I left the house late this morning compared to most this year’s Wisconsin fishing days. It was 6:55 AM when I hopped in the car. But fall is here. Its not light till 7. A cool rain fell as I waited in the Kwik Trip parking lot.
Today I floated with Josh Hulbert and Ben Sittig. Josh was on the blog a few times back in early summer. Josh moved here to Hayward, WI about the same time I did. He’s a native Wisconsinite that made a career in the military, then years as a Green River Utah fishing guide and now back to WI. He’s set up to guide here now and his company is called Northwoods FlyFisher.
WI Leiny’s next time please
Ben, I’d never met nor was I familiar with. Josh was surprised I didn’t know of Ben. I guess it’s my age and fact that I’m not active with Twitter and YouTube and probably a ton of other computer things. Ben is THE “Huge Fly Fisherman”, a very fun and popular fly fishing YouTube Channel. I enjoyed the heck out of Ben and if you don’t know him, read this interview with Ben Flylords did for the Faces of Fly Fishing.
As for our fishing – this float was a full on musky float. For the first time this season I didn’t bring my 6-weight for smallmouth. I brought two 9’s. One with a floating line and the other a full sink. Both rigged with non-aerodynamic heaps of feather and fur. The boys each tossed laboring 12-weights.
The weather was perfect. . . . so, the pro-muskie guys would say. It was cool, rainy, stormy, sunny and windy all in the same day. But, I’ll tell you now, we never saw a single one of the menacing toothy predators.
I did manage a smallie on my muskie fly. He came early. No skunk for me. I missed what looked like a pretty decent pike early on also. I’d have another flash behind my fly shortly after. But again, no muskellunge.
Ben hooked up to a strong fish around noon. We were stoked. The sun had popped for the first time all day and his fish zipped past me in the back of the boat. Ben’s hefty orange fly was lit up like a neon sign as it streaked by. I still couldn’t see the fish.
For a minute we thought this was our muskie but it wasn’t a muskie at all but rather a snagged redhorse sucker. As Ben stripped his massive fly along down deep the hook managed to stick the thickly scaled bottom dweller.
While most anglers don’t get excited about suckers, I do. One of next summer goals will be to nymph one of these rascals up fair and square hooked between the lips for my species list. I was recently visiting another new friend, Stu Neville, owner of the Hayward Fly Fishing Company, and Stu said a biologist friend of his is studying the redhorse and claims there are at least four different sub species of redhorse. Thrilling to me!
Ben’s battle was our last fish battle of the day. Next fight for us was gusty wind. As the sun pieced through the clouds, the strong wind of fall reared its ugly boat spinning head. Actually, if you weren’t rowing it wasn’t ugly at all. For the first time in the day, you could see the vivid colors of fall glimmering from the wet leaves of every tree.
The day ended just shy of the boat ramp with a vicious wet and gusty squall. That cooled us off but all part of the adventure. Things cleared back up just as fast so we could watch the 7 PM sunset. The whole day was nothing but good times with the guys. I’m fortunate to be making many new friends here in Wisconsin. I couldn’t ask for a better start to the new life. Be sure to check out Josh’s new website and Bens YouTube Channel.
0 Comments