9-14-03 - Scoping out the Root DURING the rain is not the right time to expect fish. It takes a bit for the water to come up.

LOW LOW LOW water on the Root...the rain is badly needed.

Pike Creek was at an average flow, but extremely MUDDY. Must be from a lot of organic silt and such building up over summer?

The mouth of the Pike was a zoo!

Chromeseeker was doing well when I found him at Kenosha Harbor having landed this one and 2 others (released).

YAHOO! My first brown landed "Polish Style" (jig retrieving spoons)...it's about GD time!

Bart looks on as Jacek hooks up with a monster fish; all we could do was watch and hope it stayed on.

This isn't the monster fish (that one broke off) but Jacek DID land this little brown...everyone had fish today (but they were all tiny ones!) Excellent all the same!

Oak Creek blows FAST when it rains...figured it was a likely choice.

Up and muddy but probably by the time I'm writing this the water has already cleared.

9-14-03 - I'm back home!

Waters Fished: Root River, Pike River, Kenosha Harbor, Oak Creek
Fish Caught: 1
Outing Date: 9-14-03
Weather: Rainy in the AM changing to Overcast in the middle PM
Air Temp: 60's or maybe even cooler?
Water Temp: Didn't take it
Water Level: Variable
Water Color: Pike - Muddy, Root -> Muddy, Kenosha Harbor - pretty clear, Oak Creek - Muddy
Fish Species: Brown Trout, Chinook Salmon
Pattern Fished: Assorted
Pattern Color: N/A
Fishing Quality: It's starting to feel like fall...

So we get in from Canada at like 4:30, but by the time I'm home it's probably like 6:00 am! After a thorough shower, doing some laundry, it's time to hit the sack. But I'm back up by 11:00, wondering what to do!?

It's a rainy day, and from what I've heard it rained all Saturday too....that means our rivers must finally be coming up..at least to normal levels. Time to go looking for fish!

My first stop was the Root; I had NO expectations of fish yet because it historically takes 2-3 days AFTER the end of the rain to crest. As I look now it's just starting an upwards swing. I was more interested in seeing what they were doing with the wier, as it totally SCREWED us in August (turns out while we were at the Dam, the wier was stopping all the steelhead from ever making it up there...140 fish ran the Root back in August!).

As suspected, the gates were down...no fish can currently make it upstream. After a bit more scouting and a lot of time waiting out the rain in my car, it was time to find another river...the PIKE!

The Pike was slightly up and definitely MUDDY; TONS of anglers were already out. Upstream, I did see one guy walking back from the Dam with a chinny on a stringer, so some salmon made it upstream overnight. Good news!

More good news when I went downstream...tons of anglers along the beach at the mouth of the Pike River. Mostly tossing spoons or tightlining spawn. Again, I saw Chinooks taken..in fact it looked like a limit catch. Several boats were trolling just off the beach..the fish must be stacking up now. The mouth was flowing, though not by much yet...another bout of rain should get the Pike and Root kickin'.

Since I was in the area, I figured I'd find Chromeseeker if I looked (I left my cell in MS2's car....was without it all Sunday). So I got to the harbor and found Bart already happy with 3 Browns landed. All were on the small side, but they're still fish! After sitting for a bit, CS offered me a rod and I got to casting. M walked up and said, "Hey Matt, how's your luck?".

I turned in response, "Well, I haven't been lucky in a week or two..." and then my line got heavy! WHOAHO, fish on! The battle was short, the drag never even kicked on, and in a short time I landed my first Kenosha Harbor brown! Probably around 12" or so, a nice fish...definitely a great fish if I were on a stream. But for here...hmm..well, let's just say I saw a 20 lb.+ brown landed on my walk over to CS earlier.

Jacek was also out but wasn't having the greatest luck...lots of bites, and lots of fish off. At one point he hooked into a bruiser...man that was a fight to watch! Somehow his line snapped and the big one got away, but only minutes later he too landed a nice small brown!

Towards evening I convinced, without much effort, Bart and Jacek to head up with me to Oak Creek. It was either going to be hoppin' with fish or devoid of them.

As suspected and my luck usually goes, Oak Creek was indeed devoid of fish. I'm guessing that before the rains it was flowing so little that it wasn't even getting the fish's attention...hence no fish stacked up waiting to run.

We walked the entire stream as usual, only ran into two other anglers who had been at the mouth, again confirming that there weren't any fish there either. Oak was running muddy, making it difficult to sight-fish, so any deeper hole got proped by all 3 of us on our way down.

Got to the bottom, no fish, so we called it a day there. I would expect that now that Oak is flowing, it should be drawing crowds of both kinds. Next rain, all of our streams should pop...hopefully that rain comes on Thursday or so!

  MP