SE Minnesota Fly Fishing

WIth the Mississippi River and other local bass waters well over their banks, this angler has been having a hard time finding ideas for what to do to stay on the water… Fly fishing has answered the call. Zac, my room mate, good friend, and fishing partner got me interested in fly fishing long ago but bass fishing always seemed to send the idea of taking up fly fishing to the back seat. Not any more. I picked up a fly rod last week for the first time and my very first outing I found some biting browns, including one real nice one. From that point on, the game was on, and the hunt has begun for the stream with the giant trout.

After the first creek, Zac and I headed to a new stream and proceeded to hike about 4 miles only to catch a handful of brown trout of marginal size. We spotted many trout but they were just too spooky to catch. I did manage to catch one brown about 12″ on a leech pattern and Zac caught a couple as well, but for the most part, fishing was difficult. It didn’t help out cause that two spin fisherman had just worked through the area before us.

The second day of fly fishing had us taking a drive to a known brook trout stream with public access. I was very excited. Although browns are an awesome trout, Brook trout have always had a special place in my heart. Zac took a lower section of the stream and I drove upstream about three miles. I found many very good pools, including a couple of pools formed by very large beaver huts. The one beaver hut pool produced 8 brookies, most of which were caught on an orange scud pattern 4 feet under a strike indicator. After linking back up with Zac and another friend Chris, I found another pool that looked very inviting. This one had a tremendous amount of surface action, with the eager brook trout feeding on recently hatched midges. Though the fish were feeding on top, the dry flies I was trying just didn’t seem to be working. I gave in and through a beaded nymph and managed to pull an additional 13 brook trout out of that one hole, with many more missed strikes and lost fish. Though I lost one about 12-13″, nothing bigger than about 10″ made it to my hands. The search continues.

Today I had to work til 4:30, but was anxious to get out to a local stream, despite the recent rain events that I figured must have muddied the streams up. Sure enough, the stream I wanted to fish ran brown, with about 8-10″ of visibility. Despite being dirty, I was optimistic, as it wasn’t quite as muddy as I was anticipating. I walked about a mile before I came to any kind of area where I thought a fish might be holding. It took some time but with fish feeding on the surface again, my confidence level skyrocketed. I roll casted a leech pattern that I tied myself last night and the browns just started hammering it. It was awesome. Despite only having about 45 minutes to fish those fish due to darkness closing in, I still was able to land about 10 browns with one real nice one making it to hand. I lost another one about 16″ but was pleased with the one I caught. I didn’t have a tape measure with me, and the fish was super skinny but I would guess it at an honest 19″. I’m new to this game but I can tell you right now that I’m loving it! Bass fishing hasn’t taken a back seat by any means, but there definitely will be some balancing occurring this summer! Fly fishing has opened the door to a new passion for me that I hope I can continue to improve on for many years to come.