Month: November 2017

In late June James and I set off for a combination tourist/fly fishing trip to South Dakota and Wyoming.  I left it late to book, but it turned out that there were cabins in Custer State Park that are also a surprisingly cheap $50 a night.  They aren’t as nice as the ones here in Backbone for the same price.  They are called “camping cabins.”  They have electricity, but no washrooms or kitchens, just lights and an air conditioner.  They have two sets of bunk beds, a little table, a chair, a couple of benches, and that’s all. You’re not allowed to cook in them, but there’s a big wooden porch and picnic table outside, so you can bring a cooler and cook on a Coleman stove, or whatever.  There are also showers and modern washrooms in the campground.

Anyway, another massively long drive up through western Minnesota and most of the breadth of South Dakota.  It was at least new, if not really much of an improvement on Nebraska.  We got into Keystone, a tourist trap town near Mount Rushmore, in time to get dinner.

Continue reading Black Hills Expedition 2017: Grace Coolidge Creek, South Dakota, June 21

I was pining to take James to the newly discovered paradise (relatively speaking…for eastern Iowa, anyway) on Earth, so we headed out eight days later. Unfortunately it was once again on the heels of thunder and this time the stream was badly blown out.  We went upstream seeking better water and it did clear as we fished, but we only saw (and caught) a single trout.  James cleaned up on creek chub, though, and as is becoming alarmingly common, he trounced me on the overall fish count.  As is also common, I heard about it for days afterwards.  In addition to the water being off, it was extremely hot, well up in the 90s, and we were in danger of melting.  James was debuting brand new Orvis waders that he got for his birthday.  They were much lighter than his old ones.  This was great for him.  However I’ve been used to him manfully struggling to keep pace.  Now he started disappearing around bends and there were more than a few shouts of “WAIT FOR DADDY!”

Continue reading 2017 June 16 – Super Secret Trophy Water

Following the cabin stay I headed out west to Utah and Nevada for fieldwork, the first of five long western trips during the year.  Unlike 2016, however, I didn’t take James and I didn’t do any fishing.  The trip got ended early due to the record snow pack in the west – we couldn’t get to the final locality in southeastern Idaho because it was still under snow in June.  Oh well, more time for fishing.

I was itching to return to SSTW and explore it further, so the first day I had available saw me getting on the water there as early as I could.  This time I explored a completely different section of the stream.  I was a bit worried when I started because there’d been some thunder and the water was somewhat off colour.  Didn’t matter.

Continue reading 2017 June 08 – Super Secret Trophy Water

After three days of heavy fishing I felt old.  And tired.  This is alarming.  I had also run out of slump busters.  So on the fourth day, I relaxed and tied flies in the cabin all day.  I recharged my batteries.  Which turned out to be a good thing, because I was about to stumble onto something epic on Day Five.

Continue reading Cabin Fever Day Five: 2017 May 26 – Super Secret Trophy Water

On the third day I visited a favourite special regulation catch and release only stream with wild brown trout. Given that Bear Creek had cleared quite a lot while I fished it through the previous day, I was hopeful I’d get back to clear water.  Well, no.  It was very high and murky.  As the black slump buster had worked under similar conditions early on the preceding day, I decided to put some effort into in and see what I could make of it.  I ended up fishing the length of the accessible stream upstream from the parking lot.  It wasn’t a banner day, but it was a pretty good day.  Taken together, these results give me a lot more confidence in what I can accomplish when the streams are off colour.

Continue reading Cabin Fever Day Three: 2017 May 24 – Protected Browns Water

The previous day had been lovely, but thunderstorms moved in and pounded the region in the middle of the night.  They’d passed through by morning and the sun was poking through, but I was very worried that everywhere was going to be blown out.  I had hoped to go to Hickory Creek, but it blows out really badly with any rain at all.  I hmmed and hahed and in the end decided to check out home waters.  I figured it if was shot, Grannis wasn’t far away and had a decent chance of being okay.  Grannis is very crowded, but in 2015 I managed a decent weekday at it.

Continue reading Cabin Fever Day Two: 2017 May 23 – Bear Creek, Fayette County, IA

The trip started with one of the longest, most satisfying days of fishing of the year.  Sny Magill is very heavily fished and equally heavily stocked, but it’s a long stream and so far in my experience it’s possible to find decent solitude, at least when you’re able to fish on weekdays, and especially in the upper reaches.  I started at the uppermost parking lot, and fished the furthest upstream decent water, a stretch I’d fished several times in 2016.  The first hookup was a bit of a surprise.  Solid strike and a furious fight.  I assumed it was a brown.  Well, no.

Continue reading Cabin Fever Day One: 2017 May 22 – Sny Magill Creek, Clayton County, IA

So Spring 2017 was pretty much a damp squib, fishing wise.  That finally changed as we moved into early summer.  I booked a Backbone cabin for five nights following final exam week at the university and was basically in nirvana, tying flies, cooking, and reading in the evenings and fishing like a zealot in near ideal conditions all day.

Continue reading Cabin Fever!

A week after getting going again, we headed out on May 14th on what feels like it’s going to be an annual pilgrimage, to a state preserve with the last remaining pre-European old growth forest in Iowa.  It’s a special place.  Just not for the fishing.  To even get to the possibility of trout you have to cross most of the preserve, walking along the stream.  It’s not all that difficult, but it’s all on jagged dolomite gravel that hasn’t been weathered much, so it’s murder on the soles.  What it lacks in angling thrills it makes up for in scenery and solitude (relatively speaking, but the wildness and difficulty of the terrain makes it pretty much as close as you’re going to get in Iowa).

Continue reading Low Density Redux

Iowa experienced a wet, cold spring in 2017 and water levels were mostly very high.  We didn’t make it out for a month after spring break, largely because the weather just didn’t cooperate on the weekends we were able to go.  We finally just said heck with it and went camping on April 21, but just going and willing it to work didn’t actually change the conditions.  On the Friday evening home waters were blown out so we headed to Grannis, which never really gets too high.  It was fishable, but there were lots of other vehicles coming and going.  We beat it down to the really nice pool at the end of the mown paths.  I caught a rainbow and we played with a couple of other small trout.  We fished as much as we could back upstream, had a few more follows and one hookup, but no more trout landed.  James caught a creek chub.  We camped at Six Pines at Backbone.  When we made the circuit to choose a spot my heart sank when one of the big middle areas had a YOUTH GROUP reservation.  We chose a spot near the entrance, as far away as possible.  A convoy of Boy Scouts turned up, their leaders white dudes with wrap around shades.  Aw man, I thought.  But they weren’t the worst of it.  A whole pile of yahoos moved in three sites down, big ass trailers, 12 person walk in tents, coolers, multiple vehicles.  The boy scouts made a decent racket, but shut off like a light at 10 pm.  The yahoos seemed like it might be all right, but what had happened is all of them except the kids and their minders had left.  I guess they went to the bar, because they arrived back around midnight and starting partying.  This is why I just can’t hack public campgrounds.  They can be very nice when you have decent people.  But it just takes one site full of jerks and you spend a night in high blood pressure hell.  It’s like staying at a Super 8 motel without walls.  So I’m pretty sure that’s the last time I’ll chance it.  We broke camp in the morning and tried STSNBN.  It was blown out, so badly it was dodgy to cross.  I caught a chub in the starting pool, but there was no point.  We went home.

Continue reading Getting Rolling