I kissed my wife on the cheek after being home for only one day. I was headed back up north……again. Sometimes I think she understands.
This three day outing would be the second chance to chase Wild Brule River Steelhead. The conditions had not changed from 4 days earlier and the bit of rain That the Brule received last Wednesday was not enough to make a difference. The Brule today flows low and clear which is not the conditions steelheaders look for in order to have successful outings. Who knows? The fish have to venture into the river at some point, and under record low flows in 2007 we had fine success.
To hit the high points for the no-nonsense anglers, here is what we found besides the low, clear, water conditions.
There are some fish in the river but most all that we caught in the last three days were beginning to color up. Brule river steelhead will begin to change from silver bullets(1/4 steel colored dorsal section and 3/4 silver/white middle and ventral (belly) section) to the traditional “rainbow trout look” when they enter the river. No one had the exact answer to how fast they change color. If anyone knows for sure please shoot a comment on this post. Our theory was that they change rather fast since this color change is a response to avoid predation from above. On Sunday an eagle flew about 10 feet over our heads with a 12″rainbow in its talons. The eagle sat in a tree about 50 yards down stream from us and ate its lunch. It was cool! The final thought on this observation was that fresh fish were not caught by us. Possibly meaning that few fresh fish have entered the system recently. The “catching” from anglers we talked to was tough. You may go two days without a bite. That is hard work. Some anglers hooked or caught fish each day. The catching was highly variable, like usual.
A higher number of Skipjacks were caught by our group. These fish are around 14-16″ and are not consider to be considered the bonafide Mack-Daddy steelhead yet. They still have another year to survive, grow and return to the river to count. This is good thing, and may say something about the continuing health of the river, lake, and for a future class of steelhead. There were a bunch of smolt(immature fish 4-8″) caught as well, another good sign.
Fish that were caught by our group we mostly taken on the lead fly(usually a larger, heavier fly) in a two fly, indicator rig. This is a bit odd because in the past the majority of steelhead had eaten the smaller trail fly or egg fly. Brule theory to explain this was that the fish were on the bottom and were looking for calories. A number of fish were hooked at 8 to 10 feet deep. Many anglers were using too much or too little weight. Adjustment of weight, depth, fly pattern, angle of cast as always was important. Early in the day was a bit better than afternoon with a small bight window before dusk.
BRULE THEORY
Conjecture about the movements and behaviors of these steelhead is MOSTLY THEORY(with a bit of science and a dash of common sense mixed in). From time to time you will see me quote Brule Theory along with a number. Here’s how it works.
Eample: Brule Theory #119 – All the steelhead are still in the lake. One of my friends was asked by an angler leaving the stream if he had any luck catching. Doug responded kindly that he had hooked two fish and landed one today. After a moment of silence the other angler responded by asking Doug if he was sure that the fish he caught were steelhead and not possibly brook trout or salmon. Perplexed at the inquiry about his ability to identify his fish, Doug responded that he was certain that they were steelhead. The gentleman then told Doug he had been informed by another angler that Charter Captian Skip Skipjack said that the steelhead were not in yet, they were still in the lake. It made perfect sense to the this angler since he had not hooked a fish all day and neither had anyone else he had talked to. Apprently there were no fish in the river. He was leaving for the day when he met my friend.
Things to remember about Brule Theory;
No theory can be or should be completely discounted. As stories are passed from angler to angler they almost invariably change. Information gets added, deleted or enhanced in some way. A super fat 18″ brown trout I caught ten years ago is now 8 pounds as the story goes. Now, I like this because it is a good story about a fish that I caught, but you get the point. Some information(theory) you hear may have some truth to it, or it may all be true. From the example above, the bulk of the fish may still be in the lake but there are fish in the river. Brule theory #11- All the steelhead don’t come up the river at once, is true.
Random numbers are assigned to the theory’s. Over the years we have heard so many different thoughts and theories about the Brule river steelhead. They are in the hundreds now. There is no actual list (although someday I will make one). We just put a number on them somewhere over 100.
There are Brule River Gnomes spreading disinformation. I believe some anglers make stuff up. Like in Brule Theory #119, why was the charter captain or whoever told this poor guy who was leaving the river, that all the fish were in the lake. Wasen’t that person fishing the river? You get the jist.
In summary we caught some fish. Will it get better, I think so. There is no rain predicted in the near future which is a trigger that many feel brings a push of fish up stream. This Brule Theory #17.
FLIES
Once again many different patterns hooked steelhead. Most of them were nymph or woolly worm patterns containing peacock as one of the main ingredients. Hares ear patterns in 10 -16 also worked. Lead flies were the same patterns in 6, 8, and 10, some weighted some not. Patterns like the PM stone in 6 or 8 and half backs are examples. Eggs in clown, pink, and orange also worked. If the pattern was reasonable and it is on their nose, it might work.
Snag monster were thick. Many who fish the Brule purposely do not want to know how many flies they lost. The reason is the amount of money and/or time it takes to buy/tie will be astronomical. Make sure you have gobs of flies if you go. You have to appease the snag monsters to catch fish if you are indicator fishing.
The last picture was taken after a piece of a tree snag monster broke off the bottom of a hole I was fishing and I got my rig back. The stone fly that was on the branch was as scarry as the snag monster itself. This giant stone was almost 4″ long. It is pictured with an x-legs p.tail I was fishing that does not even come remotely close in size. The picture does not quite do it justice. That bug was so cool! Have fun, Fish hard, Grab the bull by the horns and consider every moment standing in the moving water a gift.
10 users commented in " Brule River Steelhead Report- October 15-19-2011 "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThis is probably the best report I have read in the past six months. Very interesting, verty simple, doesn’t try to sound like an expert. Just someone who was fishing and had some comments about his days on the Brule.
Good stuff.
Thanks mrm
The Brule is a special place. If you hunt the site there is more about the river.
A
Agreed — great post! Was up there w/ a pal last weekend also, but only one smolt was caught. The wind was ferocious, esp. on Sat., and when we went down to take a look at the mouth of the Brule, the big rollers coming in had stirred the bottom up so much that the Big Lake was seemingly nothing but sand for several hundred yards out. The thought occured to me at the time that maybe the steelhead were waiting for less turbulent conditions to come in (call it Brule Theory #133? ;), but more likely that excuse is just the last refuge of a frustrated fisherman. Glad YOU caught fish, Andy, and thanks much for sharing the experience. At least I got a vicarious thrill….
Win
It is a game of perseverance and sometimes there is a thrill in the end, sometimes not. I know I have spent many many consecutive hours without a lightening bolt gracing the end of my line. The thrill of the hunt, the flow of the water and the challenge of the task are many times what keep my mind in the game. The loss of focus or the momentary inattentiveness is surely when ones chance will come. On Monday that moment came for me. After two hours of going through the motions of cast and mend, the indicator moved oddly. Thinking it was another smolt, of which I had caught a number of in this location, I set the hook with intensity of a napping snail. As the indicator zoomed upstream I re-set with vigor. The fight was on and I was sure I had hit a giant. As my friend moved down stream and gathered my net from shore to help me land the fish we both waited in anticipation to see the fish come to the surface know the quantity. I was having trouble moving the fish around using what we call the big hammer or the little hammer(technique of dropping the rod parallel to the water and applying heavy pressure to turn the fishes head). When I finally got the fish to the surface it was apparent that I had the tiger by the tail. I had missed the initial set and hooked the nice steely with the trail fly in the ass. My Fault for not paying attention and/or reacting properly! My friend looked at me, dropped the net and headed back to his fishing spot. We both knew the chance of landing a fish like that after foul hooking was ZERO. In all of my outings for steelhead I never remember ever landing a foul hooked fish. Too much power, to light of tippet. A second later the fish was gone. We both laughed. I cuffed myself in the head for my lack of attention.
Goodness Andy, you could have had Chef cook that stonefly nymph up and serve it with drawn butter! It had some size to it.
Sarah
When I showed it to Chef I think he had the same idea. However after it made a lunge at him when he tried to poke it with his finger he decided that the drawn butter may be all over him in a role reversal and we put it back into the river. I think by doing that Jeff felt he could feed the steelhead a scrumptious taste treat since we had already eaten the fantastic stream side lunch he made for us that day.
Andy, I agree with mrm. Thanks for clear-straight talk. Hope to see you on the river.
After reporting a good hookup and “long distance release” of a large steelhead to a friend, he replied that his local “expert” had told him that the ‘run” was over for the year. Yup. Theory #120
Dan
I knew that was why I was having such poor luck! Thanks for #120. You must have hooked one of the many screaming carp that migrate up the Brule shortly after all of the steelhead disappear.
Andy-Carp! It must have been! Going again today- I’ll try to get a photo of a bottom feeder-
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