4/3 Fishing Report

I didn’t have $550 handy to pony up for a booth at the Great Waters Expo, so I decided to fish instead. To say that it was windy today would be an understatement, but I tried to make do. I headed south and fished some water I haven’t fished yet this year. While I caught a lot of fish, the recurring theme of too many rainbows was certainly evident. Granted, I caught a half dozen in the 13-15 inch range, certainly respectable trout, but I wasn’t out there trying to catch raceway rainbows. I’m not sure what the reationale on the DNR’s behalf is to continuously stock these fish, because in an essence they are promoting harvest, and not just harvest of rainbows. All the meat hunters can keep ’em all (rainbows) as far as I care in two weeks – they will certainly have plenty to catch.

I caught browns, brooks, and rainbows (sorry, redundant) today. I fished an Ice Dub #14 scud with a variety of trailers: midge emerger, BWO emerger, DH emerger, Hare’s Ear, black krystal flash nymph, olive PT, Shillinglaw Emerger. All of the trailers caught fish at one time or another, but the scud outfished them them all. Fish were concentrated in the upper third of most run and pool structures and were very willing to take flies (often poorly presented.

There were no hatches of any kind where I was, so my gut tells me that if it gets in the upper 50’s this week, there should be considerable BWO and DH action.

As has been the trend, the streams are very low and clear. I read a report from some other southeast fly fishng service that claimed stream levels have returned to normal after a droughtish summer. I would have to blatantly disagree. While stream levels are not in a drought state, they are not nearly what they usually are in the spring following snow melt. I’m certainly pulling for a few inches of rain at this point .

Thanks for your report. Always a good read. I also am concerned with the low water on the WW streams.

There’s no doubt that the local streams, WW and others are low. They are not in a drought state, but I certainly wouldn’t mind a few solid inches of rain .

I’m also sure those headed out in a few weeks for the harvest opener wouldn’t mind less than clear conditions.

DA, I fish SW WI steams and were facing the lower steam levels as well. I’m finding very few fish in the designated trout waters (except for some brood fish). Where we are finding fish is farther downsteam in bigger water that’s not even classified as trout water.
Most of our fish are coming on spinners and Wee Crawfish Crankbaits. Most of the fish are between 10 to 13 inches with an occasional 14-16 incher thrown in. I’ve also noticed that the fish are skinnier than normal. Hopefully the warmer temperatures this week will awaken the bigger fish.