After a night of pounding thunderstorms, I wasn’t optimistic I’d have anywhere to fish. The forecast was for more rain off and on during the day. I decided that if I couldn’t fish, I’d at least do some reconnaissance and drive to some streams I hadn’t previously visited. But first I went to a stream up north that we fished a couple of times last year, and which offers all three species with wild browns. Stocking doesn’t resume for the year until next week, so the stocker streams are as tapped out as they get. I was trying to hit streams with natural reproduction of browns. When I got there, the stream was about as blown out as blown out can be, and I resigned myself to not fishing. Still, I headed for the next target, a pair of streams near the Mississippi. Jene Hughes doesn’t offer a rave review in his book. The main stream has tons of access points and is said to be fished very heavily (it’s also one of the longest contiguous catchable stream lengths in the creeks I’ve visited). It has a smaller, also fairly long, and less accessible, tributary that is stocked less frequently and unannounced. The latter I figured was my only hope to actually wet a line. I came to it first and stopped on a little one lane bridge over it. And it was running crystal clear. Huh. I planned to fish it, but wanted to go check out the main stream just to get the lay of the land. It, too, was clear. There was nobody else in sight and the stream looked beautiful. So I decided to try to upstream portion first, then move on. But I spent the entire day there. There’s a lot of nice water to explore here.
I got onto the water and geared up, and fairly soon felt helpless. It’s always like this for a while at a brand new stream. This upstream section had mowed lanes and lots of bank work. At the very first pool I got a strike on a woolly bugger, but little else. I did the usual parade of flies, not really having confidence in any and not giving any one pattern much of a chance. Two things became obvious: 1) there was a surprising number of fish in the stream and 2) they were EXTREMELY spooky. And I couldn’t catch anything. Two hours of frustration and increasing angst passed, then I sat by a nice pool and had lunch. I thought about what was in my fly box that I hadn’t tried that could help.
Well…there’s those eggs.
So on went the McFly egg pattern, in tandem with a Peacock Herl Nymph as a dropper. I somehow managed to sneak up on the pool without obviously spooking anything. Put the flies in at the head and watched the really visible egg as it was pulled down. Watched it moving down along the bottom. Then it winked out. And I set the hook.
A small brown nailed the egg on the first cast. I got back into position and cast again.
A decent sized rainbow hit it on the next cast.
Then a decent sized brown.
Then another rainbow. This one had its gills exposed on both sides. I’ve seen stockers like this before. I don’t think it’s injury, just malformed gill covers. These rainbows must have been in the stream all winter.
I wish I could say it continued like that, but the magic worked just at that one pool. I continued upstream with a bit more of a bounce in my step. It was nice water, though it pretty much had to be higher than normal, so maybe looking like there was more holding water than was really the case. I had a fair amount of action but it was hard work. In one lovely pool I hooked three nice fish in succession, played them in to the bank access point, and lost each of them with the net in my hand. I caught one eventually, a tiny brown.
I didn’t go upstream all the way. The rain started and the wind picked up and it got less than comfortable. I did fish back down to the car, and picked up another rainbow.
I don’t know what the five or six fish that were on the line for a good while and escaped took, but the two I landed went for the Hare and Copper.
I had a look downstream from the car, but my heart wasn’t really in it and the temperature plummeted late in the day. I hooked a trout in a nice plunge pool, he escaped, the nymphs shot into a tree, and I couldn’t bring myself to rig another tippet after two days of fairly cold, wet fishing, so called it.
Still, this was a very, very pleasant surprise. Six trout during the emptiest week of the year. And I didn’t even make it to the little tributary, nor the bulk of the main stream. I’ll definitely be back.
Stocking resumes the first week of April. The DNR are changing their approach this year. On the announced stockers, they are only publishing the date for every second stocking. The alternate dates are going to be unannounced. I’ve never really understand who benefits from publishing the stocking schedule. From my point of view I guess it tells me when to stay away. They also published the weeks when the unannounced streams will be stocked. Our favourite (or at least most-visited) stream is lined up for stocking every two weeks until July. They’ve also made all October stockings everywhere unannounced. All in all, a step in a good direction.
Much as I like the wild browns, it’s going to be kind of fun to be on a stream full of rainbows and brookies again. If the weather cooperates, James and I are going to camp at Yellow River State Forest next weekend, and hopefully hit a couple of freshly stocked northerly streams.