Sept multi Wi/Mi -TR w/pics...

[brookid]

I did say i had one more in me...

Its hard to believe another season has come and gone. I'm not going to get real mello dramatic, i do have at least two more trips in the coming months.
Anyway, here's how the last few weekend in Sept played out.

Sept 8th & 9th : Spring creek Festival, Castle Rock, Wi

The best decision i made this weekend was going. I was suppose to meet up with a buddy there but due to some family issues he bailed the day before. I thought long and hard about also bowing out. I had a long week,
i was beat, and the thought of lounging on the couch for the weekend was tempting.

Well, Friday 5pm i rallied...through my crap in the rental and off i went.
I got to Fennimore about 8:30 and set up camp. I was ready to call it a night but decided i should stroll down to the fire. I saw a few familiar faces but also shook some hands and put a few more faces to screen names. It was a great night. The beer flowed and the passing of the whiskey seemed to be a tradition. Next time i'll be more prepared. It was sometime between 3:30 and 4am, the party had dwindled to three of us so we called it a night.

Saturday was rough for obvious reasons. I crawled out of the tent and the set up for the festival was in full swing. I figured i could sneak away for a few hours and get a quick fish in. I had planned to fish a couple streams but i found them quite stained. The area had got a pretty good dump of rain i think the day before and most all of the bigger water in the area was murky.

So i headed for the "go to" creek, this place always runs clear...and it was.
It was here i got my first look at the aftermath of the floods. It was amazing, almost hard to imagine the amount of water that flowed through this little place.

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/603/medium/IMG_1422.JPG

I took quite a few photos but i think the above sums it up best. That bank on the bend was above my head, and the derbis that had collected was almost as high. It was sureal as i waded by...like i said, hard to imagine the force, the amount of water and how high it must have been to leave that kind of aftermath.

The creek bottom was scoured and it ran a bit deeper than i remember but other than that she looked to be in good shape.

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I spent the next couple hours twitching hoppers and fooling some scrappy little browns.

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I got back to the festival but unfortunately only for the last couple hours. I did walk around and snap a few pics of the happenings.

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Casting clinics

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Some "on stream" demonstrations.

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Photography classes.

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and the fan favorite...stream shocking.

It was a great event and the Nohr chapter and its members should be congratulated. I hope there is one planned for next year.
.

[brookid]

That evening i snuck away to one of my favorite streams in the area.

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/603/medium/IMG_1447.JPG

It also was running murky but it didn't seem to bother the fish. They were eager to a nymph.

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The need for sleep got the better of me so i headed back to camp. I made a half assed appearence at the fire and crawled in the tent shortly after.
Sunday morning i broke camp, said my goodbyes and pointed the car toward some head waters. It was a bit out of the way but i wanted to fish cleaner water.

The fishing was a little slower but i found the quality of fish a tad better.

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/603/medium/IMG_1450.JPG

I fished till late afternooon and started for home.

Sept 13th - 15th : Ausable River, Mi

I believe it was a couple years ago and at least three prior incarnations of a certain Wis flyfishing board that a question was asked.

"Has anyone ever fished the Ausable River in Michigan?"

Long story short, i fed him some information...we struck up some dialouge, keeped in touch, fished a bit in Wis and he eventually faded away from the site.

He did end up heading to Michigan, they had a great time but got bagged by the weather...actually got snowed on.

So two months ago i get an email. "hey dude, whats up? The long and short of it was...are you heading to the Ausable in the fall and if so, do you have room? I gave him a couple weekend options and it was set.

We both took friday off and he slid down from Wis 0 dark :30 to pick me up. It made a long travel day for him but we rolled into grayling about noon. I didn't know what to expect fishing wise due to a front moving in. The day before it was in the low 70's, a sign on the way to the lodge read
51, almost a 20 degree temp swing in 24 hours. We threw our stuff in the room, stopped by the shop and decided on a loop of the south branch.

It was cold, windy, rainy and uneventful...but, it beat working! We both managed a few fish and for once i didn't get burned by leaving the camera in the car.

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Saturday we floated the big waters with my buddy. We usually float Mio to Comins or Comins to McKinley...he wanted to do Mio to Mckinley. I was game but thats a fair amount of river miles. The plan would be to take turn on the oars and paddle through certain sections. If we figured it right we should be at the take out right at dark.

My buddy doesn't throw alot of streamers, had never done it out of a boat or fished water this size. So, we put him up front in the hot seat.

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I never know what to expect when i fish the "Trophy Waters". I like it due the fact you can throw some line and need not worry about your back cast. However, i've never done particularly well with streamers...at least as far as seeing the "trophy" in the trophy waters. I knew we would turn alot of fish, and we did. I just hoped we'd stick something decent and really hoped it would be my buddy.

[brookid]

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We got on the board quickly but they were your typical Mio fish. It took quite awhile but finally i hear what i was hoping for.

"whoa, this one feels good...holy crap!"

I look up and sure enough, he's got a deep bend in the rod and the fish is heading downstream. I could see from the look on his face he was in half panic mode. We got him calmed down and he played the fish to the net.

Its far from a trophy but to Mark it was a day maker and i think he said the biggest brown he'd caught.

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Then a short time later he hooked another nice fish but it ran toward the boat getting enough slack line to dive in the weeds, get tangled up and spit the hook. He also hooked another fish that was at least the size of the first and perhaps bigger. It was bull dogging him down and just came
unbuttoned...what can you do?, it happens.

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I was really psyched about the way things went down. It was fun to watch somebody have a day like he had. Honestly, most would call it a so so day but the guy was on cloud nine...can't ask for much more than that.

Sunday was just a beautiful day weather wise. It wasn't hot and it wasn't cold, just a nice crisp fall day.

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The main stream was beautiful and showing just a hint of color. The fishing was tough. The water was pretty low and with the bright sun the fish were really spooky.

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We had most success swinging wets & soft hackles. My buddy had never done that either. I've just started dabbling, passed on what little i know...but i guess it was enough. He caught some fish. I was getting time for us to head back, i said let me work this one last run...and this little fella was kind enough to play...

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/595/medium/IMG_1483.JPG

I like to see 'bows in this river, actually wished i'd see a few more. With that i was satisfied and we waded back to the car and headed for home.

Sept 22nd & 23rd : Avalanche, Wi

This weekend was made possible and only possible with a combination of dayquil and nightquil. It was a tough weekend and probably not the smartest desicion to camp either...it got a little chilly at night. I thought we were going to get burned because on the way up they had severe thunderstorm/ tornado warnings. It pretty much rained, and rained hard from Madison to Richland Center. Luckily it stopped by the time i hit the campground but it didn't make setting up camp in the slop much fun.

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The system had passed through the area by morning and it was just a beautiful day. We got up fairly early and did some scouting...most every water we checked out was dirty.

I knew of a stream in the area, actually fished it the last time through for the same reason, that would be running fairly clear. We stopped by camp grabbed our stuff and headed down the road.

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The stream didn't look to bad, slightly stained but certainly workable. I headed downstream while my buddy went up. He smacked a nice 17 brown out of that little plunge he's heading for...that would be the big fish for the day.

The valley is just starting to get some nice color. I can only imagine what it'll look like a month from now.

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It looked great set against a bright blue sky.

[brookid]

I didn't really want to nymph so i stubbornly tried to "will" fish to my terrestrials. Well, that didn't work out so well. I switched over to emergers and things just got stupid, stupid in a good way.

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We fished till early evening. I was a mess physically and my thoughts were of a tent and sleeping bag. We grilled up a nice dinner and turned in early.
I felt a bit better on Sunday. We decided to have a short fish in the a.m. to let the condensation dry off the tents before we packed them. It looked as though a few of the local streams had cleared so we didn't wander to far down the road.

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We fished it for a couple hours and headed back to break camp. My buddy really wanted to hit a stream about a half hour down the road. We fished it in May and had quite an afternoon. We figured it also had cleared
up so it may be worth checking out.

This stream, from what i saw, was by far in the worst shape from the flood. The stretch i usually fish had changed, significantly.

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/603/medium/IMG_1503.JPG

I saw alot of this kind of stuff. Old banks just sheered, and the formation of new ones by dumping rock.

Unfortunately there is now long stretches of collapsed banks and frog water.

http://www.uppermidwestflyfishing.com/photos/data/603/medium/IMG_1506.JPG

Hopefully over time mother nature will take care of things or maybe she'll get a helping hand... :wink:

We still found fish...a fair amount of fish.

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but like i said, alot of things have changed and it doesn't much look like this anymore...

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So there you have it, the big wrap up. I am heading back up to the Ausable in a few weeks for the annual fall trip...but since its "out of season" i don't count it. If all goes well, we'll also do a steelhead trip in mid Nov but by and large i'm done fishing. I now turn into a rink rat, between coaching and playing i'll be at the rink 3 to 4 days a week till March...then repeat.

[MSUICEMAN]

always enjoy your posts... thanks! memoirs of brookid... anyways, hope you're feelin better.

[kype138]

Nothing cures a hangover like standing in water flyfishing - of course, if you stuck to Jack, you wouldn't get hangovers!
Regardless, excellent pics...
Tight lines!

[WILDCATWICK]

Thanks as always for taking the time to share your trips.

We did the Castle Rock area for the last three weekends. Holy wah!!!! The fishing was outstanding. Big fish and lots of them. The wife had on a fish that was probably in the upper 20's. I saw it jump right in front of me...it had shoulders bigger than Bob Proberts.

That area is amazing. We searched out some brook trout water this weekend as well. We wen't to a spring river that had a ton of habitat work done and they are continueing with it. The brookies were big and plentiful. They seemed to attack almost anything.

The wife will be heading up by herself this weekend. I'm heading to our cottage in Fort Gratiot for the archery opener.

We were in that storm!!!!!!:yikes: The tent got crazy so we jumped in the car and turned on a local high school football game. The announcers said they may go off the air to take cover and they were telling everybody to get to cover immidiatly!!! The winds blew, lighting and rain but all blew by under an hour.

Thanks again for your tips, reports, and pictures.:)

[brookid]

Ya, there are some pigs swimming around in some of those creeks. Its neat to get the bend in the rod but unfortunatley its no secret as to how and why they're there...

Castle Rock is the main dumping ground...don't get me wrong, the creek can grow some impressive fish but chances are those big pigs you see cruising didn't get there by accident...especially if its a 'bow

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y275/brookid/Misc%20stuff%2005/GUnitGlorysz.jpg

I got the above sent to me by a friend this morning. His buddy pulled this out of CR either last night or the night before...

[WILDCATWICK]

We pretty much only caught browns. The pig she had on was a brown as well. They do plant those there too don't they?

[brookid]

Yup, there is some reproduction but unfortunately it needs a bump...

Maybe now that its scoured out a bit and shows a bit more gravel natural repro might improve...but who knows.

They do dump some big brooder browns as well. I've seen quite a few in there tooling around that had to be close to 30.

Its a great fishery and there are plenty of hefty mid to upper teen fish that have grown up in there...i just question most anything over 20.

Its known for its big fish and thats why it gets the pressure it does...

[quackmaster]

Another great post!!! Thanks!