Finally

It had been in May, when I last felt the weight of a solid salmon or steelhead on the stick. I have fished the Miramichi, the Renous, and the Cains in New Brunswick. I had fished the Margaree in Nova Scotia, and the York and St. Jean of Quebec's Gaspe pennisula. I fished the Deschutes, and Umpqua in Oregon, and even the Klickitat in Washington. For destinations this has been the best year I have ever had and I got grabs on many of these rivers, but I could never keep a fish on long enough the feel its weight.

I Have gone pretty quiet the last month. I was feeling so burned out and beat down. I have been spending lots of time checking out our eastern Wisconsin Rivers. And between our low river flows, no rain, and higher lake levels fish have been hard to find. The Me is nearly a tidal pool beron of life, and the Oconto a trickle, The manitowoc and sheboygan not even for the drive. So, I have been looking but, have not had an overwhealming urge to blog about it.

Two days ago, However, while fishing with Bart on BR's Local, that finally changed. Bart and I fished several runs, in cluding one that has been on of my most productive runs in the state, which produced nothing for us. We fished so up river runs where we met BR, He had hook a Steelhead up there 3 day earlier, and the three of us fished for a while, I got a grab in a pioneered slot. Then BR left, and Bart and I tried a favorite run again. An old lady screamed at us for walking across her back yard and her and her husband chased us to the river. It was my idea to walk the backyards, Bart was against it.

Well, once we were free of the angry people and could fish, Bart got jacked by a steelhead the ran and lept before coming off. I heard Bart's oralizations and saw the splash and boil.

Bart and I then went down river, stopped in at a good looking run which is well know and ran into Eric Helm, who has a blog at Classicalangler.blogspot.com which I keep meaning to put a link to. I had just seen Eric at the Green Bay spey clave. Eric had just gotten back from an epic trip from the Clearwater where he caught some huge fish.

Anyway, Bart and I then continued down stream to one of the lowest runs and right off the bat I got grabbed, then Bart fished the spot and Hooked a big fish, it looked a little dark as it rolled and I figured it must be a brown. There was virtually no moving the fish but soon Bart moved him and he rolled again, a King? This is a fairly deep, off color run how did Bart snag a King? He didn't, old darky came over and ate a 5" string leach. I had the same thing happen 8 years ago, haven't seen it since, awesome.

I went back to fishing ahead of Bart after the king was caught and released. I got down to some real slow not super fishy water while he was still in the shit, so I reeled in and worked my way down to where two wing dam on opposite side of the river are straight across from each other causing the river to narrow and speed up. I started casting there and mental having the late day doze off, where my mind must just kinda go blank cause I sure don't know what I was thinking of when I got the pull. All the sudden I had a fish on and after a few quiet moments the fish went nuts, taking one long scorching run and several other short runs a couple near jumps and a whole lotta tough stuff. Bart landed and photographed the fish and she swam free.

Finally