz
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