Day Two
When I walked out of the hotel to my car, I noticed that we got some rain overnight. One of the streams we were planning on fishing is known to get cloudy fast after some rain. Throw all of the melting snow and ice in the mix, and our plans changed.
We decided to hit a stream that I have only spot fished in one of the few times I had been up here. In the summer this stream is extremely difficult to fish, because, of all of the overgrowth. Lucky for us, it was Winter, and the banks were somewhat open.
With this being much smaller water, I opted for my FSA custom 3 wt. The weather throughout the day was great. The temperature dipped a few times, but nothing outrageous. It definitely did not feel like January.
Adam continued to work a hopper dropper, and I casted small streamers and occassionally drifted some nymphs. Adam was the first to garner the attention of a few brook trout, but none were fully committed to showing face.
One of the small streamers I was tossing was a tiny woolly bugger...I forget the size, because, I didn't tie it, but my guess was a size 8. Well, I casted at the front of a nice pool I was approaching, and a trout came completely out of the water to hit it, but wiffed, and never came back.
The after a few more drifts a trout came out from right in front of me and hit the bugger, I lifted the rod, felt the weight, and then it went slack. After some silent F bombs, I made a few more casts, and then checked my fly, and to my surprise, the hook had broken off. I could not believe it! Has this ever happened to anyone??
What really sucked was it was my last small black streamer. I scarified a few to the shrub gods. I'd also, like to give a little shout out to, Brad of Tippets and Tales, for giving me the tip on small black leech type patterns, and Tim Lobello, for his report on the area the day before we went up. Much appreciated Gents!
Tossed pretty much everything. Don't mind my sinking leaders. The stuff I was using was stashed behind them. Ha
On the walk back, we decided to take the road. We looked down on the stream in the parts we had waded and fished and we could see schools of trout shooting around and stopping at this one pool. Outrageous. We drifted some flies towards them, but no dice. They were really not having what we were selling.
Skunked, but we didn't care. It was a great weekend to get out and explore some of the endless amount of water that flows through some beautiful country.
The Driftless.
