April 17th

Yesterday my buddy Ted called me up to see if I wanted to do some trout fishing.. Pfft.. What kind of question is that.. Of course!  So we headed north to the Whitewater area to do some trout fishing and hopefully catch some trout..

It was a great day.. Temps were in the low 50s when we headed out and peaked in the low 60s as the day progressed.. At first things were frustrating.. Trying to find a pattern that was gonna work.. The past couple days it's been easy.. Fish rising to Caddis.. Tie on a EHC and you were money.. Today it just seemed that it wasn't working out for me.. BWOs were popping and there were a few risers.. But I started out with a nymph tandem.. No dice.. Ted stepped up with a EHC and took one or two.. I switched up to a BWO dry as few of them were coming off and nothing.. Switched to an EHC and nothing.. Just was not going my way.. Perfect casts.. Perfect drifts.. Nothing.. Tie on a bugger.. Nothing.. Ted on the other hand was catching them here and there on nymphs.. mainly copper johns of the red variety..

As we headed up stream and the day progressed.. The caddis were coming off a little more and we both switched back to EHCs and that was where it was at the rest of the day.. Each taking our turn to step up and land a fish.. First Ted.. Then myself.. and back and forth we'd go catching one and letting the other step up to the plate to land another.. Finally things were working out for me..

As the day got later the caddis dropped off in normal fashion of the past week.. Seems like the hatches have been starting around noon-ish to 1pm.. and dropping off by ~3pm.. Overall it was a great day as always... Any day catching fish is a good day..

Updated Lake Winona Map

Here is an updated depth chart of Lake Winona(thanks to the Lake City Fisheries Dept.) ... most websites.. and including Navitronics and the DNR have an outdated version of the map.. pre-dredging.. things sure have changed...

Map Courtesy of St. Mary's University & Lake City Fisheries Dept. 2006.

The older map can be found HERE for comparison 

4/23.. Getting Lost North of 90

OH NOOOOO!

Woke up.. got ready.. fed the dog.. and I was out.. On the road at 10:30am.. Stopped at FleetFarm to grab a few essentials and then sat and stared at my maps for awhile.. During winter season I told myself I was gonna start hitting up some more streams that I have either never fished or were more unfamiliar with.. Get out of my comfort zone per se.. So I decided I would fish something north of I-90 today.. Which honestly.. I have done only one other time.. Why bother I figure when I know so much good water south of 90.. Well indeed that is why I did bother.. because I know almost NOTHING about north of I-90 other than the Whitewater system.. and by know the Whitewater system.. I mean I know it exists.. I have fished it.. and So does every other trout fisherman in Minnesota on any given day.. and aside from that I don't know of any other great creeks north of 90 that are worth my time to drive..

So off I headed north on 61.. Took some turns here and there.. missed the creek I was originally looking for and kept driving until I recognized the next town I would run into.. Blind driving.. Its the greatest >.<  Stopped at one potential creek.. but didn't look nothing worth my time.. Could've been wrong.. but while I was checking it out.. another angler came along and pulled up.. So I let him have it.. seeing as I had little interest in it.. Got back in my car.. and turned around.. If there is one thing about not knowing where you are.. at least if you turn around eventual you'll get back to where you were?

Looking at my maps I decided to get off the road I was on check out another stream near by... Got there.. It was quite the mess of a stream.. downed trees everywhere.. highwalling around every bend.. silt silt and more silt.. but a couple deep cuts near root wads caught my attention of this "wild" stream... Walked maybe a 1/4 mile of the stream total.. not much to cast to.. mostly was just shallow wide silted up stream... the few casts that I made resulted in a couple hits and chases but no takers.. back to the car for my next unknown destination!

Got to my next destination.. walking streamside had a few chase and hit at my spinner but no takers yet again.. Quite frustrating but you gotta keep movin on... As I'm walking along the stream.. I come to realize.. I probably should have left my spinning gear in the car.. and grabbed my fly rod.. there was a small hatch of Dark Hendricksons and the trout were keying in on them.. never did see anything too big take to the surface.. all looked to be in the 4-6" range.. gave up a little early on this stream knowing I had brought the wrong rod to the stream.....

Jumped back in my car.. eyed over the map to see what was next on my adventure.. locked in on my choice and was off!  This was quite the adventure.. really really do love the DNR and their sub par labeling of roads on their trout stream maps.. My next destination would have me kinda lost.. not completely like omfg i don't know where I am or what to do.. lost.. but more like "I don't know where I am.. but I don't care"... drove for about 45min until a town sign finally appeared and was able to match it up on my map.. !!! Some how I went through 3 towns.. none of which had signs outside of the limits saying "hey welcome to the middle of f'in nowhere".. turned around.. headed back to the 1st of the 3 towns I went through and figured out the map.. for awhile.. more driving.. more driving.. know how much Google Maps sucks when you are use to looking at Garmin Topo maps?  it royally sucks!.. google maps is cool and all.. but its no Garmin map set... next thing I know I'm about 20 miles southeast of the stream I was trying to find so I said effit.. NEEEEEEXT!

Finally I make some headway.. Get to my destination.. Less having to search for this one.. though it did take awhile.. drove past the road to get there twice.. sometimes it can be tough to tell if the road just goes to a resident or if it is where I should go.. and again.. DNR maps don't help.. why did I forget my Garmin again!?!?.. Today would have been a lot less driving had I had it.. but anyways.. I'm rambling.. back on track.. Get to my destination.. walked i'd say a mile or so upstream.. was a thickly covered stream.. all wild trout.. I'm starting to wonder why it seems wild population streams get no HI.. seems like it would be cheaper to help preserve and improve a stream that has a naturally growing population instead of fixing up a section of another stream that you have to dump pellet fed moron fish into to keep the population stable.. crawling through the thick of it all.. back at the car I wondered if I should grab my long rod or the spinning gear again... glad I didn't chose the long rod.. It would have been a nightmare casting in such a tight area.. The fish were very active... coming up to holes I would see them coming up to the surface to take bugs.. but they were not selective.. cast my PM up to the head of the hole and would get a hit.. have the fish on.. lose him within a foot of me.. This continued happening consistently.. they would either barely hit the spinner and I would not hook them.. they'd chase and not take.. or the most frustrating of the afternoon.. they'd take and I'd lose'em.. I only took 2 brookies to hand.. but the fantastic and vibrant colors of those two wild brookies was enough for me in the end..

Been Some Time...

Well 2011 is here.. and Finally I got into some fish this year!  I've gotten out a couple other times this year.. but nothing worth talking about.. by that I mean I had been out a couple times but had nothing to report besides wetting a line... Today was different though.. Met up with a couple of buddies at around 9am this morning to go out and hit the streams in search of some winter c&r trout.  Got to our first part of stream around 9:30-10am.. it was ~34F and snow was light and patchy... Fishing was slow for myself.. Caught a couple smaller browns in the 6" range.. all put up a good fight for their size and all fish looked good and healthy... My co-fishermen also had luck and tied into a few... As the day progressed more and more midge we on the snow... as if someone had peppered the snow... few trout rising here and there.. never enough for me to go dry...

2nd spot on the stream had minimal success... 1 trout to hand.. Figured the combination of snow and thaw had dropped the temp of the stream and shut the trout down.  In the end though it was a good day.  Finally caught a fish or a few and overall it was a nice day to be out.  Spring Break for some people means going south of the border.. for me I just go south of 90 and I'm in paradise.  Til next time!

 

Round 2.. More local pannie action...

So knowning what I am going into this weekend.. 2 smallies were definitely not enough to hold me over... I needed another fix... So I headed down to the local pond once again for some pannie action.. I figured most of the spawning would have been done by now.. But there were even more beds in one of my spots than were there the last 2 weeks... I decided I would use a new top water that I picked up at Bob's Bait n' Tackle in LaCrosse.. and it worked wonders.. Some people have maybe argued that I am using too big of a popper for panfish... They couldn't be any more wrong.. These Accardo top water lures drive the bluegills into a frenzy.. Even a 4" sunnie will make a quake and hit these things hard... I could have easily taken home a limit tonight.. But I didn't want to be filleting til almost 11pm...

New Waters

After going to Trout Day at Forestville on Saturday and talking with Steve Klotz about a certain stream in the Winona area.. Me and my buddy decided to head out and explore a new stretch of stream... We arrived at our destination around noon... Cool.. Slightly windy.. Very cloudy day.. Looked like rain.. There was another angler... He wasn't having any luck.. We decided we would walk down stream and work our way back up to the cars... After a little bit of walking we cut through the brush and headed stream side where we found our first hole and riffle for the day..  Water was still murky from the rain over the weekend... Area was tight and proved frustrating with snags and hang-ups in brush... Hewas able to pull a few smaller trout out of the riffles.. Myself had no luck.. I changed up to a bugger at the head of the riffles with no luck.. Here my buddy was able to hook into a pair of browns.. ~14" and a fat ~16" Both taken on #12 Princes.. I switched back to a #12 red SJW and worked a downed tree and root wad that looked promising.. and landed myself a ~14" brown.. Those would be the only fish of the day.. A couple more hits.. But nothing landed.. Overall a successful outing for unknown water...

My Biggest Trout On The Fly

Caught my biggest trout on the fly today on Garvin Brook... only trout of the day... beautiful weather.. low 70s.. sunny.. nice breeze... the redhorse are now starting to move in and spawn

4-7-10

Started the day late... Didn't get on the water til after 11am this morning.
Conditions:
Overcast/Breezy
Air temp: ~46F
Water temp: ~49F
Clarity: Clear

Not much was going on on the Pine today.. rocks examined showed very little for nymph action. Saw a few trout rising but could not tell what they were feeding on as there was no obvious hatch going on nor was there a sign of one. The day itself was not very productive either. 2 browns.. 1 fat 12"+ brown hiding under the cut that took on a #16 copper brassie. Both were taken on brassies. Sucks when you lose what they are hitting and cannot find any thing else suitable.