The fall push of brown trout and steelhead are starting to make a strong presence in the rivers of S.E. Wisconsin. The trick has been running a tandem Creek Candy Bead combo with a small spawn sac on the bottom hook. It's been a 50/50 mix of either the top bead or spawn sac getting hit. This weekend is going to be extremely brutal for the boat but with snow in the forecast means more river steelhead. UV Green and frosty roe have been the hot beads. Monday i was able to s

Yesterday I met my buddy (photographer) and his girlfriend on the river in search of Browns and chinooks. As I was standing on the bank finishing my coffee Kelsey yelled "I have one!" As I looked up I saw her fly rod bowed over and a very nice brown thrashing away. After a 15min fight Nolan had it in the net. She had just landed her biggest brown around 10lbs. After a few minutes I suggested moving up river for chinooks. We made our truck a half mile up river when I saw a lar

These past 9 days have been possibly the longest ever for Salmon a rama. Between brutal winds and waves we still managed to put a bunch of fish in the boat with out loosing to much gear. So much happened though out the tournament that I don't even know where to start besides half way through I was about to come out of my skin from big fish either getting off while fighting them or getting knocked off by the net. But towards the end things started clicking and our batting aver

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

While running back from Minnesota I checked the river flows and noticed that they all bumped up to perfect levels. Friday I took a coworkers husband out for steelhead and it didn't take long to tie into my first fish. Since Tony is brand new to steelheading I let him reel it in on my Raven Tackle 14' IM8 rod and Matrix fully ported reel. In the first spot we ended up getting 3 fish and in the second spot Tony finally hooked and landed his own steelhead! Saturday I ran a full

During February I ran a contest at The Beef Jerky Outlet Store for one lucky winner to win a half day guide trip for spring steelhead. Out of the over 100 entries Jarred was the lucky winner. He asked if he could bring his buddy with and sure why not. We met up on the root this morning and of course there were two guys in the first spot I wanted to fish with 3 steelhead on the stringer. We hit two other spots before ending up in a spot on the lower section of the river.

Today I met up with a buddy and his two friends on the river for a few hours of hunting chrome. It didn't take long to get a first timer into his first steelhead (3 drifts actually). Soon after he landed his chrome bullet, it was my turn. After getting a few pictures and putting her back in the water my buddy ended up falling on a few big rocks and splitting his thumb wide open. Even though he got some river first aid he decided to call it a day. I continued down the river pi

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

This past week started off red hot (view red hot steelhead article). But it didn't take long for all the rivers to flood out again. As of yesterday 12-26, both the Root and Milwaukee were blown out and the Oak Creek was extremely low. I spent the afternoon walking the Oak Creek with the fly rod and missed one buck brown and heard of a few other fish on beds but overall it was extremely slow. Christmas Day on the other hand I decided to take the boat out of McKlinley Marin

This week has been shaping up to be a week for the record books. I spent Saturday and Sunday on the same river and while the river was a hair high and dirty Saturday I ended up going 3 for 5 and my buddy went 2 for 4. Sunday was a completely different story, after trying out some new hooks (which failed horribly) I ended up going 6 for 10 by 11am which included a run to the gas station for coffee. This fishing is going to continue to be hot until ice up (if it ever does.)