Blog Post Comments, Genuine or Spam? Fly Fishing Update

Hello there!

If you are taking the time to read my blog or look at the pictures, thanks!!!  I appreciate it when anyone takes the time to comment (then I know you are taking an interest vs. just clicking a link to the blog and getting out of it... since it deals with stripping flies and not women stripping!). 

However, if your comment is "anonymous," sometimes it is hard to discern if it is a genuine comment or spam, especially if the comment does not refer to any specific details of my post. One anonymous commenter reported we both had blogs of similar interest and would I email him. There was no email address provided. If I am very certain an anonymous comment is NOT spam, I will post it and likely respond. Otherwise, I am sorry, but I delete any comments that appear more likely to be spam. 

Of course, when there are genuine comments, I am likely to post more on the blog. It does become challenging to write to an invisible audience. 

I am still a fly fishing freak, planning a trip to Canada for big pike and walleye, and I have more time to return to tying musky-pike flies (hopefully to soon simplify my super-complicated post on BB's Forage... but to also create dubbing brushes and hopefully, yak-based brushes!). Sub-zero temps and a broken garage door -trapping my packed Subie- have kept me from winter trouting, but it is on the horizon! Also, when not fishing, tying, or thinking/doing things directly related to fly fishing, I'm still finding more murder mystery books with an outdoorsy and sometimes even a fly fishing tie-in! 

Life is good, with good friends to share it, and then time to venture off alone in search of new discoveries and peace for my soul. I wish the same for you, and I invite you to share some of it here.

Wait 2 Beers and Catch a Musky With a 20-Foot Cane Pole

A wintry trout fly fishing trip and a defective windshield washer hose led me to a tale of how to catch musky by throwing your home-made fishing pole in the water and then drinking two beers.  Please note that no beer was drunk during the telling of the tale, and I have a picture to prove it wasn’t one of those “fish that got away” stories!

Late fall through spring is my time to make fly fishing road trips in search of trout, especially since Iowa DNR rules have blessed anglers with the opportunity to cast for trout 365 days a year. The Iowa Driftless region is where I find peace, so when free time coincided with decent December weather, I headed to Northeast Iowa.

On the gravel roads, I learned that I had poor windshield washer fluid pressure. With ice and snow predicted in the recently-updated forecast and a special tool needed to fix my SUV’s problem, I drove up the road to Postville, IA, and over to Reggie's Body Shop. Ten miles earlier, Reggie had seen me at a convenience store poking around under my hood, and he’d offered to lend a hand. The fly fishing road trip for trout in the Driftless would have to wait, but in exchange I heard about a very unusual way to catch musky...and you technically don’t even need a hook!

Outside his shop, with our heads under the hood and Reggie’s two dogs running around, we talked about friends who make custom knives. Then, I mentioned I was heading toward Decorah to fish. That’s when Reggie led me into his shop. In the dimly-lit building he showed me a couple knives and an old photo. I held the picture in dusty window light and saw Reggie's father-in-law posing with a musky in one hand and another beat-up fish in the other hand, while a friend gripped a very long pole.  The picture was taken on the dock of a Wisconsin lake. "What's that?" I asked about the pole.

Beneath the hood of the SUV while he spliced together a broken hose, Reggie began his story. Then, after a successful windshield washer test, we ultimately headed back inside the warm brick building to finish the storytelling.

While telling his tale to this catch and release fly angler, Reggie emphasized what used to be allowed but what is now required of him (to be legal) when he fishes in this manner. I caught on to his “to be legal” emphasis right away, and I still get a little kick out of it. Was he me how he fished legally or what he should be doing to fish legally??! For many reasons, I can't recommend this method of musky fishing. BUT... it is a creative way to fish and makes for a good story.

The fishing is done in a boat that is drifting (Reggie said that trolling is illegal). You need some suckers, and I was told they can be alive, but Reggie has used dead suckers, stinky ones even, and the musky don't seem to mind. The bite guard is run through the sucker's mouth and around the gills. Reggie said that for some reason it is now illegal not to use a hook, but in the past they just used to tie off the bite guard, sans hook. So, you've got an unlucky sucker, a bite guard (and a hook so you are legal!), fishing line with a rubber ball tied in somewhere as a bobber, and the line is connected to your 20-foot cane pole. While drifting (nope, not trolling-- it is illegal!), the cane pole butt section is set in a rod holder. Have fun and watch the rubber ball.

Now, when your ball starts moving oddly, this is when you take the cane pole out of its holder and just chuck that pole in the water in front of you! Next, to ensure success, just relax, drift in sight of the floating pole, and drink two beers. If luck is with you and if you drank slowly enough, your musky is now "hooked" even if you aren't using a hook (but that is illegal!), so you position your boat near the cane pole and pick the pole up. Then, after you get hold of some of the attached fishing line, throw the pole back in the water behind you. Start hand-stripping in the line (Reggie didn't say it, but they gotta have gloves on), net your musky, and bring it into the boat!  If you do it all just right, that musky won't regurgitate the sucker until the musky is in the net... otherwise, bye-bye musky.

Just remember the important part. This method of fishing requires that you bring beer. If you don't drink two beers after the musky takes the sucker, the musky will not have had enough time to adequately turn the sucker around in its mouth and swallow it sufficiently to be "hooked."

So, I drove away from Reggie and the brick body shop. While I fished and caught trout the following day with my 9-foot, graphite fly rod, I thought of his story and the 20-foot cane pole but knew that I would stick with fly fishing and using my own big flies, casting and casting, flaring up my tendonitis, and at some point, hooking and strip-setting for the chance to net a musky... and to safely release it. I agree that drinking two beers is still a good idea, but only two because we always musky fish with hooks. Big, sharp hooks.

So, in warmwater season, when the sun has sunk low after the last cast has been made and the rods and boat are stowed for the night, to my tired, forearm-sore musky fly fishing friends at the campfire I'll tell the tale of how others have caught musky with a 20-foot cane pole, a rubber ball, no hook, and 2 beers. 

The Gift of a Day to Fly Fish in Winter, 2014

   Finally, finally only a couple inches of snowfall NOT accompanied by bitter cold or heavy winds!  No fishing in January was frustrating.  No February fishing was simply unacceptable!  Luckily, I found one off-road spot (not plowed in by snow) to park and car camp. I saw lots of turkeys and deer & a few eagles and hawks during my wintry NE Iowa driving in the Decorah region.

   It snowed fairly heavily on Saturday but Sunday was beautiful.  I fished a favorite stream - one I knew would offer the best open-water conditions.  Other than being careful around ice shelves, the conditions were great!  No mosquitoes, no brush to snag & no competition from other anglers -LOL!  Four trout landed on a ~sz 20 dry fly.  The trout started rising to bugs in the surface film after I'd given up fishing with a sz 18 dry, a wet fly, and then my go-to nymph pattern.  If I was an angler with quicker reflexes (not yet but better!), I would have had 8-9 trout for the day.  It was great to be wading again.  Landed fish included browns, a bow and a brookie... my first trifecta on this stream!  The fish looked like they had been eating well.  The stream bed displayed green plant growth - showcasing a promising recovery from last year's flooding.  ~Twitch (2/16/14)

A Perfect Iowa Blend of Trout, Rain, and Snow

   It was yet another great day to be out on the water.  Faced with not feeling well the previous day, I was grateful to wake up on Saturday, March 9, without a pounding head and with the knowledge that my friend, Jackfish Kate, was willing to fish at a moment's notice.  Thinking our planned weekend of fly fishing had been lost, we were still happy to hit the water by mid-afternoon.

   I'd received a couple of outdoor/fly fishing products in the mail recently and had been hoping for a rainy weekend to test out & review a wet/dry backpack.  Kate's and my curves land on opposite areas of the body and if we could be merged together, one might come up with the measurements of a Playboy Bunny!  So, I really wanted her opinion on the fit and comfort of the backpack - an item often designed with the average male in mind.  She was game & the review is forthcoming.

   We elected to fish Trout River, located southeast of Decorah, IA.  The next day we planned to fish N. Bear but those plans were thwarted by the potential of snow, ice, and wind.  Instead, we explored and fished Twin Springs, Decorah's urban trout fishery.  By Sunday, that stream was the color of milk chocolate, flowing high and fast.

   All fish were landed on Saturday and Trout River's water level was still low but certainly higher than last summer.  It was clear but not 'gin clear', as it had been during those warmer days.  As the day progressed, the water's cloudiness progressed as well.  Once again, I'm reminded that it was a perfect day to be out on the water!  We hiked in 10-12" of snow while rain lightly fell.  The fish were hungry and I had a decent amount of strikes on first casts.  The stream had not likely seen many recent fly angling visitors.
 

   Unluckily, I did not convert on many strikes that day and had a few 3 second fights which ended with finned winners.  I know Kate landed fish and I enjoyed watching her land her day's first rainbow at the same wide, slow hole where I had previously seen her land a trout on her first-ever day on this stream back in May.  I landed 6 fish total.  Unluckily & strangely enough, 3 were foul hooked on my sz 18 dropper.  I did not photograph the beautiful brown I landed in that manner.  Two rainbows, and my largest brookie to date all measured about 11-12 inches.  One bow was beautifully marked and the brookie, well, looked great like brookies always do.
 

   Conditions must have been prime, because these fish fought harder than I've ever felt them fight on this stream!  The bows hit my big nymph and the brookie went for the sz 18 scud.  All 3 fish had to be unwrapped from the dropper's tippet and one feisty fish managed to tie a couple of overhand knots in the tippet.  Later that night at a Mexican restaurant, Jackfish tongue-tied an overhand knot into a Maraschino cherry stem.  However, I think a twice-fin-tied overhand knot trumped her feat…

   On Sunday, after visiting Decorah’s Twin Springs and seeing the Upper IA River that it feeds into all in the same park, I’m already envisioning a multi-multi-species weekend this year:  pike, walleye, smallies, and trout!