A Sucker Born every Minute

by | Oct 16, 2012 | Uncategorized | 3 comments


I was tossing and turning at 5 this morning and finally gave up the fight.  The big laker I’ve been after all week at Jenny Lake must have been calling me.  At 6 I was loading my Exploder and heading back to Grand Teton National Park in darkness.

By the time I arrived the sun was up, what sun there was anyhow.  This morning was mostly cloudy and I drove through some scattered showers between Victor and Jenny.  The elk were bugling and a cold wind was busting whitecaps up on the gravel beach I hiked too.

I started fishing with my 7-weight RX and a Uniform Sink Type V but after 15 minutes of casting and stripping without a bump I switched to my 5-weight that was rigged with two nymphs.  With this I made some short casts just past the drop-off and started a three finger hand twist.  That was it.  On my first retrieve I hooked and landed a 21” laker and followed him with five more lake trout in five more casts!

Landing the lake trout I got up early for on my 5-weight probably wasn’t going to happen so after my fun of catching a few I went back to my 7 and continued dredging.  Absolutely not a strike.  At 10 I was thinking of packing it in because I have plenty of work to do at home but the wind intensified and I could see a storm brewing and blocking out the Tetons.  I hoped it would be the storm that triggered the big fish bite.  I casted aggressively through the entire hour long lasting squall but still not a bump.  By 11 the storm was gone and Jenny slowly calmed down from whitecaps to a gentle waves.  That’s when I hooked up to something stronger than a cookie cutter mackinaw

My heart jumped a few beats but I could feel awkwardness.  I had a sizeable fish but it wasn’t making the typical big lake trout run.  After a minute of stubborn fighting, up to the surface came a glowing sucker.  A sucker!  While most anglers would have been disappointed, I was stoked.  I balanced my camera on a rock and got me a sucker hero shot.  Good fun!

That was the excitement for today.  I pulled out from Jenny at noon cold and wet.  I have packing to do.  I’m headed for Wisconsin to try for my 50” musky later this week – priorities!

3 Comments

  1. MNFishhunter

    Roughfish are wonderful on a fly rod!

  2. Erik Moncada

    They are not trash fish to Jeff… more along the lines as recycled fish 🙂

  3. Jeff Currier - Global Fly Fishing

    MNFishhunter, I’m happy to say I’ll be in Duluth this time tomorrow. Will play some pool then head for the rich musky waters of Manitowish Thur. You live in a great place also – all those great species!

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I started fly fishing at age 7 in the lakes and ponds of New England cutting my teeth on various sunfish, bass, crappie and stocked trout. I went to Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, where I graduated with a Naturalist Degree while I discovered new fishing opportunities for pike, muskellunge, walleyes and various salmonids found in Lake Superior and its tributaries.

From there I headed west to work a few years in the Yellowstone region to simply work as much as most people fish and fish as much as most people work. I did just that, only it lasted over 20 years working at the Jack Dennis Fly Shop in Jackson, WY where I departed in 2009. Now it’s time to work for "The Man", working for myself that is.

I pursue my love to paint fish, lecture on every aspect of fly fishing you can imagine and host a few trips to some of the most exotic places you can think of. My ultimate goal is to catch as many species of fish on fly possible from freshwater to saltwater, throughout the world. I presently have taken over 440 species from over 60 countries!

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