First Foray into the World of Steeheading - Bois Brule, Wisconsin Day 3: Friday, October 16

Day 3

Today, we were on our own; fishing without a guide and using only the techniques and skills we had learned the day before with our able teacher Carl Haensel, www.namebini.com.

 

Based on some intel from David's college roommate, Steve, we parked off Tikkanen Road at the Bachelor's parking area. 

 

Steve said Bachelor's Bend was a good place to fish, so we headed downstream in that direction.  Turns out the day before was the "warm" day.  With clear skies overnight, the morning air was in the 20s and, along the river, the grass still wore a coat of frost. 

Here's the set up for the day - Vedavoo sling, Fishpond net, Echo rod, and a Rio Switch line on my trusty Tibor Riptide reel.

 

I think this was my first experience fishing with ice in the guides.

 There was an older gentleman at Bachelor's Bend, so we keep moving downstream.

David worked the bubble line on Long Run...

 Down below, I caught a little brown to get things started. 

 

In the cold, it was slow - at least for us.  As we walked to stay warm, we stopped to enjoy the signs of wildlife in the north woods.  I think David said this pattern in the tree bark was the handiwork of an ambitious woodpecker.

 

We made it to Trail's End and there were a bunch of downed trees and logs that provided structure next to the holes at the bend of the river.  If not for steelhead, this was supposed to be prime habitat for brown trout.  So I set up shop and started to cover the water with casts to put my nymphs deep in the pools.  The tools that our guide Carl had given us the day before paid off and I hooked into a nice fish.  I called to David downstream, but I don't think he heard me so I fought and landed the fish, barely, solo.  It was terrifying but also rewarding!

 

 David came back upstream to check on me just as I was landing this male and he snapped some pictures.  Spectacular!

 

 Turning the steelhead on its side really gave a sense of his girth; this was a solid fish!

 

 The release...

 The pattern and colors of the scales are a wonder!

After all the excitement, we retired to the bank to have lunch.  For today's fare, David had arranged for a delectable streamside charcuterie of soppressata and aged cheddar from Driftless Provisions.  Yum! 

The only thing that could have made this better perhaps would have been some warm glug wine.

 

We have to document at least one selfie per trip.  No so photogenic for me, but I was happy to be there! 

 

One of the mantras of the Bois Brule seems to be, where you catch one fish, you may very well catch another, so David stayed at Trail's End to try his luck while I moved downstream.

 

As I made my way to Little and Big Dutchman, I snapped a few pictures of this beautiful river.

 It was getting late in the afternoon, and Steve was late in leaving the river.  His wife had texted him to question if he had not fished enough already that day.   We all heard that dog whistle and hustled upstream only to find David tied into a nice fish.  I grabbed the Fishpond net and after a few misses, got the hen in the bag.

  

 

The mantra is right; where there's one, there's two!  We worked our way back to the parking lot and snapped one more picture of Bachlor's Run, leading up to the Bend.

 David posing at one of the river crossings...

 

 One last picture of the beautiful surroundings before leaving the river.

Once back to the parking lot, we executed one of our long-standing plans.  We stealthily deployed a "flybrary on the back side of the parking lot kiosk sign and stocked it with a few swing and nymph flies. 

"Need one, take one.  Have one, give one" For more information, see:  www.flybrary.com.

 

We decided to use the early hour to our advantage, and headed back to the Hungry Trout Inn for a socially distant dinner.  We split a pizza that was massive and we washed it down with some cold local beer.  

 

Back at camp, we collected tinder for the morning fire that would prep our oatmeal and coffee, and then hit the hay.

First Foray into the World of Steeheading - Bois Brule, Wisconsin Day 1 - 2: Wednesday-Thursday, October 14-15

My friend David and I make good fishing fishing partners.  I bring age (negative, not a postive!), enthusiasm, gear, and fly tying prowess and David brings equal amounts of enthusiasm, youth, cat-like reflexes, a watchful eye, imperviousness to cold, and an anglers' rabbit's foot.   We both love to camp and we are always up for an adventure.  I am grateful for his friendship.  

 

This partnership most recently manifested in a planned trip to the Bois Brule River in Wisconsin, a tributary to Lake Superior, to try our hand at steelheading.

 

As part of the adventure, we each purchased switch rods, fly lines to swing flies and started practicing spey casting.  We hired a guide, Carl Haensel, www.namebini.com, and, as instructed, started tying pheasant tail and prince nymphs, Superior X flies, and M.O.A.L, trout spey and traditional spey flies.  Big brown trout inhabit the Bois Brule, so I even tied some Galloup sex dungeon flies.  We had ideas of trying for browns at night so I even tied a few mouse flies.

 The week before meeting in WI, I started packing and realized my switch rod, even though it was a 4-pc, would not fit in my rolling duffel due to its near 12' length.  Panic set in.  Thank god for Amazon and their fast delivery.  I got a cheap rolling duffel that could accommodate a 40" rod tube and my newly acquired Fishpond Nomad net.  I packed extra waders, spare rods, camping gear, and multiple raincoats.

 The weather was forecast to be cold - 30s in the day and low 20s at night.  Rain and snow were likely.  Accordingly, I also bought a silk sleeping bag liner and I am now a firm believer in it's heat adding properties.  I was comfortable every night.  

 

Preparations complete, I was ready to go.  I took a Lyft to Norfolk International Airport for a 6:45 am flight to Charlotte and then on to Minneapolis, MN.   Flying into Minneapolis, you could tell the land use was very different from that in coastal Virginia. David picked me up at the airport and we caught up on family, experiences, and talked fishing strategy as we drove through grey skies to Duluth and then on to the Superior Fly Shop for some last minute supplies.  We picked up some flies, I got Simms gloves and some extra boot studs, we talked about what to expect on the river, and then we were off to the Copper Landing Campground in the Brule River State Forest.  We had to wait for some lingering campers to clear the site, but then set up our tents and headed just down the road to the Hungry Trout Inn for dinner.

Upon entering, we found we were the only ones wearing masks.  However, the place was so empty on a Wednesday evening, that we could easily eat inside without fear of properly socially distancing.  After ordering some burgers, we excitedly talked about our guided fishing the next day.  One new patron came in as we were ordering and demanded SOUP!  I WANT THE SOUP!  Our friendly bartender, told him to wait, she was busy, and then when he asked for a jack and coke she told him NO! and, I think already drunk, he stormed out the back door.

Stomachs full and tired, we retired to the campsite and settled in for a restless night, dreaming of steelhead.

 

Day 2

 

We woke at 5:45 am and made a simple breakfast of oatmeal and coffee with sweetened condensed milk and then hustled off to meet our guide on the river.  

The Brule River Sportsman's Club sells a must-have map that shows all the pools and runs along the river.  Buy one before you go!  The pools are not marked on the river itself so you have to interpret the shape of the river's turns and runs to get a sense of where you are.  Asking other anglers where we were was a frequent conversation opener.  A frequent response was "I don't know".  Without the map we would have been totally lost!

 

We meet Carl, our guide, at the parking area at the end of Koski Road.  We were there first, but lingered as we waited for Carl and another truck pulled up, two guys jumped out and they hurriedly donned waders and shuffled down the river trail.  This was our first clue of the combat-nature of getting to preferred fishing holes and it was only a Thursday!  Carl arrived and we suited up and, using his experience, took us down a side path that led directly to his first choice pool that morning, Power Line Hole.

 As we approached the river, it lay out before us in splendor.

 

 Carl rigged up our leaders and taught us how to drift and mend to keep our flies in the bubble lanes.  As he attended to each of us, he was willing the fish to take, but they did not comply.  A guy upstream hooked and landed a fish.  Damn!

 We let Carl down at Power Line Hole and eventually moved on...

  

  ... admiring the handiwork of the beavers active in the area.

 

We tried Teacher's Hole, then Deacon, but to no avail.  Our inadequacy left a thick pall in the north woods.  After hours of unsuccessfully drifting nymphs, we finally broke for lunch.  Carl walked us up past our entry point to show us the May Ledges, the largest elevation drop along the river.  

 

We all munched sandwiches as Carl mentally pressed the reset button.  Ever positive, he renewed our faith.  He told us, every bump of the strike indicator could be a fish; we just had to believe.  Once again, we did. 

 

Carl took us to another parking area, and we found our way to a large deep pool - Birch Hole.  He got me set up and told me where to cast and then took David upstream to Pipeline Hole, 

  

then crossed the river and worked their way back downstream so they were opposite me on the other shore.  

 

He had David fishing a fast riffle section.   On warm days, sometimes the fish would work up out of the pool and feed in the riffle.  David drifted a nymph with a trailing orange egg pattern.  

 

After a while, Carl came back to me.  We chatted as I repeated cast and drift, cast and drift, setting the hook downstream at each twitch of the strike indicator.  

 

Carl watched David mistake a fish for a rock hangup and that livened up the banter for a while.

 

Every once in a while we would see fish porpoise in the slow back eddy water.  I assumed they were brown trout.  Carl said it was a boring drift, but I could try it.  David hooked up in the riffle and Carl raced back to cross the stream and land the fish for him like his life depended on it.  Success!  David caught a beautiful chromer!  A fish that recently arrived in the river from Lake Superior -still bright and silvery and not having attained the darker coloration of the longer resident fish.

The skunk was out, but I felt the pressure squarely on my shoulders now.  After pictures, Carl returned to my side.  Cast, mend, drift... cast, mend drift... repeat.  At one point, a fish porpoised a rod's length to my right.  I asked Carl if I should cast to it.  He said, yeah, why not.  Next cast - BOOM!  Fish on!  I assumed it was a big brown, but Carl said he saw it and it was a steelhead.  It had taken the lead fly, a pheasant tail nymph, not the Prince trailer.  Before long, it was in the net and the weight of performance was lifted from all our shoulders.

 

 It was a lovely female, "hen" steelhead.  High fives all around!    

 

 

Once all the pictures were complete, I threw a couple casts back to the same area.  I think on the second cast, I hooked up again.  This fish screamed back into the pool.  Nervously, I adjusted the drag so as not to break him off on the 0X leader.  I played the fish for a little while, then he headed straight for a set of rock obstructions Carl had warned me not to get my casts tangled up in.  I tried to apply the heat to keep the fish out of there, but all of a sudden the line went slack.  I figured I had broken him off, but when all the flies came back, I realized in my faulty play, I had given him just enough slack to free himself from the barbless hook.  My bad!  After that, the pool gave us not more love.  Didn't matter, we were both pretty amped - steelhead virgins no more!

 

Carl took us downstream and we crossed the river on a cable bridge with some damn rickety looking railings.  We crossed one person at a time.  

 

 Carl wanted to show us the Sauna Hole - aptly named.

 

 The pool was vacant, so he told us to take some casts.  "Never pass up a chance to cast into the Sauna Hole".  I gave David the honors.

 

 After a short while we decided to call it quits.  We were both happy and Carl had clearly earned his fee.  What a great guide - in knowledge, personality, and service.  We couldn't have been better taken care of.  Carl led the way back to the parking lot, we got some tips for the coming days of DIY, settled up, and bid farewell.

 

After sampling the fare at the Hungry Trout Inn, David and I decided to check out the other known fisherman's hangout - the Kro Bar, in Brule.  It was still early and a Thursday and we hoped, like with the Hungry Trout, that we could get a meal while socially distancing.

We lucked out, it was pretty empty so we settled in at a small table.  I got a cheese steak sandwich and David got some soup and something healthy, I forget.

David recognized a couple of women that Carl had introduced us to on the river and one of the ladies had caught her first fish on the swing so we bought her a drink.  We then hopped into the car , still early, and drove about 45 minutes to Duluth to meet up with David's college roommate, Steve, for a quick tying session and some sharing of intel.  Steve would be joining us on Saturday.  As they talked, David tied worm flies and I tied up a batch of jig hook pheasant tail nymphs.  It was a fun tying session!

We only stayed about an hour, then made our way through the ink black Wisconsin night to our campsite where the stars were brilliant and in full effect.  He hopped in our sleeping bags and sleep came easily.