12-10-04 - Lincoln Park and I'm the only one there.

Just a couple anglers were out upstream in Quarry Park.

A fresh Ganaraksa Steelhead comes to shore.

A closeup of this chromer!

The Pike is flowing at almost ideal levels.

12-10-04 - And you all thought I'd go without ONE Fall steelie in WI?!

Waters Fished: Root River
Fish Caught: 1/1
Outing Date: 12-10-04
Weather: Rain
Air Temp: 40's
Water Temp: N/A
Water Level: Root 150 CFS, Pike 35 CFS
Water Color: Root = muddy, visibility less than 6", Pike was 1' vis, greenish tinge.
Fish Species: Steelhead, Coho Salmon
Pattern Fished: Spawn, Egg Flies
Pattern Color: Hot Orange was the kicker color as always!
Fishing Quality: tough

My afternoon started out at the Root; again high and dirty, so I tried floating spawn through the bends in Lincoln Park. NO LUCK, and after an hour of this madness I headed upstream.

Nothing surface at Horlick; I slowly made my way down into Quarry Park, methodically working all the holding spots with flies. Again, no luck! What to do?

Switch Rivers! After scouting around the Pike, I determined that NO ONE was fishing it today! SWEET! I headed to the dam to try my luck there. 10 drifts in, my line went tight and started throbbing.

Instinctively I set the hook and the fight was on. When I finally got my first look I could definitely tell it was a fresh steelhead! I took my sweet time with this one; the fight consisted of several deep dives into the fast water. Eventually I convinced this fish that it would have no luck trying to escape into the pool - it turned and ran downstream into the riffles and line started peeling off the reel.

I finally managed to stop this fish and turn it halfway down the riffles. After a few quick photos, I took notice the adipose and right ventral clips which denote this steelhead as a Ganaraska Strain. It was released - I noted how this fish was readily apparent in the water - a blue spot in the otherwise greenish tinged water coming from upstream.

Back to the pool, and NOTHING happened for the next HOUR. Eventually you have to move, and while going downstream I found yet some more fish quite by accident. I was simply drifting my flies in likely spots when the line stopped - I came back thinking I had snagged a log but then the log started swimming. What I had snagged was a Coho, on the dorsal fin!

After shaking my flies free from the fouled fish I stopped and waited. After a few minutes it became apparent that a whole pod of Coho was sitting here in an undercut, periodically coming out into the chute and then disappearing back into hiding. I spent much of my time fishing for these Cohos but wasn't getting any interest - it went on like that until things got darker and colder - time to call it a day.

  MP