Its hard to explain how invigorating it is to go fishing on new water almost every time I go fishing. And to be able to do it from home – unreal! The newfangled adventures around every corner had me bouncing from bed at 4:45 AM this morning to meet up with my friend Bob Butler to float yet another Wisconsin river.
No doubt the days are noticeably shorter already, but by the time we made an hour drive, launched, did our own shuttle, there was more than enough daylight. If anything, we felt like we should have started an hour earlier.
The fishing was stellar out of the gates. I fished my Winston 5-weight Air 2 and had two dry flies on. I’m experimenting with creating an ideal two fly dry fly rig for smallies similar to my hoovering double Chernobyl rigs I used in Idaho for trout. Today I had a Ben Byng popper on the point and 3ft up my leader I had a Cicada dropper. On my first cast a nice smallmouth devoured my popper and I landed him.
But my seemingly devastating two fly smallmouth concoction would die on me after the first hour. It did generate a lot of eats but the higher the sun got the less the hard fighting bass of the north showed interest. Before we knew it, both Bob and I were dredging streamers in deep runs as our only way to catch them. We caught about a dozen smallies and one rock bass up to 13”.
Also found in many of the deep runs were lumbering lake sturgeon. Some like the one you can barely see in this photo were 4ft long or more. Every year I seem to focus on a special fish species. Perhaps after my incredible March visit to the Columbia River, 2022 will be the year of the sturgeon. I suspect eventually I’ll get one of these prehistoric natives on a fly. Even if I don’t, seeing them a few feet below your boat is a sight to behold.
Bob and I tossed the musky rods as well. Today was the coolest day we’ve had since May. We hoped the temperature drop would put a few of these top of the food chain giants on the move but it was not the case. We didn’t even move a pike. Nonetheless, today was a fabulous day on the water with an old friend.
The Winston 5WT is getting a work out up here!