Not much going on.

As the post title says, not much going on 'round here.The Wisconsin season is closed now so I wait for the chance to get up for Steelies and Browns coming in from the lake. I n the mean time I've been playing around with some new "materials" I found at the local crafts store, I really like the way these look,the range of color i nt the yarns is amazing, giving alot of depth to the fly.I've just been clpping it into inch and a half segments and putting it in a dubbing loop, I'm a huge dubbing loop guy.

Season Closer

Well, all good things must come to an end and with that it was the last trip up to the Driftless for the season. I was lucky enough to get away for the weekend thanks to a very wonderful wife who tollerates my obsession.
I met up with my father-in-law, Jim, on Saturday morning at the motel we would be staying at. We geared up for the day and hit the water. The first stream we fished was one we've been on before. We had some success with the usual patterns, landing several small-ish Browns. Fished for a few hours and thought to get to the Motel for check in. We took care of that then on to the next spot. Again, another stream we have fished before. I thought I knew what to expect, come to find that I was totally wrong. The stream had been blown out by some flooding a couple months ago, an almost foreign landscape. I never thought that there could be so much change to a stream by a flood. I guess I'm just not that familiar with what floods can do to a stream.
We fished through there for hours and caught many fish, all Browns on the usual Leeches and Pink Squirrels. We did some scouting and hit a small stream for some quick Brookie action and then headed in for dinner.
The next day brought us to a stream we had not fished before and was a blast to fish. It was small, narrow and had beautiful deep pools with Browns and Brookies alike!
After that we made our way to a different stretch of the stream we fished the day before and had about an hour to fish before heading home. I was happy to have caught a couple more Browns out of this section, one small 10-11 incher and one decent 12-14beautiful Brown in Fall spawning color. I guess it will have to keep me happy until next season.............

Some news.

Not alot to report this past weekend.I had sent some of my Bass flies to Cameron Mortenson at the "Fiberglassmanifesto" a couple weeks back, he had a post up on his site about them and that I would be having them for sale soon. I've been working on this, sourcing boxes for the flies and working on the logo design for stickers etc...
I have settled on the name of "Lilly Pond Fly Design" I'm going to be getting pics up and starting a new page for the sale of them. I will be keeping pricing very friendly, I plan on offering well tied innovative flies for people who fish them.
Enough for now, please keep posted for the details.

Back to Paradise, I mean hell!!

Went to Paradise Springs this morning for a few short hours, I'm not a big fan of getting out of bed early on the weekends but the seasons gonna be coming to a close soon so I try to get out at any opportunity.
I arrived and the mosquitoes were THICK, ridiculous!! I almost turned around and went back to bed. I forgot the OFF with 300% more deet so I had to use that crap called Repel, not a good bug spray for swarms of bugs. I got on the pond and saw the usual trout swimming about. I first tried my favorite leech pattern to no avail, not a single hit or even a follow up. After that I tied on a Damsel nymph of my own design; I did land one Brown on that one, a chubby guy maybe 12 inches or so.
Tried that Damsel for a while at different depths, the pond gets pretty deep, crimped on a split shot to get it in the range of the fish but no more hits on that one.
Switched to a Mercers' buggy Hex, just for kicks, bigger fly; just to see what might interest them; hooked and landed another good Brown. Continued to fish that pattern with no success. Tied on the beadhead rubber legged hares ear; brought another Brown to the net on that one. By this time my lousy ass bug spray was not doing the job and I was getting bit all over any open patch of skin; So I packed it up and headed back home! Hopefully I'll get back up there again before the season closes.

Paradise Springs today.

Went to Paradise Springs today with my wife Jessica and our son Myles, it was their first trip there. It was a short visit, shortly after arriving the sky was opening up and some good rain was coming down, we hightailed it out of there before it got nasty.I was able to manage a good size Brown caught on a big olive dragonfly nymph.I had tried the usual leech patterns with no luck, switched to a hopper pattern, thought the surface might work, no luck there either.I thought maybe a big juicy nymph would turn some heads and would'nt ya know,it worked!
I was fishing my Steffen Brothers 8 foot 4wt glass rod, it's a wonderful casting rod and belive it or not it was'nt too bad casting the big Dragonfly nymph!It's a 8 foot 3/4 wt 3 piece rod, I have it strung with a Cortland 333 DT peach line, J.A Forbes reel and it's a reallt nice combo.The rod has a nice medium action, I would'nt consider it on the faster side though, at least to be casting, it feels to be a real medium action rod.I'll have to get back there soon, the short time I was there was challenging, I like that!

Browns, Tigers and Brookies, Oh my! pt.2

After fishing the most of the morning we packed it up and went to the place we were staying the weekend, The Mayfly Lodge, to check in, after taking care of business we went back out for more action. Went to some streams I'd fished on previous trips and a new one that Matt Wagner at the Driftless Angler told us about.The second stream we hit produced several Browns, Brookies and the elusive Tiger Trout, the cross between a Brookie and a Brown, a beautiful little fish, I was very happy to have caught this fish!!
After fishing almost to dusk we headed back to the Lodge to clean up and go get some dinner.We found oiut to uor disappointment that most of the good dining in the town close up at nine oclock, we were left with the option of Subway, not what we were looking for but it's better than not eating!!
In the morning we went out to see if there was any streams running semi-clear, there were storms againg the night before, we went back to the stream we ended on yesterday, it was running a little cloudy but not too bad, we fished for an hour, caught a few Browns and Brookies then it was time to get back to the so called real world, I had to work Sunday night so we had to get a move on so I could get some sleep. Had a great time on some great water and I'm looking forward to another trip or two before summers' end, By the way, Jim(father in law) is most definatley hooked on flyfishing and fishing the streams in SW wisconsin!!

Browns, Tigers and Brookies, Oh my!

Went on my first trip up to the Driftless region of Wisconsin, this time I was'nt alone, My Father in law was along for the trip, after having limited success on his home water I had invited him to fish the SW Wisconsin water.
We got up there Saturday morning around ten am, stopped at the Driftless Angler fly shop in Viroqua picked up some patterns, they had storms come through that week and night before,grabbed some leech patterns and got on t he water.My father in law is getting re aquainted with fly fishing after not having done it a a few decades.Having not fished this typr of water, I gave him some tips and advice, guided him through some of the first few holes, he was off!!!!!
The waters were up a bit from the storms but not too much and was clearing pretty quickly, we had hookups pretty fast and that set the pace for the rest of the morining.