I mostly fish alone unless I can get one of my kids to come with, but they\u2019re usually not too keen on the whole getting up early thing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 So my wife was quite surprised when I told her I was going fishing with a Facebook friend I had never actually met.\u00a0 \u201cAre you sure that\u2019s a good idea?\u00a0 I mean\u2026a lot of things could happen\u2026\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYeah? Like what?\u00a0 I thought you would be glad I \u2018m trying to make new friends.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWell I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea to go fishing with someone you\u2019ve never met. And besides, you don\u2019t really like\u2026people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She had me there.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s true\u201d, I said, \u201cbut this guy seems way less douchey than most, and even though I\u2019ve never met him, we do have mutual friends\u2026I think the guy might be a cop or something, and judging by his blog I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s harmless.\u00a0 The guy is always putting up pictures of big trout, which is more than I\u2019ve been able to do this year.\u00a0 But\u2026..if you don\u2019t want me to go, I\u2019m sure Gunnar would be up for going steelhead fishing this weekend\u2026and Gunnar did say something about a new strip club opening up, we\u2019ll probably check it out on the way home\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast forward to Sunday morning at Eddie\u2019s house.\u00a0 I really needed to break this trout fishing jinx.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had left the decision as to where we were to go up to him, which is a very odd move for me.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve seen his posts, he fishes a lot, catches plenty of above average sized trout, so I\u2019m willing to trust his judgement.\u00a0 Besides, all of my best spots have been marginal or worse this year.\u00a0 He said bring a life vest in case we use a canoe, I wasn\u2019t sure if he was serious or not, but I brought one with to be sure.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t even sure which state we would be headed towards, so I made sure all licenses were current in the five-state area, and I brought my passport just in case he had some crazy Nipigon mission in mind.\u00a0 I was just hoping to get into some good trout fishing, and after a quick chat in his kitchen we had the canoe loaded up and were off.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We had a great talk on the way to his first spot, talking of places we\u2019ve been, mutual people we know, that sort of stuff.\u00a0 He\u2019s been at the trout fishing thing for about six or seven years, and has a crazy exploratory nature. He writes a blog that I enjoy, a lot of you have probably seen it — Eddie Rivard Fly Fishing<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Even when I used to fish a lot more than I do now I didn\u2019t explore like he does.\u00a0 It later occurred to me how much easier it is today to seek out new spots with all the info that can be gleaned off the internet.\u00a0 It became pretty obvious early in our conversation that there were no trout spots I knew of that he hadn\u2019t fished and probably caught an 18 incher out of.\u00a0 He did make a comment about how he had not been able to figure out where \u201cArea 51\u201d was, even though there were power lines in a photo of me with a trout there. \u00a0“Area 51” is a Triple Secret Spot of mine that very few people know the exact location of, and I couldn\u2019t remember even posting a picture where I named the spot, but it amused me to learn that I was not the only one that would spend hours on google Earth trying to figure out where someone\u2019s fish picture was taken.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Our day ended up mostly being a series of what I would call \u201chit and run\u201d spots\u2014park, hit a couple of \u201cmoney spots\u201d, then back to the vehicle.\u00a0 The first spot we tried had the water pretty high and muddy, not quite what I would call unfishable, but getting there.\u00a0 I hooked up right away on a nice twenty-incher, which turned out to be a redhorse. \u00a0We never decided if it actually ate my streamer or just got snagged in its ample upper lip. No sign of trout, but it was cool to be fishing on water that while it may not be completely secret, it was totally off my radar.<\/span><\/p>\n

We had a quick look at this unknown creek, Eddie couldn’t resist making a couple of casts right by the road<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

We bopped around and tried a few more spots, but Eddie eventually decided we would need to find some clear water.\u00a0 And clear water we found.\u00a0 We ended out our day on a pretty little creek with an abundant population of little trout, and even they proved to be too much for me.\u00a0 Eddie assured me that he had tangled with some big fish in the creek before and I believe him\u2014there were numerous undercuts and hidey-holes where a big trout could live, just waiting for the next fingerling trout to munch.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the jinx continues.<\/span><\/p>\n

I keep saying how good our local trout fishing was in the 90s.\u00a0 If you weren\u2019t around then, imagine this\u2014The Rush is thick with fat browns, mid teen to low 20 inch fish were common.\u00a0 The Upper Kinni had over 5,000 trout per mile, and the lower had great numbers of 10-16\u201d browns, and it always seemed like there was a hatch.\u00a0 And no kayakers floating over your fish. Even the Willow had a strong population of trout of all sizes, you could even expect dry fly action most evenings.\u00a0 There was no internet, no Google Earth, no place to post your reports.\u00a0 Maybe at the local fly shop, but that was about it.\u00a0 When Eddie asked me if I had ever fished this spot or that spot, I always had to say no.\u00a0 The fishing was so good on the home streams that there was no need to explore.\u00a0 And every time I did go on a mission to the Eau Galle or the Trimbelle or some other similar spot I always had the same result\u2014nice streams, there are fish to be caught, but it just didn\u2019t make sense to drive by miles of the best trout water in the Eastern US to explore.<\/span><\/p>\n

I keep saying that the streams will come back, and they will. But for now\u00a0it appears that exploring is necessary. There are more good anglers, and less secrets.\u00a0 In the 80s and 90s the vehicles I had were unpredictable at best, and more than once found me broken down somewhere.\u00a0 Vehicles today are all good, I never see any beaters parked at the streams, or anywhere else for that matter.\u00a0 A vehicle that is reliable and gets good gas mileage may be the best piece of trout equipment there is.\u00a0 Match it up with high speed internet to access resources like Google, the USGS Streamflow Gauges, and DNR websites, there\u2019s no good reason to not be able find somewhere to fish.\u00a0 So I guess I better get busy and find me some good water to fish. I’ve got a milk run in mind, this weekend or maybe next.<\/span><\/p>\n

And remember that even the best vehicle won\u2019t do you any good if you run out of gas.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mostly fish alone unless I can get one of my kids to come with, but they\u2019re usually not too keen on the whole getting up early thing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 So my wife was quite surprised when I told her I was going fishing with a Facebook friend I had never actually met.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,53],"tags":[39,60,7,25,6,10,8,32,37,41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1180"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1180\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}