
Trolling the big pond in the new rig
I finally got a break in the everything but west wind on Tuesday so I decided to capitalize on it. My tournament partner and I hit Lake Michigan around 0900 and after checking quite a few areas from 40fow to 15fow with nothing to show for it, I decided to make a run a little north and good thing I did! It didn't take long for my Lowrance to light up with bait and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of my flicker shad where going to fire. All of a sudden I head o

Steelhead, Steelhead and more Steelhead
The last few weeks have been just shy of outstanding for steelhead. Despite high waters and having to buy my time in between river blow outs, the few days I have been on rivers have been action packed. Last week was a week of firsts with a client from MN who got his first Wisconsin Steelhead on the fly. Also another beginner came out and tied into her first two steelhead and got to fight one with the Raven 14' IM8. With the cold weather hanging around, I foresee the steel

What an excellent week of skating the fly
The water levels on one of my smaller rivers became perfect for steelheading. During the mornings we loaded up on steel with creek candy beads, spawn and jigs under floats in the deeper holes but during mid day the fish became more active and were chomping at the bit to eat small stone flies and egg patters. Best news from this week is there were no suckers! My larger rivers are coming down from flood levels at a rapid pace and will be fishable next week as long as we don'

High and low water steelhead
The last few days have been nothing short of a waiting game. We received a bunch of rain earlier last week causing all the rivers to flood out. The 17th, the smallest of the rivers I fish became fishable for a whopping one day but there was a nice batch of steelhead that moved in. I spent the first part of the day drifting spawn and creek candy beads. The first fish to strike was a healthy 7-8lb buck steelhead. After loosing a few other fish I finally stuck a chrome dime

Minnesota Ice Fishing Trip
Monday March 7th, my partner and I wheeled it close to 500 miles to Alexandria Minnesota to start pre fishing for the Team Extreme Nationals. We had heard chatter about the tournament possibly being cancelled due to bad ice and a week forecast of 50 degree temps. Tuesday we started on Lake Mary where I found one suspended crappie in 35fow. After a few hours I decided it was time to load the wheeler and check out the south end of the lake. Once we got to the boat launch we ran

From pan fish to steelhead
This past weekend was full of high's and low's. Friday while pre fishing in 50mph winds I did more chasing down my ATV than actual fishing which made it a pretty short day. Saturday we decided to pre fish the south end of Delavan lake and it seemed like we couldn't do anything wrong while catching large 13'' crappies and 8-9'' bluegills and a slob of a pumpkinseed. Despite blue bird skies and a warm up fishing actually became stupid as for how active the gills and crappies we

Team Extreme Lake Menomin 2016
This past weekend kicked off the Team Extreme (WI) Ice Series on Lake Menomin. Just like last year it was a cold one! Pre fishing went great and I had my game plan set by noon on Saturday. Sunday morning with -17 degrees started off rough. When temps are that cold my four wheeler does NOT like to play nice. After holding the heater to my engine for an hour it finally decided to start and it was game on. Once out to the area we had pre fished, I noticed there was another team

Weekly Review 1-6-15
This past week has been outstanding on the rivers with a ton of steelhead a few brown trout being caught. Depending on the day, the fish were sitting on the edge of the water one day but then in current the next. I ran a half day trip today and my client and his son got into a real nice female brown and two steelhead. Despite a lot of slush on the river and everything freezing between the rod guides and line, they did a great job! It's looking like this will be the last w

Action packed weekend
This weekend plus Monday was nothing short of outstanding. There were a bunch of fish caught and a bunch of first timers that tied into brown trout and steelhead. The first Saturday morning was my buddies kid who did a great job fighting a 5lb brown by himself. Later that day I hooked into a very nice steelhead and let my coworkers husband have fun fighting it on the centerpin. This was after he got to fight a big brown that popped off right before getting into the net. Sunda

Steelhead Smack Down
The past two days I spent on two different rivers with the guys from Trail Creek Guide Service and needless to say it was a BLAST! Wednesday we hit one of my favorite rivers in search for monster browns but thanks to the heavy foot traffic the ones we saw in the shallows were extremely spooked. We worked our way down river and Justin ended up with a steelhead and a brown in three drifts. After that spot we continued down river where Todd bowed up with a very nice steelhead on