I’ve had several productive days at home preparing for what will be another busy winter show and speaking schedule.  I also packed for some amazing trips coming up soon.  I’m feeling less stressed and more caught on things than I have in a month.  After a beautiful fall bike ride, this afternoon I jumped in the boat with visiting college pal Paul Cavanaugh and another college buddy that lives in Radison WI, Lenny.

We headed for nearby Round Lake.  While most of today was cool and gray, when we launched the sun poked through and it was mid-50°s, calm and sunny.  You couldn’t ask for a prettier afternoon to be on the water.

Round is a big lake known to hold oversized muskies so no doubt we all had our hopes for one.  That’s the reason you see my monster net in this picture.  While Paul can toss a fly, the boat was tight so he and Lenny hucked lures.  I was launching a big black streamer attached to wire on my 9-weight.  It was Lenny that went tight first and landed a pike.

The pike wasn’t a surprise but what happened next was.  Smallmouth bass and probably even more so, largemouth bass, disappear from action by late September when waters cool during fall.  But Paul caught three largemouth and a smallmouth all in about 15 minutes time.  Including this pretty nice one.

The sunlight lingered and lit the colorful hardwoods around the lake as we approached sunset.  The colors never fail to cause my concentration to wander and not pay attention to my fishing.  It’s simply too stunning to take your eyes off the October scenery.  Of course that’s when I got a wicked strike and missed a fish!

Missing a strike does motivate me to focus despite being hard to stop gazing.  It helped that we were in an amazing nook.  There were weeds against a steep bank and a drop off.  There may have been a musky around but I went tight with another pike.  The pike in Round average decent size.

We stayed late and reeled in around 7 PM when we started getting cold.  It would have been a shame had I skipped out and not joined the boys.  It was so nice out there and it’s always a blast catching up with old friends.  We ended the great day down at Anglers sipping drafts and enjoying the baseball playoffs.

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing