Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Year round fishing and no trout stamp?

Some interesting questions will be rised during this years spring hearings. One of these topics will be to get rid of the salmon and trout stamp program and just roll these costs into one fishing license fee. They are also looking into having no closed gamefish season....... And not to mention a Sandhill Crane hunt.


What are your thoughts?

More info at the link below

http://dnr.wi.gov/news/DNRNews_article_Lookup.asp?id=2070

Sunday, March 11, 2012

22 inch rainbow on good ole BEC!!!


Landed a nice Rainbow !22 inches and a chunk.

Also caught 7 Browns and 1 more Rainbow in one hour.

good ole BEC

Slammed the rapala ultra lite series minnow in rainbow pattern.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

3-10-2012

Got out today for 2 hours and it was a total bust! Caught four 13 inch browns. Wind drove me nuts....... Guests had to have gotten to 40 mph. The high sun also didn't help but whatever I did find some nice spots to jump shot ducks this fall.
I started out fishing Trout creek in Iowa County. Years ago this was a great stream and now I can't say the same....... Very disappointing to see what has happened to this system. Where the creek use to have a great hard gravel bottom now is buried under slit and sand. This creek needs some major rehab to return to glory.
After that I just drove around to do some scouting. Found one new stream that might have some potential but we will see.

On a side note I did see a Fisher Cat! Third one I've seen in two years in Southwestern WI. Much like the Black Bears they also must be expanding their range. Sandhills cranes are starting to reappear in large numbers. Also saw a huge coyote and turkey, deer and 1 pheasant.

I hope I can get out and fish tomorrow night for and hour or two.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Opening weekend report

Well it is finally here! I was able to head west on Saturday with my uncle, cousin, and two friends on Saturday. I split everyone up into teams of two so we could cover a lot of water and come up with a good pattern. I fished with my friend Tony and we targeted headwater streams to hopefully keep us out of the 25 mph winds!
The first couple pools the fish wanted NOTHING to do with the panther martins we offered. We made a quick change and switched to a brown trout ultra lite minnow (2.5 inches). That was the ticket! From that moment on things were on fire. Tony ended up that section with 22 Browns and Brookies and I had 33. Hoping everyone else found fish we drove up stream to pick up my cousin and uncle...... They fish with spinners about 90 percent of the time so I was worried that they were experiencing the same scenario that we did. I asked them "well what's the word?" they responded back "pretty good! I even caught the sweep!"..... Boy was I happy for them! I was my uncle's first time trout fishing this early and I was worried because he HATES the cold.
They ended up catching about 14 each with most of the luck coming from a beaver pond that was created over the late fall.

Well it's only 10:30 my uncle says "let's go fish some more." Hearing that come from his mouth was unreal...... He thinks 50 is too cold now here he is with 25 mile per hour winds and temperatures in the upper 20's wanting to fish more. I think it is safe to say he has officially caught the trout bug.

They wanted to go fish the Blue River another 25 minutes away and I warned them there will be 100 other fisherman there and they should stick with the smaller systems. They wanted to go chase some brooder Rainbows we saw during deer season below a bridge. Tony and I headed to check out a new stream much closer in Iowa County. I typically don't fish new water on opening day and frankly think it's a dumb idea to even try. But needless to say we did and I sure am glad! Brookie and big brown heaven in a small beautiful stream. On that section we stopped counting fish after about 20 per person. Caught a bunch of really nice browns and Brookies and had a couple bigger fish swipe at the lure. Average Brookie was 11-13 inches and the Browns were running 14-17.
The group that went to fish Blue River said there was a ton of guys out (go figure) and they each caught about 5 browns each.

All in all a great opener considering the weather!



Sunday..... I need to get a 20 incher......... My first trout last year was a long 24 inch Brown. And the football 18.5 in brown I caught Saturday just didn't cut the mustard for me. I need a 20 I kept saying.
I get up and fish Western Dane County on a stretch of stream I've caught dozens of 20 inch class fish before. Typically I fish near springs or upper headwaters in the early season near consistent water temps. Just a couple degrees can turn fish on or off this early in the season. I fished the lower section having some luck in the past this early just 3 years ago I caught a 22 inch Brown opening weekend here.I fished the entire section and caught 5 browns and one 19 inch Brown...... Damn it I thought for sure he would bust the 20 mark when I saw him hit. No 20 incher for me this opening weekend but a great time fishing with family and friends and enjoying this beautiful state we live in.

Pictures coming shorty camera died taking pictures of the 19.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Stream conditions update

Checked 4 streams today in Western Dane County and I'm happy to say that conditions have improved! 3 or the 4 stream only had a slight stain but fishable. We are under a winter storm watch for Friday with 4-8 inches of snow forecasted. I am happy to hear snow and not another dousing of rain that would threaten the opener.

It will be very interesting to see how active the fish will be since we have been under a very active weather pattern this week.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Streams are high and dirty

All streams in Iowa and Western Dane county that I checked are high and muddy. The success of opening weekend all depends on the weather Friday. If we get a good rain on Friday 90 percent of the streams and rivers will be high and dirty. Let's hope for a little snow or for this system to miss us.


They are calling currently calling for a windy opening day with winds gusting to 25 mph.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Weather worth watching for opener

Looks like southern Wisconsin will miss the major snowstorm forecasted for the Central and Northern part of the state. Lacrosse, Vernon and counties to the north are still expected to get some snow and southern counties get mostly rain. Friday will have yet another system move in with more potential rain which would melt the snow pack on the west and north facing bluffs...... This has the potential to really mess things up. Saturday is forecasted currently to have windy conditions with snow showers early with a high of 32 but falling temps during the day to drop into the mid 20's.

I will be keeping a close eye out and will post stream conditions for Dane and Iowa counties with the weather turns.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Last ice fishing trip of the season

Well we wanted to get out ice fishing one more time this season........ So four of us drove up to Lake Puckaway in Central Wisconsin looking for some pike. This lake holds the Wisconsin state record northern at 38 pounds! This large shallow lake which is apart of the fox river systems supports great size and numbers of game fish. Pike and walleyes are the most common but it also produces a good catfish and bass fishery. We set up at 8:30-5:30 for a all day fishing trip and the action was good. We had flags all day but only landed 4 pike (27,28,28,30) and one large bass. We were running huge shinners in the middle of the lake in about 4.5 feet of water. We also experienced a good amount of drops which is uncommon for us since we use light line and smaller hooks. We believe the drops were from catfish of large perch. Martin had a big one on which broke his line and he also had a bite off.

I have some pictures I will add soon as well.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

New Rapala Ultra Lite Series

Check out these great new lures coming from Rapala. I had to pick a couple up today when I saw them. They look like a hybrid of the x-rap and husky jerk and comes in 1.5/2.5 inch baits. Great patterns offered I picked up brown trout and rainbow trout patterns today. Nice heavy lure in a small package should allow for great casting.

They also have a shad rap style in smaller sizes and lipless crank baits. Great presentation to change things up!

The brown trout pattern looks like a sure thing!

Check them out here

http://www.rapala.com/Ultra-Light-Minnow/Ultra%20Light%20Minnow,default,pd.html

Winter in review

Well it has been over a month since my last post. Things got insanely busy at work which limited my time drastically. Over the past month we have finally got out ice fishing for pike and bass mainly. Action has been steady with some nice fish caught on tip ups fishing in 8-12 feet of water around green weeds. We haven't fished for panfish much this winter because of the late ice. Typically we like to target panfish during the early ice period but once the ice did form the fish were already in mid-winter patterns.
Hunting was very good with the warm temperatures! Rabbits, pheasants, grouse, turkey, deer and other animals should be in good supply next year!


And the great news is trout season starts in just 16 days!