Thanksgiving, Rivers Rise, Steelhead and Brown Trout to Follow

We finally got what we had been waiting for, a real rainstorm.  In the desert that has been south-eastern wisconsin a good downpour is more than welcome.

In chicago here I drove home from my shoot today through swamped streets and flooded intersections, all the while thinking about trout after trout turning nose from the harbor to the mouths of the river, many will make the surge tonight and tomorrow.  Look for thanksgiving weekend to be great.

Remember small tributaries like Oak Creek and Pike Creek will shoot up extremely fast, but subside almost equally as fast.  Big water like the Milwaukee river will spike and then slowly arc down over several days.  If you need to get out in the next 2 or 3 days, I'd choose oak creek followed by the root river.  The Milwaukee river should be shaping up in time for Black Friday.

Yes, that is what it looks like when the river spikes from 1 (ONE!!!) cubic foot per second to 200 in a few minutes!

As temps drop, put away the streamers and tie up nymphs and egg patterns fly fishermen, once these fish get holding you'll have to coax them gently during daylight hours.

A few Coho should still be around, but targeting big Brown Trout and feisty Steelhead will probably be your best bet!  As for me, I'm off to San Francisco tomorrow to visit my lovely girlfriend.  I will be out of touch with the Great Lakes for a few days but I will be taking in some Point Lobos, Big Sur, ocean views!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

South Eastern Wisconsin Kayak Fishing Report : September 11, 2010

After a long week of work and the fact that I would be up bright and early for work again on Sunday I loaded the car and readied the Kayak for another tour in Wisconsin Saturday afternoon.

I launched at a different spot this time, from the beach just north of the north arm of the Racine breakwater.  The kayak was easy to drag through the sand and I could load it next to the car and then pull it down to the water's edge.  The waves were 2-3 feet and rolling in the long gradual rise to the beach there in Racine, which made for a perfect spot to launch when waves would prevent launch on other beaches with steeper banks.  I paddled out through the break, keeping as dry as one can in a Kayak in 3 foot waves.  After the break the swell was very easy to handle and proved no challenge.  Water temperature was near 60 degrees at the beach and clicked down degree by degree as I headed east into the lake, finally resting at about 54 degrees.  I started marking fish almost immediately in 6 feet of water, and continued to mark fish all the way out to 30 feet of water, where marks started becoming less frequent.  Bait was not present in any large numbers but the sheer volume of large marks on the depth finder kept my hopes up.  I did about a 2 mile loop and after receiving a phone call I decided to head back to shore and meet friends further north.

As I neared the beach I decided to pull lines in 8 feet of water.  As I drifted with the waves I pulled a dipsy with a magnum spoon, as I was unhooking the snap swivel and stowing that rig my other rod started making a loud noise and bouncing in the rod holder.  I swiftly grabbed the rod and gave it a good hook set.  Fish on.  The fished thrashed on the surface, dove and took a strong run, jumped a few times, then calmly retreated to the side of my Kayak.  It was a beautiful female steelhead at around 8 pounds (I did not weigh or measure as I released it boatside).

She hit a J-13 while I drifted in the waves.  The lure must have been shallow and should have been making random dives as large waves lurched me forward.  It was a beautiful fish, and would be the only one I caught all day, though I did hook up once later at dusk at Oak Creek.

Oak creek is running strong and some fish have made it up the short run to the main pool under the falls.  I saw a pair of steelhead, a coho, and a nice jack king get pulled from the main pool while I was there, and I saw several gold colored kings pushing up through the turbulence.  I'm hoping conditions improve in the next week or two and we finally start to see large schools of Kings pushing to the harbor mouths.  It's been a slow start in terms of King Salmon and hopefully the ball will get rolling soon.

The Re-writing of Your Famous Fishing Hole or, The Great Milwaukee Flood of July 2009

Dear friends and followers, it has been long since I've posted anything.  My days are long and my nights short, time for fishing is scarce, and time for blogging is more rare even than fishing time.  Tonight, however, I find myself in South-Carolina after 13 hours on shoot, we're photographing a major bank headquarters in Charlotte NC this week.

Tonight I need to bring you some photographs (not mine unfortunately) of my beloved Milwaukee area.  Shorewood (where I spent 4 years of college) got 11.6 inches of rain yesterday and flooded out not only the Milwaukee river, but the streets, yards, and basements no doubt of many of my former streets and apartments.

First for the fishy stuff.  The Milwaukee River bursted its banks to over 16000 cfs.... I've never seen anything like that, not even in the mid-June flood of 2008.

Secondly my favorite tributary, Oak Creek, every year my gravel runs and boulder spots are a little different, I have a big feeling this year is going to be something extraordinarily different.

If you plan on hitting your spots for Skamania strain Steelhead anytime soon, I would highly recommend getting in a good scouting session as soon as the water gets low to figure out the new bends (or lack of bends) in the rivers.

Here are some photographs from various photographers in Milwaukee who submitted photographs to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and others.

This is at Oakland and Edgewood, just a few blocks from where I used to live.  When I lived in Milwaukee I would bike through this intersection with my salmon rod in my backpack to fish  the Milwaukee River. Thise are the tops of cars you are seeing in the foreground, that middle car is floating...

If I had my kayak in Milwaukee you know I would be out exploiting nature for some fun in the flood.

Finally, this is an image my friend Steph made in the UWM union parking garage.  I worked just behind where she is standing during the making of this photograph.

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I need to share some of my recent stories with the blog and I promise to soon.  Maybe tomorrow night I will have a bit of energy left in me.  Until then, nice to be back hitting some keys.

Tom

Milwaukee Area Steelhead Report : Early April 2010

As the days get longer and the water warms we must unfortunately bid farewell to what has been an amazing spring steelhead season, while there is still a couple weeks left of good fishing and possibly a week or so more of leftovers we have to be thankful that we had such a banner spring. I remember last year freezing my knuckles and bearing into the wind while trying to throw casts into stained, turbulent waters from a string of massive March rains. This year I broke sweat in my tee shirt more than once. I casted to clear pools swirling with silver, hard hitting fish while the sun rose and the air temperatures broke sixty before I could see my shadow finding its way along the stones by the river bed.

While large rivers are likely to be blown out by this string of vicious storms we had this week look for the small tributaries to pay dividends in the last late runner steelhead to make their short shots up into the rapids to spawn. Suckers should be mixed in now from every stream from the state line, well north of Milwaukee.

I have recently neglected to write about my fishing experience I had with two fine gentlemen who I have only recently had the privilege of knowing, and today I intend to share our story.. I took co-worker Scott and his son Ryan, who happens to be my age, up to Milwaukee for a day of river hopping and casting.

We started out at a spot that is secret to a friend or two that showed it to me; so to them I am bound not to divulge it's whereabouts, I will tell you its pools were packed with eager fish that dropped back to larger, deeper, darker pools as dawn turned into mid-morning. At first light I managed a lovely hen from an eddy behind a large boulder in a deep pool. I tightly swung leech is all it took to start the tango.

Ryan (left) and myself (right) with my first hen of the day. What a gorgeous fish.

Ryan (who I should mention casts like silk, Ryan is a trout fisherman and has never Steelhead fished before, or used an eight weight) proudly banked this mean looking male Steelhead from a small but deep pool near where I picked mine off. The fish fought hard and was bound and determined to put its nose into the opposite bank, as we were releasing this fish we thought it would be advantageous to the well being of the fish for me to assist in a quick net job. The fish posed kindly for a photo or two and took a dip into the rapids where it recovered quickly. Nice work Ryan.

Scott standing proud with Ryan and his first Steelhead, and its a large one to boot!

From that first spot we found ourself on the banks of the Menominee, where Scott tagged his first Steelhead ever, only to have it give the hook back to him after a few seconds of fight, many of us have danced that short dance before and I'm sure all of you out there can feel Scott's pain when he saw the mammoth trout spit the hook back in his direction after such a short fight.

Ryan and I, upstream of Scott found a pod of no less than two to three hundred suckers... It was like nothing I've ever seen so we edited our presentations for some fun in the sun with suckers, we rolled the smallest nymphs I had in my steelhead box along the bottom with split shot above to keep it below the downward facing mouths of the Suckers. we landed something like 13 of these 1-3 pound fish who I must say are a blast on the fly rod. They are hard fighting little monsters. All were of course released after a short fight.

From here we moved on to the big, hard flowing Milwaukee. I hooked what would be the biggest Steelhead of the day, a dime bright fish I would put somewhere near 12 pounds. It jumped no less than two feet out of the water in the huge run I was fighting her, when she jumped I saw my egg pattern zip out of her mouth and I nearly took it in the face, fortunately I ducked just in time and it flew by my head. Oh well. I promptly hooked and landed a disappointing sucker upstream and called my Milwaukee River experience finished.

From Milwaukee we took a ride down to Oak Creek where, to my surprise, we found very few people, and quite a few fish! I bagged a large, bright red with a nice green back, male fish who ran me all over 2 pools and the rapids in between before I unhooked him near the bank. He jumped 5 times, uncharacteristic of a spring steelhead, lots of fun. I later hooked a female who I lost after a minute or two. Finally at the end of the day while Ryan and I were working a pod of fish in a deeper, we hooked a female, brought her to the bank, she was loosing eggs as we unhooked her so we decided a photo was not as important as letting her get back to it.

All in all, 4 locations, all with at least one fish of one species or another landed by at least one angler. We fished for 12 hours straight and had some sun on our arms and faces to show for it. Not bad. Not bad at all.

I think I may have converted a couple of trout fisherman to Steelhead fishermen that day. Although I should use a different word than converted because they, as I, certainly enjoy a wily trout on the end of my line any day.

Great to fish with you guys, I can't wait to take you out for another day of Steelhead fishing in Wisconsin.

South-Eastern Wisconsin Steelhead Fishing Report : 03/21/2010

The Steelhead fishing has never been better in Southeastern Wisconsin if you are familiar with its water and know how to get away from crowds and fish a variety of water.

This past Sunday two friends and I made it out to a spot few make it to and managed to land 16 steelhead in under 3 hours. All were landed on flies, spawn sacs, and hair jigs. Fast water held steelhead that I plucked with a variety of flies swung swiftly through the minefield of fish. My friends pulled some wild fish out the slower moving tailouts with spawn and hair jigs.

I have never had such an action packed morning Steelhead fishing in my life. It is the kind of fishing everyone dreams of and when it comes you can barely stop smiling for a second. Fish ranged from 5-12 pounds and more males were caught than females, but only my a small margin. All but two of the females we caught had already spawned but were still very bright.

This is a good learning tool, above pictured are two Steelhead of almost exactly the same size, the top male and the bottom female. You will notice the male has a longer mouth, which extends much past the eye, while the females mouth is smaller. The male has the double red stripe, which develops deep into spawning. Males generally have larger heads, some develope a kype, or hooked jaw, you will notice the length of the gill plate is greater than that of the female.

Here is Mike with a larger male of the day.

We had multiple times during the morning in which we had two anglers hooked at the same time, we even landed a couple doubles and photo opportunities presented themselves! We took care to keep the Steelhead in the water at all times, even when unhooking and only lift them for a photo or two. All 16 fish were released.

Double steel next to my wonderful fly rod.

More double trouble.

All told we lost count of lost fish but I was broken off three times and had two more shake my hook. The action was non-stop and the fish were in the mood to pounce. At first light I made my first drift and watched a steelhead shoot up 3 feet to meet my fly and smash it, I missed that first hook set, but it got my adrenaline pumping so 5 minutes later I certainly hit my second.

We had three holes to share between the 3 of us and a 4th and 5th were downstream just about a quarter mile. It made for great rotation, hook up a few times, sit out for a minute and change places and start fishing again. A great way to share the water.

The male fish were certainly more aggressive and would charge streamers and jigs, females weren't shy, but would do little to meet you half way, casts needed to be landed with precision and depth perception while stripping the fly to their strike zone was crucial.

Get out if you can. There are fish to be taken from Sheboygan all the way to the state line and you'll be sorry if this season passes without getting your hands on some Lake Michigan Steel.

Oak Creek Fishing Report : Mid March 2010

Oak Creek has stabilized and Steelhead are staging nicely. The river has a variety of sized fish in the system right now from 15-20" juveniles to 30+" four and five year old fish. Chambers Creek and Ganaraska are the strains most prevalent in the river at this time.

Fish will lay in deep pocket water until the sun hits the gravel and the water temp warms slightly. Look for 8-10 a.m. for fish to start heating up and getting active on beds.

Egg-Nymph fishing seems to work but I picked 2/3 of mine on leech patterns today. I only landed one champion male Steelhead today. No fin clips, thick like a football, I didn't weigh the fish but 6 pounds would be my best guess.

More on the tributaries to come, it has been an exhausting day between sneaking out for a full throttle fishing trip this morning, followed by a full day of work ending just now.

My advice is to get out and dance with these wonderful fish while you can, and please consider releasing them as they are such beautiful fish.

Milwaukee Area Trout Fishing Report : 12/06/2009

As promised, I made it up to Milwaukee today to find some Lake Run Trout.

I started at my favorite spot on Oak Creek at first light, and was able to snap up a foot long steelhead right away. It wasn't long until the weekend party of "fishermen" walking down the middle of the river went ahead and spooked the entire river. I couldn't take it today, I just got in my car and headed for Milwaukee where my friend Mike was waiting at the harbor. I should mention that I did count a dozen steelhead moving in holes and bedding in what little gravel there was. I would have had a chance at these fish and likely would have stayed for a couple more hours had I not had the river ruined rudely by these guys who don't respond to my questions or comments about their style of fishing.

I met a guy on the river last month and ended up talking to him for a long time, he told me flat out that he considers every last angler on the river just another "friend he hadn't met yet". I wish more anglers were like you Andy. (Andy lives near Oak Creek and is a regular there). His courtesy was great, we even fished the same hole, he asked my permission to move into the top of the hole and fish it and then to skip by me and continue making his way downstream. We hopped over each other for about an hour sharing the crowded river with no problems.

Now that the rant is over I'll continue. We did what is becoming a ritual for our crew, skipping from spot to spot in the harbor looking for active fish. We checked the sailing center, the slips, the discharge, the channel, and finally we found some players at the summerfest lagoon.

Mike managed to entice one of the bigger browns in the lagoon with a hand tied fly that I tied up last winter after salmon season. I got a spawned out female on a spawn sac.

I would recommend people skip the harbors for the time being and find players in tailouts of deep pools and in rapids in the front of them after the day starts getting on its way. If I could re-do the day I might skip the harbor all together and focus on the Milwaukee River, which I unfortunately didn't get a chance to fish. I did have a great day with Mike and somehow the sun made 30 degrees feel like 45.

Some rain or snow melt-off will kick things into high gear on the tributaries, so look for that in December and January, any runoff will push fresh fish into all your favorite holes and these fish are often ready to take a spawn sac dead drifted through those pools.

That might have been the last Steelhead and Brown Trout for me in 2009, I may shoot at some perch here from Montrose Harbor and Navy Pier in the mean time. I'm slowly ticking my way to 1000 fish for the year and Lake Michigan Yellow Perch might just seal the deal.

Until next time, enjoy the photos!

Milwaukee Area Trout Fishing : 11/22/2009

My morning began in the dark, standing in the cool waters of oak creek under a thick blanket of still fog. The air temperature was 34 degrees and it was 4:30 a.m.

I had driven up from Chicago, rolling out of the covers at 3:00 a.m. The drive up to my favorite tributary was short and sweet, with only a few other tail lights racing through the November night with me.

I stood there with my hip boots and felt the water with my fingers, cool and swift, just the way I remember the November conditions to have been in years past. I walked back to the car and strung up my float rod first, followed by my fly rod. I leaned them against the side view mirror and walked back down to the river to take a look through the darkness at holes I planned to fish in the hours to come. I sat with closed eyes, listening for the tell tale sound of Steelhead advancing through the rapids.

After I was content with my selection of water I returned to the car, with 20 minutes left before it became legal to fish. I turned on the heat and reclined the drivers seat and shut my eyes to let my imagination bend my 9' 6" float rod to the water with chrome and pink Steelhead buttoned to the end of my line.

When I opened my eyes it was 5:45, 5 minutes until fishing. I locked the car and grabbed my rods and hiked through the stretch of woods to my first hole. In the time that I had shut my eyes another angler had snuck in in front of me and was walking back and fourth on my favorite bend with a net in his hand... looking for Steelhead staging on redds to net. It was too early in the morning to start a fight with an immoral angler so I chose water a little up stream of this fellow. I hiked the two or three minute only to be greeted by no less than six men walking with waders and fly rods THROUGH the water, not along the bank with stealth as this sport demands. At this point I was near panic. This tributary isn't long, and real estate is valuable, especially on a Sunday. I wasn't going to be bested by meat hunting fools with no sense of sport. So I turned and ran. I shot through the woods, jumping downed trees and ducking low branches, trying to keep my rod tips clear of hangups. I went downstream of the aforementioned angler with a net in hand and shot across the end of the pool below him; keeping careful not to spook the hole below. I tossed my bag to the stones and dug out a bag of spawn sacs. It was now first light and getting a look at the slightly stained water from last Wednesday's rain I decided chartreuse was the color of netting I would choose, being that I brought both orange and chart. spawn sacs with brown trout eggs in them.

I could see two boulders in the hole and, being that I have not fished this hole when water was so clear, decided to exploit them for what I hoped would be nice trout holding in their eddies. On my first drift my float passed to the south of the second boulder in the deeper part of the pool and was untouched until it fell a few more feet down stream, where it twitched once, then violently twitched again. I swept my float rod sideways to check for pressure and felt something writhing on the end of the line. I retrieved it quickly to find a beautiful little creek chub on my size 6 octopus hook. I welcome life in the river, even if it isn't the quarry I intend to catch. I snapped a quick photo and returned it to this beautiful pool. I then heard the gaggle of men wading through the pool above me and knew it was time for defense, I shot my line long and diagonally up the riffle above my pool, as that would not only prevent them from crossing into my water, but also put my float through the riffles and into the first boulder's eddy.

The first and second of the six men diverted their path and walked behind me as my float drifted. I watched closely as it swung around the boulder and hung in the eddy for just a sliver of a moment, it then continued making progress downstream and suddenly shut underwater and moved to the side. It has been a long time since I last saw an orange float tip retreat to the murk of a river and thrilled to see it quickly set the hook and was instantly greeted with pressure on the end. The fish pulled quickly across the hole and the men stopped behind me. It surfaced and showed its silver side, filled with large spots. It may not have been a Steelhead but it was certainly as good, a gorgeous lake run German Brown. I landed the fish in under a minute as it was short of two feet long and no match for the line weight I was using. I grabbed the line and moved it onto the gravel in the shallows. I snatched my camera and photographed the fish as it calmly laid in inches of water and posed for a shot before I coaxed it into the depths, only touching its tail once to maneuver it toward its holding water.

I drifted this hole several more times, and seeing no signs of life, I thought it was time to move on. I know had to deal with these six men rudely tromping through the water looking all over for fish to snag with their fly rods that held only heavy monofiliment and treble hooks with a bit of yarn on the end...

I was turned off to a major degree, and having friends waiting in the harbor in Milwaukee I was happy to leave what was quickly becoming a zoo behind, and head for greener pastures, or bluer water as it were.

John clearly has some hours under his belt swinging a fly rod. He had a mean roll cast and was belting out these beautiful shots, cast after cast.

I met Mike P. and a new friend John in Milwaukee where they were floating spawn and jigging tubes in the slips. The action had been slow and there were very few fish moving so we agreed it would be to our advantage to move to the discharge. As we arrived there were no other anglers there, but upon peeking our heads over the rail we saw no less than two dozen brown trout holding in the current. Although they were easily spooked by us it wasn't long until I hooked and landed my first ever Seeforellen strain Brown Trout, pictured below.

A Seeforellen Brown Trout, note the fewer spots, he fought like a King Salmon as well.

Mike later hooked the biggest German Brown he had ever landed, a new personal best at just over 20.25 lbs. Way to go Mike. He was fishing a tube jig deep, near the bottom, jigged slowly.

Mike and his 20+ lb German Brown Trout

As the sun raised in the sky and the temperature shot into the 50's, not normal for late November... the fishing slowed and nearly halted. Fish retreated to darker, cooler water and even on the Milwaukee river we found no takers.

It had been a good day and sunset was approaching, we thought Kenosha would be a good bet for sunset and evening fishing and we boarded our vehicles and made our way down there. Float rods in hand we walked to the water in the Harbor and pitched spawn sacs and tube jigs under lighted slip floats out into the depths. Although I had 5 take downs in the first hour we were unsuccessful in even hooking any fish and after 14 hours of straight fishing we packed it up and headed for home in Chicago.

A wonderful day with two great fisherman. I feel lucky that 3 fish between 3 guys, including a first time Seeforellen, a beauty silver river German Brown, and a personal best Brown Trout over 20 pounds is a slow day!!

I'll be up north in Hudson, Wisconsin for the next 4 days and will not be fishing, but I would have you know that I'll be at it as soon as the opportunity presents itself upon my return.

Until then, good luck and I'll see ya out there.

Truly Great Lakes Anglers.

South-Eastern Wisconsin Steelhead Forecast : 11/19/2009

It's that time of year again, white knuckles, rosy cheeks, numbing feet in waders, frozen guides on the fishing rod... It can only mean one thing. It's steelhead time.

Things are looking good.

The image above shows exactly what you want to see if you are a steelheader who is confined to the weekends to chase these silver trout.

All the South-Eastern Wisconsin Tributaries are looking great for your weekend. The colder it gets, the less pressure there is on the fish, and the better your chances of hooking up. It is vastly different from King Salmon fishing during the fall.

Take a look at the Chicago Trout Bum, he has some great reports from his recent trips to swing flies and drift egg patterns in Wisconsin rivers. Looks like both Lake Michigan run Brown Trout and big Steelhead are looking promising this weekend.

Milwaukee Area River Fishing Report : 10/29/2009

The Milwaukee River and Root River remain high from saturating rains. We have had rain almost 2/3 days this month and there are no signs of the weather letting up. In fact severe thunder storms are expected this evening.

Tonight and tomorrow's storms are on the way.

Oak Creek and the Pike River remain the best Salmon and Trout fishing options at this time. Remember that smaller water sheds mean a fast spike in flow, followed by a fast withdrawal.

The King Salmon run is drawing to a close, but Coho are showing up in these rivers in small force and Brown Trout as well as a fleet of Rainbow Trout are on their way into the rivers as well. These fish are hard fighting, high flying lake run mammoths that are a blast on the fly or float rod.

Get out there and get them, rain or shine.

See ya out there.

Milwaukee Area Salmon Fishing Report : 10/28/2009

The Milwaukee is slowly returning to fishable levels this week after the torrent of rain that fell on the area last week. Keep in mind that with the last of the King Salmon entering the river recently that this sustained high rate of flow will help to bring the winter run Steelhead and the fall run Brown Trout into the system.

Reputable sources say that experienced fly fisherman swinging large streamers in the Milwaukee River in the last few days have come up with some beautiful fresh chrome Steelhead and they still continue to land nice Lake Trout. Brown trout and of course kings have been landed recently as well.

Oak creek is experiencing a push of lake run Brown Trout and while I was there on Sunday I saw a dandy 15 pound male caught.

The root river is returning to normal flows and has produced some steelhead along with a stray Coho Salmon or two. Watch for a run of Coho to start soon.

Get out and fish before you have to worry about your eyelets freezing up, and it's darn tough to operate those reels with gloves on. It won't be long...

See ya out there.

-Tom Harris

Grant Park and Milwaukee Salmon Seeking : 10/25/209

To sum it up quickly, it was a day I won't soon forget chasing king salmon with Mike. The day started early, we gathered all our research from this week, reports, flow data, hunches and river experience and decided we would focus on the tributaries with the smallest water sheds, as they will have dropped fastest from the rain.

We started off at a small tributary between Chicago and Kenosha, we hiked a mile an a half through the woods and fields to make it to this tributary. Mike had decided he would rather wear his waders than carry them, and paid the price. His socks and even jeans were soaked through with blood by the time we reached the beach. His feet had blisters from all the wading last weekend. He soldiered on and didn't complain, like a real fisherman.

This first river (even though it was beautiful) didn't produce salmon, steelhead, or any signs of life what so ever. We hiked back after taking some photos in the early morning light in the tall grass and changing leaves and headed north.

We arrived at Oak Creek and witnessed the throng of anglers at the main hole, we started at my favorite bend down stream and it was not long until I hooked my first King of the day. I was casting an Egg Sucking Leech upstream and drifting it down towards myself through the rapids. I made a novice mistake, not stripping my line back in fast enough so as I set the hook it took most of the height of my rod to get the line tight. The fish rolled a couple times on top of the water near my feet and was lost to a poor hook set.

After meeting a local named Andrew and shooting the breeze with him for a while I walked downstream to Mike who had called me with the good news that he too had hooked (and landed) his first fly rod salmon of the day. I landed one from the same hole as he did, on my hand tied ESL, (photographs of the actual fly I caught it on and instruction on tying it are in the post below.

We were getting tired of small stream fishing with its canopy of branches reaching for our flies and small holes with too much fishing pressure so we pressed on to the Milwaukee River.

On the way to the Milwaukee I wanted to stop at the harbor to see if anything was happening.

The rest of the day was constant action, as we stopped at the harbor to see 2 people hook up on skein under a float in under 5 minutes. We parked the car, grabbed our float rods and our salmon skein from a couple of weekends ago which we had in the cooler just in case we tired of fly fishing.

We had more than 50 take downs, with a good number of them resulting in hook ups. I landed 2 browns and other than that, we only landed Kings.

The best story from the day was when Mike hooked up with what would turn out to be a 21.5 pound King Salmon. He was using 6 pound fluorocarbon line and had to use a very light touch to get the king near the net. Time after time the fish neared the wall only to sprint out to deeper waters, far beyond the reach of the net. A crowd gathered as we got glimpses of how large this fish really was, a huge tail would flip out of the water and the crowd would gasp.

Mike finally got it to the surface and I reached down with a borrowed net with a 12-15 foot long handle. As Mike pulled the fish to the surface I began slipping the net under the fish. Suddenly the line snapped and, in what reminded me of the sounds of a sporting event, the two dozen spectors let out a combined gasp and awwww as the salmon dissapeared below my net. I lept forward and leaned over the railing with all my speed and might, being careful not to lose balance. I extended my arms as far as I could and thrust the net below where the fish had slipped into the water. I quickly snapped the net back toward the surface and out it came, with Mike's tuna of a salmon sitting like a massive beast in the net. The crowd turned that awww into a booming cheer and everyone croweded around to pat mike on the back and examine his catch. We quickly got a scale on the salmon and let it take the dive back into Lake Michigan. A fish for my memory banks, I won't forget this one.

We were at the discharge across from the Alterra on the lake front. Every time the discharge would start flowing it was every man for himself. At one point just at dusk there were 5 fish on at once in that small space with 15 fishermen in it. Lines were flying everywhere, people were running and yelling and laughing and trying their best to reverse the tangle of salmon. Successfully I might add, as all 5 were netted after 30 minutes of chaos.

Thanks Mike for coming with me for a memorable day. We've done well this year, and now Coho and Steelhead are knocking on the door. What a place we live, what a fishery we have.

What a day... until next time, I'll see ya out there.

Milwaukee Area Salmon Fishing Report : October 2009

Milwaukee River : high numbers of King Salmon are now in the river, they can be found in deeper holes and gravel beds all the way up to the falls at Kletzsch park. Classic salmon and Steelhead flies are taking the most fish. A few beautiful silver Steelhead are in the river as well. A stray Lake Trout was caught recently as well.

Milwaukee Harbor : Some Kings and Browns have been taken in early morning and later at night on glow spoons and crank baits. The better bite has moved into the river.

Menomonee River : Some salmon have moved their way in past Miller Park, but fishing remains best in the Milwaukee River.

Oak Creek : Oak creek is chalk full of fish. The pool below the falls may have more than 100 salmon and Steelhead holding in it. Each rainfall and spike in CFS will bring dozens of new fish into the creek. This fishery should not be overlooked.

Grant Park Salmon and Steelhead Report : October

I arrived at grant park last Friday after 3 hours of driving and scouting other locations.

As you can see Oak Creek had just jumped some 400% and the mouth was gushing (we got there on the night of October 2nd). A friend (Mike) and I had high hopes as we strung up our casting rods. While I busied myself tying on a duo-lock snap my friend took his first cast. On his second he suddenly swung his rod high. Fish on.

We knew the night was going to be good.

From there on out we swung cranks, alone at the mouth of the river. Fish were landed. In fact, we hit a fish on about 10% of our casts. If we didn't land the fish, it spit the hook or the line broke. We also had many hits that no hook connected with the gums of those Salmon.

Top producers were Rapala X-Raps, Rapala Husky Jerks, and Storm Thundersticks.

The highlights of the night included a soaked blackberry, as mike scrambled to land a fish for me. The best fish of the night was Mike's 10+ pound Steelhead, silver as could be.

We ended up pulling in 6 Chinook Salmon, and 2 Steelhead. We had what looked to be a Coho flop of at the beach. We also lost 3 or 4 other kings trying to grab them with no net. Oops.

We packed it up, took a young Steelhead to fillet as a thank you to Tyler, our friend in Milwaukee that lent us a couple of couches. We returned to Oak Creek in the morning, people were cathing coho, steelhead, and kings with regularity with spawn in the creek. We tried the mouth again with no luck. It was a very successful weekend, we didn't mind going home without any daytime fish.

Until next time, I'll see ya out there.