Last fall Granny and I made a trip to the Driftless Region of Wisconsin and visited and fished with our friends Jo and Jason Randall who live near Viroqua.  This rolling hilled farm country has some of the best trout fishing in all the Midwest and I’m happy to say we returned here this afternoon for another visit.  Also in town are our friends Joan and Tim Flagler.  If you visit The Fly Fishing Show during winter you’ve probably met all these folks.  We work the shows together.

Granny and I arrived around 2 PM and the Flagler’s had just arrived also.  After we caught up over ice cold New Glarus’s, Jason, Tim and I wadered up and headed for one of Jasons nearby brook trout haunts.  This miniature meadow stream doesn’t look like much from afar, but up close, there’s plenty of deep runs, riffles and heaps of 6” to 9” brook trout and a few bigger ones as well.

For most trout anglers spoiled by the big trout of the west, tiny brook trout of the Driftless don’t excite.  Me on the other hand, I love them.  I didn’t get to catch many brookies while living in the Yellowstone Region for more than 34 years.  These are about like the brookies I grew up with in NH and they bring back good memories.

I fished my Winston 4-weight Pure.  Though small, these native trout are as spooky as a big trout anywhere, therefore I like the gentle presentation I get with my light fly rod.  I fished a lengthy leader with 5X tippet and a size 16 Stimulator.  Patience and moving slow up the stream led to great success.  I landed more then ten of the colorful gems.

Tim and Jason mostly nymphed the deepest runs and caught a few nice brookies as well.  After a couple hours of fun we headed in early for a big dinner.  The Flagler’s are from New Jersey and they packed some of their home-cooking from Jersey.  The food was absolutely delicious and when done we had an hour of dusk light.  We grabbed a few after dinner brews and headed two minutes from Jason’s house to pop some leech patterns in a deep hole.

Honestly, I was done fishing for the day after the brook trout stream.  I kicked back on a rock and enjoyed my beer while Tim and Jason fished.  The birdlife was incredible.  All the time, Jason kept trying to hand me his rod to have a whirl.  After my last sip of Spotted Cow was gone, I took his rod and hucked out his blackish fly.  I plucked out a few little browns and then got extremely lucky.

You can trace back to a couple of my spring blogs of 2022 where I was working overtime trying to land a white sucker (Catostomus commersonii) fair and square on a fly.  Despite a huge effort over a couple of days, I failed.  Tonight, I caught one of the bottom cleaning suckers on a blind cast while fishing for brown trout.  A little luck when fishing never hurts.  Add the first new species for 2023!

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing