3-15-04 - gotta love landing the steelies fair, on the fly, in water temps below 38F!

Yes, I'm a happy camper. (Copyright 2004 Brennon S.)

Only got to fire off one poor "rod shot" before she decided to let herself go without my help!

3-15-04 - The Smokin' Tahoe make Team BLT's prize RedHat member, "Goat Boy Brennon", into nothing more than our net bizach.

Waters Fished: Pike River
Fish Caught: 1/6 + 1 foul
Outing Date: 3-15-04
Weather: Sunny for a bit!
Air Temp: 32F
Water Temp: 36F
Water Level: pretty close to baseline flows, about 28 cfs
Water Color: Visibility back to about 2 foot
Fish Species: Steelhead
Pattern Fished: Various Egg Patterns - small on light tippet
Pattern Color: again, anything in the Pink range worked best
Fishing Quality: Pretty poor for the rest of the folks we met.

So you're probably wondering by now, "Why does MP fish the Pike so much?"

Simple; it's the closest to my office, and overall, when a good run of fish is going, it's my favorite SE trib. Oak gets my vote for the best little Spring Trib, but overall, if I could only fish one SE WI trib for the rest of my life, I'd probably pick the Pike.

Brennon knows this as well; I had skipped out on Sunday fishing with B. and Tim S. (40 mph winds told me I could use my day better by building some rods). While I'd only get a couple hours in this morning; things were back pretty close to ideal...at least for me anyway.

I arrived at the Pike "late"; B had called me at 5:40 AM wondering where I was...I had been sleeping through my alarm for an hour and forty minutes! I think I got on the water around 6:30, and by 7:00 the bite turned on. I lost a couple to long-distance releases, but then it happened..."FISH ON" and once again, with the help of netboy Brennon I brought in a beautiful chrome hen.

Several other anglers were out and about, folks were fishin' spawn and not getting squat. In fact, by the time I had to leave, I had lost another one fair when it snapped off just as netboy B. was getting into position. I also did a couple more long-distance C&R; for what it's worth the fish were UP in the water column on the seams until about 7:45; when the sun came down hard the fish went straight for the bottom. My last ditch effort to get down involved putting on a 3rd #6 clam shot, but this resulted in a tail-hooked fish brought to net.

Brennon was going to spend the day out; hopefully he tied into fish after I left. I have to note that PINK variations are still producing hits while other flies are going untouched. Also, we did NOT run into any suckers on this Monday trip! And still, for some reason, at least on the Pike, the fly guys are outfishing the bait guys. I like hearing that!

Once again, thanks to Brennon for coming out all the way down from Minnesota just to be my netboy ;) (if you don't get the smack-talk, check out the 12-6-03 PFS report...)

  MP