trout country usa

Iowa's driftless

Fly fishing for bass and even Great Lakes steelhead browns and salmon are some of my favorite things to do where I live. Though, when one receives minimal doses of small stream trout fishing, injected straight into the vein, it leaves you always waiting for that next fix. There is something delicate and soothing about small stream trout. Trout on the fly should never be about sizes and numbers, for me it is more the cleansing of a dirty soul. From the peace received from the beauty of nature, the colors of the fish, and even the delicateness of the casts, I have found no better. All else pales in comparison and feels often crude, even if for only a second.

Real fisherman are opportunistic feeders. They make due with what's available and exploit it for their own selfish gains. My area that I call home sits just far enough away from any real trout water to make it viable for day trips. Usually requiring an overnighter it turns into more of a destination type fishing game. But, when given the chance to get out an explore my brain and my heart always pulls me back to trout country.

Iowa rainbow trout

Last winter we found ourselves faced with the warmest winter I can remember. Locally, we were lucky if we had even three weeks of safe ice and depending on who you asked, some said we never got even one. While Wisconsin has a closed winter season on trout, Iowa does not. That was inspiration enough to make the five hour trip to Decorah Iowa. Some would argue that Iowa's fisheries for trout come up short compared to what lies just over the boarder into Wisconsin. I never have cared to feed into any of that. On that unseasonably warm winter day I sat upon the highest hill looking down on those glassy, trout filled pools. No matter Iowa or Wisconsin, everything in my life seemed to just makes sense at that moment. Contained in this post are just a few snapshots of that day, special to me like nobody can understand.

Winter trout stream beauty

This weekend, my family vacation to the Smoky Mountains has been booked and we leave next weekend. My hope is that we all find peace in the beauty of nature and come back to reality better because of it. Our cabins in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Hendersonville, North Carolina both have wireless so I will be sharing a few posts with everyone next week while on the road in Trout Country USA.

Bring on the winter trout!

wisconsin's northwoods brook trout streams

In the land of monster musky, slab smallmouth, and mouthwatering walleye it’s quite possible that the trout streams of Northern Wisconsin are often overlooked. Tourism promotes the plethora of lakes and flowages so heavy that finding information on the trout fishing is near impossible. Internet searches result in nothing concrete and it just may be that the best source of information could be the local fly shop or tavern.

northern wisconsin brook trout water

With hundreds of miles of classified trout water in the area the best bet is to put tire to pavement and come up with your our own hot spots. It’s quite possible to go through a couple “duds” before stumbling across a “stud” but the scenery alone is well worth all the effort.

northwoods brook trout

The streams of the Northwoods are much more temperamental when it comes to weather. Many of these aren't spring fed so summer’s temperatures will impact the fishery tremendously causing the water to become hot enough to shut the bite down. The best bet is the spring and fall. Harsh winters and summers also impact the fish numbers tremendously so look for best fishing after years with more mild seasons.

scenic water to say the least...

dane county trout hunt

while not considered the "driftless" area, dane county still is pretty darn scenic

We threw hardware (spinning gear) in hopes of getting a few big bites. No such luck, we fought our ass off for just a handful of browns apiece.  I shook a trout a few inches bigger then the one in the picture from under a bridge. He tossed my Rapala when he went airborn and that was all she wrote.

the best trout i could muster up 

I did roll a monster from under a cut bank but it was a short strike on a #6 panther martin that never did connect.

Location- Dane County
Conditions- Ideal
Species Caught- All Brown Trout

grant county trout fishing

Location- fennimore wisconsin
Conditions- sunny warm and windy
Target- driftless stream trout
Tactics- nymphing

In total, I fished three different creeks and scoped out two others on drive by's. Of the three streams fished, only two yielded fish catches. Of the two places I caught fish, one was far above the rest in finding an active population of fish. The wind was blowing hard at a sustained twenty miles per hour with gusts over the thirty mark. This generally wouldn't be considered the ideal conditions for fly fishing but for some reason I had a hard time switching over to my spinning gear.

many spots like this looked promising but were just too windy to fish

Instead, I focused on fishing just the pools where I was sheltered from the wind or where it was blowing against my back. This certainly limited the water and forced me to pass over some great looking spots. At one point the wind was beating me up so bad that I had to retreat to fishing under a road bridge. Not only did that bridge sheltered me from the wind, but it also had one of the biggest and deepest pools in this entire stretch of the stream. These are the types of pools that I have grown to love over the past few years of fishing for trout. They are big, and normally fed by good current, and they are so deep that they just look green or dark blue to the eye. When mixed with the proper current they are almost guaranteed to hold good numbers of fish, and this one was no different. I covered a lot of water that day but this was the only pool good enough to returned to.

here's a shot of the water just downstream of the bridge

I spent my last two hours of fishing huddled under this bridge to escape the wind. Late in the day the hatches were coming off the water in full force, an experience I haven't witnessed in almost twelve months, and the trout went absolutely crazy. Fish were rising everywhere and instead of switching to dry flies, I continued to deep nymph the big pool. It proved effective and I ended up catching the bulk of my trout in the last few hours.

measuring 14 inches, my new personal best wisconsin brook trout

Conditions were tough and a lot of my day was eaten up behind the windshield but I still ended up with close to twenty browns (none of which were big) and a healthy brookie that made my day. The brookie really put the hurt on my 3 wt. rod, enough to seriously consider the feasibility of landing a twenty inch trout on it? Either way, the more trips I take out west, the more I learn about the secrets hidden in the hills of the driftless area.

This weekend I think me and Damien will be pounding some streams in Dane County so be sure to check back early next week for a report!

memorial day trout

my best brown of the day

Here’s some fish from the Memorial Day weekend we found while bouncing from stream to stream in Dane county. Fifty percent of the streams we encountered were muddy and high and we just continued on until we found ideal conditions. A lot of the places we caught fish were places we had never fished before, we just happened to be close by and decided to give it a shot. We defiantly added a couple streams to our favorites list.

damien with a dane county brown

my son's first brown trout

It was an early two-thirty in the morning when my wife woke me up, thank god she was still awake from the night before because my alarms had already been going off for thirty minutes. It was an exciting day to be taking my son fishing. At the young age of five, Lucas is an accomplished angler. He has taken a fifteen pound carp on 4 pound test, a near five pound bass from a pond, and countless panfish through ice and not. All of that is great but he still had never caught a western Wisconsin, spring creek, brown trout before. Despite my headache from only 3 hours of sleep, I grabbed my still sleeping little boy and strapped him into his car seat. Thankfully the car was packed the night before and there wasn’t a need for too much thought about what I may be forgetting. I just cracked open a red bull and pulled out of my neighborhood...

Even though the weather channel predicted rain for the entire day, the radar map showed only spotty storms moving through the area I was wanting to fish. Even though there were some serious storms rolling through, I felt like I was going far enough west to miss the majority of them. Just after sunrise we arrived at our destination creek along with the onset of some heavy rain. I opened the weather channel radar app on my cell phone (a necessary tool for the mobile angler) and saw that we were in the heart of the last major storm cell in a fifty mile radius. I got out of the car just to check the water clarity in the pool right under the bridge. Turned out, the creek was crystal clear looking almost totally unaffected. Instead of suiting up just then in the rain, we drove 8 miles back to town for gas and a quick bathroom break. I figured the extra twenty minutes would allow for most of the rain to pass over us. Turns out, it was a good decision and we made it back to the bridge just after the rain came to an end.


on the creek with Lucas

Lucas was thrilled to have waders on for the very first time and excited about the concept of actually being able to walk into the water. We fished our way up the creek practicing his fly casting along the way. Having never touched a fly rod before this week, I was proud to see him make his first cast (with some extra help). This went great until we accidentally snagged that damn tree over the top of the first pool on a “team“ cast. No choice on this one, if I wanted the rig back I was wading to the middle of the pool to be able to reach the branch. Into the water I went, spooking every fish in there with atomic bomb sized mushroom clouds from all the sand and sediment I kicked up. After all that commotion it was time to let that pool settle and maybe hit it on the way back down.

Under the second bridge (more like a driveway), we did manage to hook a nice brown trout. It was that trout’s lucky day because he managed to come unglued while Lucas was trying to figure out exactly what to do next. “You pull the line in with your hand?” he asked. After the loss of our first trout on the fly, I took over fishing with the intent of handing him back a fly rod with a fish already on it. A few minuets later he was cold and bored so I suggested “Let’s just move on cause its hard to get your cast under this bridge” .

Lucas's first brown trout!

We came to the next minor pool and instead of reaching for the fly rod, I grabbed the four foot telescopic spinning rod paired with a bass pro tiny-light reel. Already attached was a panther-martin #6 spinner yellow with the silver blade that was a solid recommendation made by Damien. On the first cast through that pool we actually rolled a fish that came in hard but missed on the hook up. It took only two more casts and we had my boy’s first brown trout in hand!

another vernon county brown trout

For the rest of the day, we mostly spin fished. I think we caught just over twenty fish and only 3 by way of the fly rod. Just before lunch we decided to call it a day. By that point my son had slipped numerous times trying to learn how to walk through the stream, avoid sharp rocks, and climb over/under the endless amounts of streamside debris. A few of those falls left his jacket and sweatshirt totally drenched and one hand pretty banged up from stopping his fall on a rock (ouch). On the way out, I carried him over my one shoulder with all the gear in my other hand. It’s funny I thought, we may have escaped the rain but Luke still found a way to get completely soaked, dirty, and bruised. Kids are great and this day was filled with many memories I’m sure we will never forget. I’m happy to say, we rolled the dice with the weather and came out on top (this time).

sweet fish son!