Our Friend Q

Andy

Had a recent trip to Garvin Brook, very clear water. Trout were line shy. My best results were an across stream presentation. How does it work when you use a down stream presentation as far as hooking up? I do not do much dry fly fishing but this stream, with it being so clear the fish were top oriented. Question: Is the cross stream better then down stream presentation?

Gary

First, exploring all methods of presentation is the right avenue to take when trout are spooky, temperamental or you are just prospecting for eats. Your ability to create, change, adjust and be flexible in your presentation and pattern change can be the limiting factors if you choose to remain rigid and only travel the well worn path. Make no mistake, there are days when you will fail to crack the “Bite Me” code. Likewise, you will experience success in getting fish to eat that you will use again another day. It is all part of reassuring yourself you are getting better at the catching craft, if that is what you desire.

I use cross and/or down stream presentations every time I throw the fly regardless if I am dry fly fishing or nymphing.  Down stream prospecting is part of my normal presentation routine along with the more common up stream techniques. Sometimes it is the ticket, sometimes not. With the nymph it may be swinging a soft hackle, the dry skittering a caddis. The important part is that you have broadened your approach and most likely increased your catching chances.

As far as hooking potential on the down stream presentation, math and experience tells me that the hooking ratio will be poorer than its up-stream counterpart. If the fly is on a down stream dead drift, most likely the angler will be setting the hook in the same direction as the trout is pursuing it, pulling the fly away from the trout which may lower the hooking odds. When the fly is involved in a dragging down stream presentation the trout is attempting to intersect the fly at some point along a judged path. There are lots of variables that may cause that fish to miss or miscalculate the anglers fly, thus lowering the odds of hooking.

On a side note, I would probably not associate clear streams with trout being top water oriented. There may be something else going on there but that is food for another post.

Finally, I would probably lump my presentations into straight up and up and across and straight down and down and across. In all presentations the fly is obviously moving down stream. The location of the angler in relationship to the fly and the fish, and the anglers ability to sort through the myriad of variables associated with his/her position will tell the tail of successful hook ups and catching. Oh, and then there is playing the fish, yep, forgot about that one.

The only way to learn is to try. Try something different every time you fish.

I have been in Montana for the last 10 days so I have no solid local stream reports for you. Go fish and give me a report.

Cheers

Well,,,,, thank you for all the hopeful, inquisitive communications.

To those of you who thought I had died off,,, not so fast.

To those living vicariously through my words,,,,I ran short of them after May 15th,,,,, apparently.

For that one brilliant man thinking of sending the rescue team. The pony kegs would have hit the spot.

To the guy who was supposed to paint my house this summer, please make arrangements to get it done or I will be pissed.

This has been the busiest year of my life. The restful creative time I spent banging out reports and telling tales via this magic box was just not available. It left the building. I am told it is gone for good. The Goats Guide and Ball business ran strong this spring and summer, with happy clients fishafied and Bentley’s Balls sent to numerous shops and individuals across the country. There was just no extra time to write about it.  Sorry, I can’t make this up. Every time I sat down to write, it was bed-time. My eyes would begin to close and then it would be sleep-time. I would wake and it would be work-time. The cycle would repeat over and over again.  My boss at my other job has instituted mandatory over-time for the month of August. Funny thing is he is going to Alaska to fish until September. Crazy how our time can be dictated.  I realize we all go through this phase. It is just a phase, right?? A lack of time phase, right??

A REPORT

Some great fish have been caught this summer.  Also a shipload of wienerdogs have been wrangled out of our local waters. These 6-9 inchers are hungry little buggers. It is a good sign for years to come. If the rain does not blow us up hard, we should have some dandy trout next year. A bunch of trips were scrapped this summer due to high flows and heavy rains. It has not seemed to have affected the wienerdog population. The jungles forests are super lush right now. Clients from Colorado could not believe the rainforest type atmosphere. Stinging nettle fields and wild parsnip is head high. Many anglers are staying close to the water and not getting off the beaten trail to those secret spots. I don’t blame them. However, if you don’t mind the burn, many of the spots that were easy access in spring have not seen an angler in more than a month. Just sayin, be carful. DNR is shocking(fish surveying) Wienerdogs and Walters out of your favorite streams right now. They will tell us how our population is faring when they get their results tabulated this winter. TU’s Keep up the good work! Find and sign a petition to Free The Kinni of its Damn Dam’s, they are now out there. Tricos have begun and those hatches will only build. I have seen them on all of our rivers this year. If you can get your but out of bed in time you would see them too. Nymphing is getting tougher because of the weed growth in the rivers. Make sure those bugs are clean on every cast or you are just going through the motions. Kayak traffic on the Kinni is at peak. Go early or go late, or don’t go at all and leave all of those great wild trout for me and my clients.

Boom!!!!

A Rare Double Wienerdog

Folks

Currently time has warped and is in short supply. Hoping to find my way back soon.

A

Greetings anglers

Do not go fishing today or for the next few. The rivers are lakes, and where they aren’t, they are gushing torrents of earthen liquid.

As I watched the flurry of field activity for the last two weeks I knew it could happen. The same scenario has occurred  many times before. The rain would fall,,,, hard, on all of the newly fertilized, plowed and planted ground. The loosened soil would flow, by the ton, into the storied rivers.

Over the lasts three days the areas of Pierce and St. Croix Counties have received 4.5 inches of rain, some areas more. The Kinni currently flows at almost 1,000 CFS, multiple units above its normal. The photo above is from the upper Rush River where the water has pooled to a lake which will feed the down stream mayhem.

Many have changed the land recklessly. The resulting damage is intensifying. Some understand the function of the landscape and have recognized practices to ensure longevity of their way of life and the health of the waterways.

I was saddened as I drove home in the heavy rains yesterday and watched the muddied water surge across roads and gouge ruts in the helpless earth.

Kinni Corridor Project Meeting

The 4th meeting in the series of Tech Talk Services will be held by the city of River Falls this evening at St Bridget’s, next to the Library at 6:30 PM. The discussion will be about the Hydro Facilities and Relicensing. This should be a good one! The Friends of the Kinni and The Kinni River Land Trust will have some great info to clarify why we no longer need these two dams on the Kinnickinnic.

This week we have continued our rain/cold roller coaster. Looks like the weekend crew will once again have optimal fishing conditions. Over an inch of rain on Tuesday of this week kicked the color out of the streams again, but briefly. Last weeks almost 3″ on Wednesday, really put some mud, nitrogen and phosphorous into the systems and kicked the trout waters of Pierce County in the teeth for a couple days. All has settled now, but the cold has slowed the normal late April feeding and bug hatching down a bit. Looks like we will stay a bit cool and rainy but today and Saturday look to be nicest days to be on the water. On a side note, Two big fish that I heard about were caught this week, both 23″. One came on conventional tackle and the other got caught in the commercial fishermen’s nets at Prescott yesterday as the harvesters were gathering their quota of buffalo carp. Another case of big browns in the St. Croix and Mississippi. Sorry fly crew.

A few caddis were bouncing the edges of the stream and a subtle rise here and there seemed to be the norm for the last few days. Nymphs were the game for catching and anything presented reasonably could find a trout here and there. Soft hackle hares ear, caddis emerges, #20 flashback p. tails each caught fish. Maybe the warmth today and tomorrow will get some bugs back on the surface water. Below are answers to a couple of questions asked the last couple weeks.

Hi Andy, just had a quick question. I was fishing the Rush River last Friday. Had a good day. Caught about 18 fish but they were all small. Usually on the Rush the fish tend to average bigger .

So my question; “Was that just the stretch of river I was on or is there a different growth cycle there, or is that just the way it is? I have to say I’ve never seen that many small fish on the Rush in the last 6-7 years.
Anyways I thought you might have some thoughts on it.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric
Thanks for the question. As I understand it, the Rush is showing some very good numbers for natural reproduction the last two years. This is great news. It will take a couple of years for those fish to grow. I also believe that there are some year class holes, especially on those larger fish that you speak about. It is difficult to pin point what exactly the reasons but there have been some natural events(large floods and cooling stream temps) that may be playing a part in the size distribution. Remember you are talking about your data for one angler day. Remember the day when you caught all the big fish? Habitat will ultimately determine where in the river the best hatches(of trout in this case) will occur. Those little fish will probably have higher density in those places. Your experience is not unusual. Anglers throughout the region are having the same results. I refer to the small trout as “wiener dogs” and try to get them back to the water ASAP. There are still some awesome size trout in the Rush, but there may be a few less of them than in years past.

Just wait, things will change again.
Thanks for the contact.

Andy
I’ve never chased caddis on the Rush/Kinni before and would like to in the next few days/weeks. What’s the best time of day to catch the hatch?
Brian

Hi Brian
Yours is a great question I think only Mother Nature can answer. Some anglers who spend a heck of a lot of time on the water may be able to give you some details about targeting Caddis specifically, but for the most part caddis inhabit specific niches. It can be difficult to reliably target their emergence and egg laying events on our spring creeks as apposed to the big western waters that have reasonably reliable flows and reasonably regular hatch occurrences.

As I understand it there are over 1,200 species of Caddis in North America. I am not sure anyone knows how many of them exist in the Kinni/Rush. Besides the early gray caddis which hatched a couple of weeks ago and tends to emerge in the mid-afternoon in early april, a majority of the hatches will start showing up as both the air and water temps warm up. I have never hit this hatch regularly in the same place year after year. My best luck on caddis has tended to been in the late afternoon into evening in the summer.

The nature of our spring creeks, as I have experienced, is volatile. What is sand bottoms today can be limestone rubble tomorrow after the flash flooding of a 3 inch rain. I have listened to the clunking of boiling ball size rocks tumble down the river during some of these floods. Entire deep holes have been filled in with sand and new gravel bars and flats appear over night. Our rivers can change so fast that the specific requirements of some species of caddis can be washed away in a heart beat or can be moved to another location because of the rearranging of the stream bed. It is difficult to have reliable information to give you in order to target these critters, year after year, because different types of caddis have different times when they become fish food.

I love to fish, I go when possible and hope to run into a nice caddis hatch. If I find a hatch, and I can return the next day to see if there is some regularity to it, I will have stumbled on a little treasure. I will carry caddis adults in 4 colors(peacock, gray, tan and olive) and three sizes(12,14,16). I carry emergers in olive-green and tan and brown. This variety has covered me throughout the years.

Others, Please chime in.

Poor water conditions exist today on the main stem, branches and tributaries of the Kinni, Rush and Trimbelle after almost 3″ of rain fell on the mostly barren farm fields of Pierce county. Conditions should improve tomorrow and be good by the weekend.

Hi Goat,
In your experience, what is the likelihood of catching big fish on small flies? I will never go back to my early days of throwing a crawler into a pool; but sometimes miss catching the big trout. It seems like after a certain size they don’t waste their time on little bugs. If you were targeting bigger fish only, what patterns/sizes would you throw?

Pat

Thanks Pat

First question. Here is my non-scientific gut feeling.

I have to define what big is and put this into perspective. Lets assume we are talking “driftless trout big”. For me that is probably over 15″. Some say, at 12″ long, trout start to feed more heavily on larger forage(minnows, crawfish, sculpins, etc) and begin their growth to big. Some say 12″ is big. I would say 20″ or better is a trophy for our waters. Larger trout rivers of the West and big tail-waters like the Big Horn will have a different definition of big.

The likelihood of catching big fish on small flies is less than on big flies. For me, this is a simple calorie/metabolism/biological thought process. Small fish have little body weight to support. Their calorie needs for function are a whole lot less than trout with more mass. Eating 20-#20 nymphs may support a small trouts energy needs for an hour whereas it may only support a big trout for 5 minutes.  The energy expended to catch enough small bugs to support the larger mass may put the bigger trout in the red as far as the calorie bank is concerned. In other words eating small bugs may not be a sustainable feeding activity for bigger trout. I look at it this way, If a trout has to expend the same amount of energy to eat one french fry as it does to eat a quarter pounder with cheese. It will probably choose the quarter pounder if it can fit it into its mouth without choking. Simple right, expend the same amount of energy get more calories.

Now that being said, I have caught big fish on small flies. I love M&M’s. They taste good. When I was young and weighed a lot less, my mother would give them to me one at a time. They were rewards for being good. I could never get enough of them. I have never forgotten how good they tasted. Now, I can sit on my fat ass nicely toned posterior and eat a whole bag while I am on the couch watching TV. It takes very little effort. I do not have hunt them down or wait until I do something good to receive one to eat. Now, a trout on the other hand may also remember his or her childhood and the taste of a single mayfly nymph and how sweet and luscious it was. Under the right circumstances or when in competition with other trout for food, a large trout may also take a small fly. Many times, a single trico cast to a large feeding trout has resulted in an eat. Numerous times, during blanket hatches of tricos so thick you could not breath without a scarf across your mouth and nose, I have witnessed trout vacuuming the surface with their mouth open to eat small mayflies. These gluttonous trout, tail wagging and head above water, slowly swim the flat water and gorge themselves on the M&M’s of the aquatic world. Later in the morning they would cruz the weed mats where they expended little energy eating the millions of trico carcasses lodged along the edges.  They remember, or recognize the food, and are opportunists when the food is plentiful. But under the right circumstances they also will take one small fly. You can catch big fish on small flies.

Targeting bigger fish only, I would definitely take the streamer route and target the slower, deeper, undercut bank, rock pile, wood pile backwater structure. I would fish the lower end of rivers, especially now. Big trout will go out into the bigger waters to find big forage. The water temps are just fine for trout right now in the Mississippi, St. Croix, and other rivers. That will change as the water temps rise and the trout retreat to the cool water of their streams. The Walleye guys and gals at the dams at Red Wing and below have been finding some nice browns in the Mississippi. Patterns are wide and variable and range in size from #8 to 2/0. Buggers, Rabbit strip leaches, Todd’s Wiggle Minnows, Clousers and Murdich minnows, mouse and frog patterns. Fish at night. The bigger trout have turned nocturnal. I think science has proven that out. The number of trout in our regional systems that are over 20″ is small. Over 15″ is better. Right now there are a whole bunch of small fish in the systems from record reproduction the last couple of years.

Over the years I think I have experimented my way through most the phases or stages related to catching. They are all fun and have their positives and drawbacks. Eventually most anglers settle into the phase they enjoy most. Along the way you learn a lot about the fish, the forest the water and yourself. My current phase is the chillax phase. I like it, just like all the other phases of fishing for trout.

Thanks for the question Pat.

TROUT

 Feeding on a Mega Midge Diet, the trout of Pierce County are getting fat and sassy. If you are heading out to the stream this weekend make sure that you pack all the usual midge patterns both sub-surface and dry. Patterns like zebra midge, brassie and jujube midge. For drys, the Griffiths gnat, stillborn midge and a floated soft hackle pheasant tail also will work. The fishing was fun both dry and wet. Sizes were consistent in the 10-11″ range with the largest being 14″ no monsters were caught. 

The first BWO’s should be right around the corner, big #16’s. I hope you find them. After that we should see the little Gray caddis in early April. Keep your eyes on the reports from Southeast Minnesota and Southwestern Wisconsin, ours usually come a week or so after theirs.

Remarkable!

The gracious land owners walked me down the slash strewn trail pointing left and right and talking about short cuts, swales, humps and gullies. I was listening, I was, but only on the surface. I was so excited to explore this section of the lower Kinni that the recall function of my brain must have been momentarily disengaged. I would learn the hard way and make up the directions as I went along. This portion of the river canyon is a bit dicey when it comes to access from above. There are no easy ways in and the terrain is steep, unforgiving and beautiful. Early spring is the best time to familiarize ones self with a new piece of forest. Once this woodland comes alive it will be difficult to navigate easily and to recognize certain landmarks. The land owners waived goodby and cut me loose. I was walking a recently logged section along the lower Kinni. This was a release cutting of timber designed to both harvest and regenerate the white pine and oak forest that remains intact along the bluffs. There are some giant Whites in this part of the forest and it will be interesting to watch the regeneration over the next few years.

As I surveyed a 100 yard section of slash, imagining the river lie just on the edge of the forest, I began to hop-scotch my way through the piles of branches. My plan was to head through the forest and drop down to the river on the up stream side of the property. I would then fish my way down stream along the river and exit back up the bluff in a different location. There was no way of me getting lost, only the possibility of me miscalculating my exit point and ending up somewhere other than where my truck was parked. Remember I have never hiked this piece of property before.

As I exited the slash field at the edge of the logged area I decided to attempt my decent to the river. Much to my surprise, I found myself on the edge of a very steep bluff top. The only option I had was to climb or go back the way I came. I knew I was not to the edge of the property yet, so I climbed. Ducking under cedars and pines with fly rod in hand, I followed a game trail along bluff. Ascending the edge is where I found these beautiful Pasque flowers. There were two or three clumps of flowers enjoying the sun  just below the high point of the outcropping. Very few times I have been lucky enough to view these flowers blooming, in the limited locations where they still exist, at the right time. When the prairies ruled the land they were abundant, and the first spring bloomers.  What a treat!

Where the Pasque flower grows now

I felt like there were probably more flowers if I wanted to explore more dangerously on the edge, but I was trying to keep a reasonable clock on how long it took me to get to the river. As I climbed to the high point I recognized the gully the land owner had spoke of and made a tree to tree decent, traversing the steep grade to the river. For the next 3 hours I fished my way down stream on land and water targeting both rising fish and deep runs and cut banks. The fishing was good. At a location across from a small tributary or intermittent(coming in from the south side) where it looked like the only terrain that would allow my ascent, I crossed back and climbed the steep hillside to the bluff top. I found myself  in the clearing from the logging as if I would have headed straight down the main trail and not tried to head up stream. Bingo! This however was only half of the property. I can’t wait to go back.

Good Mojo!

We are warming up, again,,,,,,,,I think.  The poor trout believe we are subjecting them to some sort of temperature torture game. I know I feel that way.  Lets hope the yo-yo ride is ending and we are heading for increasing water and air temps for the next few months. Soon enough we will plunge back into the sub-zero(sorry, did I just say that).

Moving on, there has been a few opportunities for anglers to find their way to the streams in the last ten days but reports have been sketchy at best. Water temps have dipped again and I am imagining some fish were caught but their activity level was probably luke warm.  The next few weeks traditionally can produce some awesome fishing, it can also produce another foot of snow. OK I’ll stop.

The Greatwaters Fly Fishing Expo, formerly Tom Helgeson’s Greatwaters Fly Fishing Expo (for my friend Dexter)is being held this weekend in St. Paul. This show is the main event for this region and it comes at the perfect time. I am looking forward to sharing lies and truths with many old friends and customers that I only see once a year. Oh, I am presenting on Friday this year(the only day I can attend) and will be giving away some free swag at my talk. I am desperately hoping to lure a few extra bodies to the presentation with this offer. There are some new goat hats, my balls(really Mr. Bentleys) and some other trinkets that will be tossed to the crowd.