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May 15, 2012 • It’s 3:30 AM on Saturday morning. I’m fueling up the vehicle and the brain. The bad gas station coffee thing from my last entry wasn’t just window dressing. For my money there’s no greater combination than the plain cake donut and black coffee. It’s a tradition learned from my grandpa. The guy would choke down...
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Apr 28, 2012 • This week I scouted some new water in search of big browns. I’ve spent a portion of the spring season scouring lower sections of marginal water in search of bruisers with mixed results. The fishing last week was just too good not to go back to streamers. I threw them most of the time with...
My arrival home from fishing last week was greeted with my 4-year old son Jack saying, “Why can’t I go fishing, Dad?” Quickly my mind provided the silent retort, “Because we won’t catch any trout with your tornado-like streamside demeanor.” Though the real answer was, “Of course, let’s give it a go next week!” I...
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Mar 31, 2012 • My birthday was on Thursday. The tradition for my family has been to celebrate it in Milwaukee, as I have the coincidence of sharing a birthday with my mother-in-law. Typically I’ll have a few days to hit the Lake Michigan spring steelhead run. This year due to circumstances beyond my control, there will be no...
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Mar 28, 2012 • I’ll cut to the chase. This might be the worst blog title I’ve penned to date. For starters I’m not much of a contemporary country music fan and furthermore the title, while accurate, pushes this wacky headline thing a bit far. My apologies. I sent my video from Cozumel to my buddy Joel Woodward a few weeks...
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Jan 10, 2012 • Our erratic winter weather patterns continue. Normally it’s subzero snotsicles here in Minnesota, not today. An investigation of the freshly minted habitat improvement section of Hay Creek was in order with the opening of our winter C&R season. It’s almost blasphemy that I’ve never fished this stream over the last 15 years, as it’s one...
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Oct 12, 2011 • I went out today with the intention of fishing for bass on the fly rod. After an hour fishing one of my go to spots, it just wasn’t happening. I wasn’t even finding the little guys that I expected to find in reasonable numbers. My mind began to wander, which got me thinking about going after...
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Sep 30, 2011 • “I Ain’t Got Time to Bleed” is a notable tough guy quote from Minnesota’s ex-governor Jesse Ventura. It all started with a scratchy throat and congestion the night before my final outing of the 2011 trout season. By the time I was on the water Thursday morning it was full blown feverish chills, sore throat,...
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Sep 15, 2011 • Fished for an hour or two late morning for brookies. The bite was decent and the water was low (big surprise) I got most of my fish on a large bead-head pheasant tail fishing under and indicator and a few on a small brown bugger. I have done very little nymphing under an indicator this...
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Sep 13, 2011 • I had a meeting this morning that had me going less than 50 yards from Brown’s Creek north of Stillwater. I felt obligated to take a look. I had very low expectations for Brown’s based upon my internet research and word of mouth. This stream lived up to it’s lackluster reputation! I didn’t see or hook...
I had a client meeting this morning for work less than a mile from Kings Creek, a short distance from my home. I had never fished before, so I decided to give it a quick shot over the lunch hour. I knew very little about it, since I’d never really heard anyone mention it, I...
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Aug 27, 2011 • School starts on Monday, so yesterday I decided I’d pile the youngsters in the car in search of trout and other trouble. I had been meaning to get deeper into Pierce county this summer, but hadn’t really made it. Our first stop (not including Dairy Queen in Ellsworth) was a quick stop to pay our...
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Aug 20, 2011 • You ever have one of those trips where nothing seems to go right? This weekend was my turn to be Clark Griswold taking the family to Wisconsin Dells for my wife’s family reunion. The original plan was to venture a bit further away from the waterslide capital of the world to do a bit of...
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Jul 30, 2011 • I Ran over to Plum Creek for some brookie fishing with Jack, my 4-year old son on Friday. Fished downstream near the water treatment plant. Upstream of this stretch were massive piles of rip rap for the yet to be “improved” section (sorry I forget to snap in pics). We pulled a few fish out...
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Jul 28, 2011 • On a recent outing after some significant rainfall I was stripping big streamers in search of large browns. Multiple times when I brought my fly back it had snagged worms. Some were large nightcrawlers others were smaller worms. It got me thinking that I should make a concerted effort to use a worm pattern more...
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Jul 10, 2011 • I agreed to meet up on Saturday morning with Mark Dahlquist, founder of Driftless Trout Anglers. Mark is a former fly fisherman, turned old school worm and spinner expert. He has absolutely been killing the big browns on this stream lately, as witnessed by his 24″ monster. He has spent a lot more time on this...
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Jun 28, 2011 • After my success last week I had to go back and give it another shot. There’s nothing quite like catching big trout in the early morning! They crushed my big olive streamer just as the sun was peaking up on the horizon. The bigger of the two just coming in at the mythical...
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Jun 23, 2011 • I’ve been prospecting different stretches of this creek the last few weeks in search of the mother lode. The weather this morning seemed ideal to survey new areas that may hold trophy-sized brown trout, overcast with the occasional drizzle. Sure it isn’t the ideal low light scenario for big browns, but I don’t need a...
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Jun 12, 2011 • For those who haven’t studied their geography map of Wisconsin lately, Waukesha County is suburban Milwaukee. I have family in the area and get there fairly frequently (including this weekend). In my 12 years of visiting there I’ve always bypassed the local stream trout water because I’ve been told by everyone I’ve chatted with that...
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Jun 11, 2011 • I Started the morning optimistically before dawn on a pasture section of Black Earth Creek with the fly rod. This was the first of many stops on my attempt to tour the streams of the greater Madison area on a half day outing. Threw a mouse just for fun in the dark until it was...
