This week has just been shy of outstanding! Despite a few days of high water on one river, low water on another and heavy foot pressure, it didn't stop the steelhead from biting. With my home river getting low and a hair clear, Creek Candy Beads were the trick the past two days, especially in the upper sections. Otherwise pink spawn sacs have done very well. I'm going to soak up more steelhead the rest of this week before the long truck to Alexandria Minnesota monday to pre f

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 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

With the recent warm snap, I was able to take a day off of the ice and sneak off to the rivers in search of a female brown for spawn. It was refreshing to tie into some nice steelhead on my Raven 12'9 Matrix but unfortunately after landing three steelhead and one stocker brown, I was unsuccessful in finding that brown with spawn. Later Sunday afternoon I met up with a previous client and hit one more spot where he ended up breaking off two of the largest steelhead I've seen

Even though this is a little late seeing all the ice is off the Root river due to recent warm weather and rain but just before it hit I had the pleasure of running the best guide trip of the winter. I met three guys on the root and showing them how to set a few automatic fishermen I got the three of them jigging and showed them how to use the vexliar's. i wasn't able to get all the lines set before the action started. They did a great job landing five steelhead in the firs

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

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

To follow up an outstanding day on the river, I ran a half day trip with the fly rod. I expected fishing to be a little tougher with the lower water levels and I was spot on. In the first spot we fished I hooked up with a small milking brown on the Centerpin and let my client (who only want to fly fish) reel in the fish. In the second spot I rolled a female brown but it popped off before I could hand the pin over. I set my client in the same spot and directed him on the area

While I was at work last night watching the rain pelt the windows I knew it was only a matter of time before the rivers I fish bumped up in flow causing a new batch of fish to come in. I spent the entire night watching the stream flow gauge like a hawk until 0700 when I got out of work. With Grant Park being the most active with current, I decided to start there in the up stream sections. That proved to be a very good choice. In three drifts with the fly rod and Fishusa.c

StartFragmentSaturday morning I met up with a buddy and his son to chase some chinooks in the rivers of S.E. Wisconsin. I decided going back to the same river I ran my last trip the previous weekend would be the best bet. Upon arrival I noticed something very wrong... There were NO fish! I told Todd and Tim that this wasn't right and I had a feeling the fall snaggers had been through and took all the fish off the beds. After another mile hike I got to a corner where I saw 5 g