There is something about the descent into a trout valley in Southeast Minnesota that puts me in a good mood like few other things can.  I started my journey on Saturday with the hopelessly boring drive on the highway south of the cities.  The only thing of interest is the occasional stream that is passed over; I make sure I’m in the right lane at every stream crossing so I can get the best view of the water below, helping to get a gauge on the overall water conditions for the area. I hit Rochester and find it to be more of an annoyance than anything [better watch your speed, cops have someone pulled over every time I’m though on 52].  At some point I get off the highway, at least now there are some interesting old farms and other curiosities but it is still a bleak landscape, painted by someone whose palette doesn’t go beyond gray and tan.  Then suddenly the road is pointing downhill.  Down a steep hill.  The colors spectrum changes from mostly gray to mostly green. Usually as I get close to my fishing destination my speed increases in anticipation of getting there, but today I find myself riding the brake though the valley as I try to take it all in.  There are several streams that come together here, and there are many people out enjoying the great day.

My destination is a stream I have not been on before, and actually had very little info on other than some very limited second hand accounts.  One key feature is that it is lightly fished due to lack of access points.  I had Google Earthed the crap out of this stream, and the parking spot I was looking for was easy to find.  I was disappointed that there were three other cars there.  One vehicle had three generations of trout anglers about to head up the trail, they shared a bit of info with me, assuring me I would like what I found up in the valley.  I was probably five minutes behind them on the trail, but they were nowhere in sight.  The trail paralleled the river which was a few hundred yards away.  Eventually the trail and river converged, and there were my buddies form the parking lot.  I quietly slipped past them, walked hard for about ten more minutes and decided to start fishing. 

When I’m on a new stream I fish very poorly. Or at least very quickly.  I had no way of knowing exactly what was around the next bend, where the best water was, or where any other anglers were.  Having fished a lot of streams I have learned that all trout streams tend to “behave” in a similar manner, which means that the ways that pools and rifles are arranged on one stream will likely be repeated on a completely different stream.  The stream had a strong “Lower Kinni” vibe.  Part of this was likely due to the hike up the valley, but there were a few riffles that had a twin on a different creek a hundred miles away. 

What flies worked the best here?  I had no idea.  As is usually the case, I had a black wooly bugger tied on from the last time out, and I made a few casts with it, but my MO on this type of water is to nymph my way upstream, and then bugger my way back.  So, I changed up with a nymph and a cork but continued to fish fast.  There was so much good looking water here that I just couldn’t slow down.  I would make a half dozen casts into “the juice” [this is Gunnar’s name for the “spot-on-the-spot”, as in “Quit casting into that bullshit water and throw into THE JUICE!”] and then march on to the next spot.  It is hard to describe what the juice looks like, as it is different in each riffle or pool, but anyone who is an experienced angler will know what I mean.  It usually involves an edge near the top of a run where the riffle comes in, where the current speed and depth are just right.  I found myself constantly alternating between looking back over my shoulder, anticipating other anglers coming upstream and straining to see what was up ahead.    Eventually I started catching fish.  Not sure if it was because I had slowed down, found the magic fly [I was using a one-of-a-kind beadhead thing], or if I just got into better water, but this stream appeared to be filthy with trout.  Most likely looking water would give up a few, and in a couple of spots I left them biting.  I got to a point where the tasty water changed to flat “gator water”, and I figured it was a good point to stop and start fishing back.  A break was in order, and I took my time eating a sandwich on a grassy bank.  I thought about how glad I was to be fishing alone this day.   I had asked my kids if they were up for trout fishing, but the response was less than lukewarm.  I had considered trying to hook up with a friend this day, but my schedule is unpredictable, and I never know what I’m going to want to do, or where I’m going to want to go.  Getting someone to put up with my unpredictability, and is willing and able to keep up, will have their own gear, know how to use it etc. is tough.  I like fishing with others, especially on known water, but on this day I was glad to have all the adventure to myself.

Despite all of my marching and fish catching, the spectacle of a mature hardwood forest on a spring day was not lost on me.  The forest floor was a green carpet speckled with millions of white flowers, reminding me of stars in the night sky.  I was wishing for a camera better than what is in my phone, but it would have to do.  I was keeping an eye out for morels, but never did find a single one. 

There were quite a few Pheasant Back mushrooms sprouting from dead logs though, and I decided today was going to be the day I would harvest some.  I could already imagine cooking them up along with the five trout that I was quite sure I would catch on the way back downstream.  And I figured I should dig up a few of the millions of ramps growing in the forest while I was at it, these wild relatives of onions were another thing I had never harvested before.  [note to self—put a small shovel in your vest for ramp digging detail, digging them up barehanded is tough and dirty]

Sandwich eaten, bugger tied back on, let the trout harvesting begin.  This stream has special regs like many other Minnesota streams, and there is no kill between 12 and 16 inches.  The best ones for the pan are in the 9 to 11” range anyway.  First cast- twelve incher, about as big as I had seen in this stream.  I let it go, and was soon hooked to another, maybe a bit smaller.  I put the tape measure on it to confirm it was under a foot, and it went in The Sack.  The Sack is a mesh bag that mostly stays wadded up in the back of my vest, once in a while it gets to carry some trout.  Soon there were a couple more in there.  Funny thing, when I start fishing for trout that I’m going to keep it starts to be not as much fun.  When I’m catch and release fishing [which is most of the time] and one gets away I don’t really care at all.   When I’m keeping fish and a “sacker” gets off just as I’m about to grab him I can’t help but get pissed. 

A few fish started rising here and there, despite the fact I had hardly seen a bug on the water all day. There must have been something hatching, as many unidentified warblers and songbirds were picking things off as well.  The trout were hitting the bugger enough to get me to put aside any thoughts of dry fly fishing, but at some point they started coming up steady enough to get me to make the switch.  The only bugs I had seen were a few caddis, so I put on the old trusty Henryville Special.  They couldn’t get enough of it.  At some point The Sack had five trout in it, and I stopped fishing to clean them in the style of my grandpa.  He always gut and gilled his trout streamside, and I mostly keep the tradition alive, I have a little knife in my vest that is used only for this purpose.  I figured that doing this was probably illegal, but then continuing to fish with a limit of five in The Sack probably is too.  I took my chances with both, finally ending up in a run with 50 trout rising along the far bank.  I did a time check as I got to this spot, knowing I was now at the point where I was going to be late getting home.  How late was still debatable.  After tormenting another dozen fish I decided enough is enough and I began the march back to the truck.  I sent a text home indicating I was walking out of the valley.  The hike out took about a half hour.

Epilogue:

I cooked the trout as I always do, de-headed and de-finned, but otherwise whole, pan fried.  I chopped and sautéed the wild mushrooms and ramps and mixed them into some brown rice for a great accompaniment to the trout.  Wild trout, wild mushrooms and wild veggies, all harvest from the same verdant valley.  Sometimes life is pretty good.

There was one trout left, which I ate for breakfast this morning with more ramps and over-easy eggs.

Dream up, dream up,
let me fill your cup…

It troubles me that I am going into this trout season with a genuine lack of enthusiasm.  I’m still looking forward to walking the creeks, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells, but I just know the trout catching is going to be off.  For reasons I’m not going to get into here, my two favorite streams [the Upper Kinni and the Willow] are seriously hurting in the trout population department, and it’s going to be a few years before it improves.  So for catching, that leaves the Rush, or maybe the lower Kinni.  Not that these are bad—quite the contrary, these are fantastic streams with wild trout and fishy riffles and pools.  Also an abundance of trout anglers, [and %$##&@ kayaks on the Kinni] and I hate the fact that when I’m approaching a favorite access point I have to start deciding how many other vehicles I will tolerate.  More than three or four, I’m off to the next spot.  This is why the other creeks have been so dear to me, enough fish to keep me busy, and always plenty of water devoid of other anglers.   

I know my favorite streams will come back, but in the meantime I’m going to share a few times when the fishing was truly outstanding.  I’ve had a lot of great days on the local creeks, but these are some days that really stand out.  Interesting to note that my very best, most memorable days were days I was fishing alone.

The first year of the “Early Season” [the one that would start March 1] was a great year.  I really fished a lot in those days, and two extra months equated to a couple hundred more trout than before.  I was on the Upper Kinni, it was March 20 [I forced myself to remember the date], and I think 1997.  I’m working through some favorite water with the trusty UV scud tied on, when out of nowhere there is a very aggressive rise just above me—like someone threw a baseball in the water.  Not one to switch to a dry at the first sign of surface activity, I kept dredging, and was catching a few.  The big splashes continued, and were becoming a distraction.  I stopped casting to try and determine what was happening.  I had seen a couple of bugs flying around, but hadn’t really paid much attention to them.  I soon realized that they were black stoneflies—they were starting to buzz on the surface, and I spotted a few crawling on logs.  I looked up to the top of the run I was working, and here comes a stonefly buzzing down the center of the stream [they lay their eggs this way].  SPLOOSH—the bug gets chomped by a better than average trout, and I couldn’t get the nymph, shot, and cork off my leader fast enough.  As I’m cutting off my nymph rig I am taking a mental inventory of all my fly boxes, trying to picture what I have to be a suitable stonefly imitation.  Remember, this was the first year we could fish there this early, and no one was aware that the black stoneflies were such a thing on the Kinni.  A big elk hair caddis would have to do, and I greased one up with floatant after it was tied on, and after a couple of quick false casts it was drifting toward where I has seen the last fish feed.  It hadn’t floated a foot before it was eaten, and I was soon admiring the first of many trout I would catch that day.  I didn’t count them [I always lose count after 2], but by mid-afternoon I had caught more than enough and headed home early.

Since this memorable day, I always try to get over there on a warm, sunny day around March 20.  I have hit this hatch pretty good a few times since, and I have designed a very devious stonefly pattern specifically for it.  It takes about 20 minutes to tie, but it looks really good.  And it works exactly as well as an elk hair caddis that I can tie in about 3 minutes.

here’s the pattern:

Hansen’s Ovipositing Stone 

Hook:  TMC 100; Butt: Pearl Litebrite; Body: Clipped black deer hair; Hackle: Grizzly; Wing: Grizzly hackle tips

These bugs have what appears to be a glowing white egg sac on their butt when laying their eggs

Thinking about this day reminds me of another epic dry fly day on the Kinni.  This time I was headed to the lower river, and as I crossed into Wisconsin I was anticipating my hike up the canyon from County Road F.  It was midweek, so I wasn’t worried about crowds or kayaks, and I expected to have some decent nymph fishing before some mayflies would start hatching in the afternoon.  I don’t remember the date, but it was around late May/early June in the early “Oughts”.  [I’ve been dying to say that].  I’m not known to be a particularly fast driver, but my speed definitely will pick as I get closer to a stream. I was moving right along at about seventy, anticipating a great day.   I’m always hoping for a good “inspirational” rock anthem to come on the radio to really get me fired up as I approach the stream.  On this day, Rock and Roll [part 1] by Gary Glitter came on just as the old white Chevy began the descent into the valley.  I cranked it up and cheered at the right parts until I pulled into the parking lot at the bridge.  I’ve made this hike enough times to know that it involves about 45 minutes of steady hiking to get to where I start fishing.  There is a long bluff pool with a great riffle that comes in at a sharp angle at the top.   Similar to my previous story, I started out nymphing, and they were really hitting it good.  I can still remember one that ate the fly and started jumping before I was even able to set the hook.

I fished all the way to the top of the riffle, probably caught a half dozen.  I had been noticing some fish rising a bit upstream.  I was keeping an eye on them as I headed up the path, and decided to sit on a big log laying across the stream and eat a sandwich while I watched the fish rise.  There were some mayflies coming off, I think it was the light Hendrickson hatch, and as I paid closer attention I could see that the next riffle was ALIVE with rising trout.  I was grinning a grin while I ate my sandwich, watching those trout rise, thinking about how many I was about to catch.

This next riffle where the trout were making a spectacle of themselves was really nothing special to look at. A small riffle came into a little run along the right bank, there were a couple big rocks, and it was maybe three feet deep tops—definitely not a spot you would think could hold more than a few trout.  Despite the fact that it looked like a marginal spot at best, there appeared to be at least a dozen trout rising steadily.  I had re-rigged while sitting on the log, I now had a trusty comparadun on my tippet, greased up and ready to go. After stepping in, I was hooked up within a couple of casts, and then almost every couple of casts after that. I can’t remember how many I pulled out of that little run, but it seemed like for everyone I caught, two more took its place.  It really was bizarre, because it just didn’t seem possible that there could be that many trout in there, but no matter how many I caught, they just kept rising.  I finally decided to move on, and every likely spot was the same—seemingly unlimited rising trout.  They rose steady though the afternoon, and I never saw another angler.  Throughout the day I changed flies regularly [I had to, they kept getting waterlogged from all the fish!], and I tried a little bit of everything. This confirmed to me than when trout are rising to mayflies, you just can’t do better than a comparadun.  I caught some on other designs, but nothing worked better. It didn’t even seem to matter if it was the right color or size either, as long as it was a comparadun.

It was getting later in the afternoon, and I was working my way up through what we call the “Bread and Butter” run.  There were trout rising all over the place, and I was catching them steady.  I looked at my watch and it was 5:30.  I decided I would catch five more and leave.  I forced myself to keep track of the next five I caught and then I looked at my watch again.  It was now 5:40.  I made a few more casts, caught one more, then had a smoke while I watched them rising for another five minutes.  Every run and riffle that I walked by on my hike out of the canyon had trout rising in it. I have never seen a river so alive with trout. How many did I catch that day?  The rate at which I caught the last five were representative of how the action was all day, so figure conservatively 20 per hour for five or six hours.

The Willow River has long been my favorite stream.  Light pressure, easy access, and while the trout population has never that impressive as far as numbers, due to warmer water and abundant forage, the average size can be impressive.  And this was the case on a fine spring day sometime in the late 90s.  Or early Oughts, I don’t remember.  Rarely a place for good dry fly action, the Willow’s dark waters are better suited for dredging big wiggly nymphs or swinging bunny strip streamers or buggers.  I had my favorite 6 weight rigged with a clear tip line.  The clear tip is slow-sinking, and provides just the right amount of sink for the streams around here, and it allow for the use of a shorter leader for better accuracy when casting at close range around bushes and other cover.  When the streamer bite is “on”, the exact fly hardly matters—what matters is that you cover water and show your fly to as many fish as possible.  I was using a favorite pattern that is really nothing special.  I call it the “Strip Club”, it’s got a bunny strip, lead eyes and some rubber legs. I tie this fly [and many other trout streamers] on a 4x long streamer hook, size 4.  This is more important detail that what the pattern was, or what color the fly was.  This hook is just the right combination of length and wire thickness for a trout streamer. [This is a also a good fly for steelhead and smallmouth.]

The Strip Club 

Hook:  4XL streamer; Tail: Flashabou; Body: Sparkle Braid with 3-4 sets of rubber legs; Wing: Bunny strip; Throat [optional]:Contrasting marabou; Eyes:  Medium lead eyes

There are many days on this river when I might get a fish out of every 5^th spot.  This day, every big fish in the stream wanted to play, and by the time my session was done I figured I had had landed around 18 fish.  I know, not exactly insane numbers, but the funny thing is the one I remember most was the smallest one of the day, and it was a foot long.  I chuckled when I released this guy, ‘cause he was just a baby compared to most of the other ones that day.  I don’t think I had any others under 15 inches, most were 16- 18 inches, and a couple were over the 20 inch mark. These were serious, “put-’em-on-the-reel” browns that could have just as well been measured in pounds.  Not bad for a stream 30 minutes from St Paul.

I have had other great days on the creeks over there, and I hope there comes a day when it is again possible to have a “big day”.  And to be fair, I have plenty of great memories of trout fishing where the things I remember most wasn’t the fish catching.  For some reason this memory just popped in my head—I was over there with the Gunnar, we hadn’t brought any food with us [SOP in those days], so we subsisted on berries we picked along the stream.  At one point we were both sitting on the ground off the trail, chowing all the wild raspberries we could reach.  We probably caught a few trout.

EPILOGUE

I fished on the Wisconsin creeks the other day, it was pretty warm but windy.  I visited the Rush for the first time in a few years.  First thing I see is the Red Barn Cafe has turned into a Bar and Grill.  Figures.  What happened to the big metal bridge?  I guess some would have called it ugly, the cement one that took its place is sure nothing special.  And most importantly, where did all the trout go?  I know there are trout anglers more skilled than me who are catching some fish there, but seriously—I can remember being there when a hatch was on and walking right by a riffle full of rising fish if there weren’t any big heads popping up.  On this day I was “zero for zero” after nymphing through a bunch of good water that I have caught hundreds of trout out of. All I caught were a lot of memories as I walked up the canyon.  I could tell stories about every pool in this section. Stories of fish caught, of people I was with, of bugs that were hatching, of big trout seen and big trout caught. There was a guy much younger than me working a streamer through the bottom end of a deep pool.  I really wanted to tell him about the time when I was 15 and caught a 16” brown on a black ghost streamer around the boulders at the top of the pool.  I wisely just asked how he was doing as I walked by on the well-worn trail.  “No fish on the streamer, might try nymphs”.

This is the very Black Ghost streamer, my grandpa tied it in around 1980, and it has lived in my Perrine fly box since. He used jungle cock saddle hackle for the wings, the fly is about 2-1/2 inches long

I finally came to a canyon pool where there were what were obviously tiny trout rising to tiny bugs.  I looked at them dimpling, and shuddered that it might come to fishing for them.  I fished my nymph rig through the fast water at the top and then down through the meat of the run against a bluff with a few logs thrown in for good measure.  Didn’t get a bite, and since the dinks were still rising I reluctantly re-rigged with the smallest fly in the box tied on to some ancient 7x tippet.I have never been so glad to land a five inch trout as I was when I brought in the first of a half dozen or so.  At least I wasn’t skunked.  I did catch one brook trout that was maybe 10 inches, and broke of a slightly larger fish. [I was using tiny flies on a 7x tippet, and the only 7x I had in my vest was some Seaguar that I KNOW has been in my vest since the 90s.]

I left the Rush to try a favorite “hit-and-run” spot on the Kinni, caught exactly zero.  Drove to the Willow, not really planning to fish, just to “have a look”.  I took one look at the water and knew it wasn’t going to happen.  As you may know, a dam was removed last year and this released a lot of sediment.  Now the Willow, not known for great water quality anyhow, was flowing a sickly greenish grayish tan color, with less than a foot of vis.  The Willow hadn’t been fishing well for me for the past two years, I don’t know what to make of this.  It will be a while before I go back.

Don’t get the impression that I’m only concerned with numbers of fish—I enjoy steelhead and muskie fishing, neither of which is known for non-stop action, and I’ve had plenty of nice days on the trout stream where I only caught a few fish.  I’ve just become accustomed to being able to have at least steady action on these streams.  Some days, steady may have meant five or more an hour.  Other days is might mean one ever two hours.  But I am hoping for some version of “steady”.

Any of you out there that have been fishing the local creeks for more than a few years must admit–we had it good. Those streams being what they were for the last 40 years really have a lot to do with who I am.  There wouldn’t be four fly shops in the Metro Area if it weren’t for how the streams used to be.  And I know things are cyclic.  It may take a few years, but the streams will come back.

I do know that I will be learning some new trout water in Southeastern Minnesota this spring!

With all my years on the streams, you can be sure I have built up a few secret spots.  One such secret spot is where I pointed my truck on Sunday.  This stream is known for marginal water quality, and plenty of non-trout species, but at least it is not on most anglers’ radar.  I have fished this stream on and off for many years, and know the subtle nuances of its waters. On the popular “name-brand” streams around here, [you know, the ones that start with “R” or “K”] every likely spot probably has a dozen or more fish in it, and it is easy to find a lot of fish.  But this creek is a place where you had better plan on covering a lot of water, as there just isn’t a high trout population here.  If you like to fish light rods, small flies, or only cast to rising trout, well there’s a reason not many people fish here.  I use a 5 or six weight, and plan on fishing beefy nymphs or oversize streamers.

As usual, I was greeted by a cacophony of songbirds when I got to the parking spot, but no other anglers.  I headed up the trail for a bit, and dropped in to an old favorite spot. 

There was a nice caddis hatch coming off, but the only thing eating them were American Redstarts and other warblers.  No fish hooked at my first spot, or the next.  The third spot I dropped into is one of the best on the creek, but after 30 or 40 drifts without a fish, I was starting to think this would be a day best suited for taking pictures.  Then it happened–BAM! My indicator when down and a fat foot long trout came flying out of the water.  Two cast later I had his twin hooked up.

And so the day went, lots of spots gave up no trout, but I covered enough water to end up with a decent box score.

Quite of few of these:

I couldn’t believe how many of these were along the path

And I even caught a few of these

Could resist this shot when I took the high trail back up the river valley

None of the fish I brought to hand were particularly large, although I did lose one that made me say a bad word when it came off after I saw how big it was!   I’ve had days when far more and much larger trout were caught, but this was just a great day on the water–I only had to share it with the songbirds and a mink!  I might make it out for trout once more this year, but this is when my attention starts shifting to the lakes and larger rivers for bass and muskies.