Life Is Good

rain and warm temps are forecasted for my area so went out for 2 hours today….12 to hand.

The rain and overnight temps above freezing will cause some serious run off.

Now thats a close up. Great looking fish

seewweeet

Smart man. Looks like serious runoff in our future for western WI here too. Just so glad conditions held out for the opener!

Andy Kurth and I fished today. The major rain and runoff made it hard to find clean water today.

We had to do some serious searching for clean water but it paid off and we fished a nice long stretch.
We both got about a dozen to hand. We each lost about another dozen.

The trout just weren’t hitting it. They were timid and only rolling on it or mouthing it.

Andy and I each caught one brookie and the rest were browns.

Some were right up in the fast water. The water temp was 48.

Third one down that is a sweet brown. Really nice colors. As if some of these fish still have their spawning colors? Buttery brown.

Speaking of buttery brown, I smoked my last four in the freezer from 2009 – two brookies, two browns

Smoked trout with icy cold Spotted Cow. Life IS good.

Smoked Trout

Fished with my friend Bruce Ristow this morning. He talked me in to going to an area with lunker structures. I dislike lunkers and did not expect much and I was not surprised when we caught 6 trout between us in the silted in made made Petting Zoos.
We changed locations and went after some tiny stream brookies. We each caught about 15.

Stopped in on the way home at one of my favorite streams and picked another 15 or so.

None were big and the stream is know for the light colored browns.

66 degrees here today and bright sun. Stream temps were 48 and 54

Fished with my buddy Bruce for 4 hours this morning.
Early the action was slow due to cold water. Water temp was 38.
When the sun came up we did better in shallow slow areas with
the sun warming the water. We each had approximately 15 to hand.

Fished a tiny stream this morning way off the roadway. Fished from 8:30am until 11:30am. The weather conditions were sunny with gin clear water. The water temp was 44 degrees. The outdoor temp was 52 degrees.

When I got off the road a ways….
This is what I saw first.

Five trout later I moved upstream to the tiny water I was looking forward to.

There were trout in every little drop deeper than 12 inches.

It was fun puddle jumping.

12 browns and one brookie later I walked back to the car

03/29/10

Sunny
57 degrees outside temp
water temp 50
fished from 9am until 11:45am

20 browns to hand.
Nothing large

03/31/10

18 to hand in 3 hours.
ranged from 2 inches to 17

Fished today on Non-designated trout water in Richland County today with my daughter Anna. We started at 1:30pm and it was hard sledding until it clouded up. We lost a few at shore and half way through the outing we changed our tactics and it was amazing the results we had. I landed 8 trout in 3 hours and Anna landed 18. Anna’s biggest to hand is below.

Fished some non-designated water in Richland County tonight
22 browns to hand. Nothing large to hand. Rolled to 20 inchers.

This stretch will be unfishable in three weeks due to vegetation growth.

All trout were directly behind cover.

Outside temp was 66. Water temp 58.
Partly cloudy. Water clarity slightly cloudy.

Len, nice pics as always. Have you found that fishing the lower areas of streams outside the designated trout water to be more productive? I haven’t fished much this year but the last few years most of my success has been fishing far downstream of the designated water.

Fished some tiny water with my best fishing buddy Andy.
Andy caught two big trout of the day.
I caught a couple more than him but nothing photo worthy.
Andy was fishing lots of different droppers…
Wind was terrible.
It was better than sitting at home.

Can you ALL visualize a brookie with these colors but about 8 inches longer?
My buddy Andy was dragging a big flashy olive bugger and he exclaimed:

“Oh my god look at that monster.”
I was standing right along side Andy and watched the whole thing go down.

This one beat the monster to the bugger.

This one was caught in same hole as the Oh My God brookie.

fished for 3 hours this afternoon. 3pm until 6pm.

These yellow flowers were in the swampy first part of my fish. I walked up to the flowers to take a photo and the next thing you knew i was waist deep in mud. Was a little scary for a while.

I caught a ridiculous amount of browns. They ranged from 4 inches to 18.

I actually stopped fishing early and walked out because I thought catching anymore would be GREEDY.

Had about another 10 on that I lost due to going barbless today.
They were all behind structure or in funnels along banks with cuts.

A return trip to this water is in order before the weeds get to tall and make it impossible to fish there.




Non-designated water.
Clarity very good.
Outside temps 58
water temp 56
Sunny
No obvious hatches.

Ted Kirkpatrick and I fished yesterday from 1:00pm until 3:30pm
The sun was bright and high in the sky. We both landed about
10 each.

Len is that a different strain of brown trout in the picture above? I caught a 22 incher a couple weeks ago and it was even lighter colored than that one.

Bruce Ristow and I went out today for 2 hours. Bruce showed me some water on a stream
I already fished. Upstream a ways. I had fished the area 3 years ago and dismissed the
area as too shallow and narrow for good fishing.

The last two floods had carved out some nice holes and the beavers also helped our cause.

The blue bells are in full bloom. The below flower is unknown to me but beautiful.

It was Bruce’s area so it was appropriate that Bruce caught the 2 biggest trout.

I lost a brown almost this long just before Bruce landed this one.

We saw 5 brook trout over 14 inches and were stunned to see a pair around 17 inches follow one of Bruce’s retrieves.

Bruce’s big brookie of the outing wouldn’t hold still long enough for a good close up.

We both landed over 25 trout each in 2 hours.