The Driftless.

In the beginning. Three fishermen go on an adventure, a long way from their familiar waters, the Ozarks.

The first stop….. The Driftless Region, Wisconsin. Similar to the slopes of home, any Ozarker wouldn’t be able to tell the two apart once fog crept through the valleys and the sky went grey to blue in the dusk.The bottom of the hills similar limestone bluffs rose above the stream valley and the streams were cool and clear like the Ozarks but these streams had more sediment, there was no clean gravel but black glaciated soils from the crop laden hills above. This is where the journey begins….

Just as we arrive in camp, aka dairy cattle pasture laden with cow pies and flies but at $10 a night for all of us and the land-owner bringing us fire wood every evening how could we say no.  Our good friends from Chicago Land are stumbling out of their tents as we stumble from the truck after driving all night. Like true fish heads they stagger first to their fly rods and make a few casts before the morning coffee.

We catch up quickly on times past as we rig fly rods. Tying 6x tippet has been easier to tie, no sleep for 24hrs is catching up as the sun rises through the fog on us. (by day 7 tying knots is worst though)

Blue River is our first stop after legalizing ourselves to the Wisconsin wardens. Beer cheese curds and sausage sticks are for lunch this day and for the next week. Yes, fishing is more important than eating. Anyway. We all split up to fish alone, reconnect with the water and reflect what is on our heart at the time.

By noon some have passed out in the field along the river and others are catching the biggest trout of their life in these waters. After depleting beer supplies we head back to camp to recharge and get ready for the evening round of fishing.

This is when sky opened up. We hid under a small tarp and told tales of big fish.

Soon the sun came back and we headed back to the river. We claimed an awesome stretch of river on the Blue. It had a magnificent prairie with flowers and grasses over 6’ tall (You probably wonder how Brian made it through this), well luckily our friends from Chicago are 6’8’’ or better and we just followed them to the water.

The cameras could not do justice to the sunset, the fog, and the setting we fished in but the smiles and laughter of good friends described it all.

Night fell and the campfire called us home. We cooked and reminisced of past adventures together and planned the new ones. Soon we were to turn the page to the next adventure. Musky Country. The Muskyteers hit the last of the Driftless that morning and headed North, toward toothy critters….

So finally Spring!  Randy Hanner myself and good ole Sedge boy are headed to the river...

The turkeys are strutting and the morel mushrooms are starting to peak out on the banks of the North Fork, this means caddis on the Fork!

The first weekend in April was awesome for fishing. The caddis swarmed up the river, slowly rising on the wind then diving to the water and slamming the surface in attempts to deposit their eggs in the film. This behavior is risky yet rewarding. Their sheer numbers are the only thing that allow them pass on their genetics another generation, because trout love to swipe these guys from the surface, in the surface, and as they hatch toward the surface.  We caught a few bows on dries and watched even more shoot from the water in attempt to time the attack with a bobbing caddis.

Now the fish on the North Fork very rarely come to the surface to feed, ask anyone who has fish it a lot and they will agree. So, deep emergers and nymphs are usually the key. A long deep drift with a twitch before the swing is irresistible to the fish. This worked great the day one, but it was only green that they would eat.

On day two we had a different story. Started with the caddis, nothing. Then to brown stones, nothing. Then to big black stones, bam. Fish on! Caught multiple fish on the black stone and nothing on green caddis(after we spent the evening tying green caddis flys on the bank of the river). Stones picked up a few more at the rock garden then the wind picked up. It is vey difficult to nymph fish by high-sticking in the wind so alternate methods are needed.

The way I first fly fished was an extended J drift. Now I'm not sure if this is a technical term for this method but it works. Usually when fishing a streamer or a emerger you can cast far up and across the current. Above the zone you think the fish are holding. You allow it to dead drift down toward you and into the "fish zone" as it comes almost across from you it is time to mend the line. Your fly and leader must be upstream of your fly line, and as it drifts past you, mend the line to form a small "J" in the end of the line. This is your indicator, to see strikes with this method watch the end of the fly line, if it moves at tighten the line to see if it is snagged or a fish.

Now the fly line is down and across from you and you must mend the line out into the water to keep it forming that "J". Watch for the line to move back upstream where your fly and leader are trailing, the line formed "J" is leading downstream. You can twitch or animate the fly at any point by twitching the rod as you follow/lead the drift. (Note:If you see your fly line move with your twitch you are twitching the fly. Fly fishing is all about visualizing how the fly reacts on your line).

As it keeps drifting past, you are stacking line the in long arm of "J" behind/up stream of it. Get ready for the swing and keep animating the fly, as you see fit. This is the deepest part of your drift, right before the swing, and usually the place where the fish EAT! The nice part of this method is that the drag on the fly line "J" assists in setting the hook. Again, when you see the line move at any part of the drift set it or lift up on the rod to make sure it is not bottom. It takes time to learn a skill so practice.

So I was fishing with this method on picked up a few larger fish with the bugger, also lost a few that seemed decent. Walking down a fast run past the Rock Garden I saw the line tighten. Set. Fish ON!

Now a lot of times a you know when you have a big fish right off the hit with a few big head-shakes, but this one I was not sure.

I hollered up to Randy. "I think this is a good one", about that time it made it'd first run. This was no little tug the drag out, stop. Tug the drag out, slow down. This was an all out drag race down river! The line is ripping the water in two as I'm chasing it down river, All the while my dog Sedge is running beside me just as excited to retrive my line. (He's a lab) Anyway, This happened two more times until I am at the edge of the bar. Trees, root wads, and blackberry brambles are covering the bank before me. There was no possible way to land this kind of fish with a 4wt in that structure.

Only thing to do. Ford the river into the slack water on the other side.

Randy is at my side, by this point he's hollering things that don't even register due to the this fish pulling adrenaline from me faster than drag. As the four of us swam across, myself, Randy, Sedge and the fish, water was topping my waders and I think Randy was all out in a swim. We got the the other side and the fish quickly showed its wide side, this is the first time I had seen what was on the other end and it was BIG. A BIG WILD BOW at that! Of course we didn't have a net and we didn't have a camera.

Wait! I had mine! I reached for my camera turn it on and, why is there a puddle in my G10 view finder? O' yes I just swam across the river.

It was still working, so I shot a few last leg pictures. You can see the water in the lens.

After, fording the river with me and not knowing if my camera would actually take these pictures my good friend Randy offered to hike up the bank to retrieve his camera so we were sure to get the grip and grin with this fish of a lifetime.

I say,fish of a lifetime, because I have grown up on this river. I have personally seen only one other fish of this size, one that Phil Lilley landed. I have seen photos of two others, heard of one that got mounted at 27inches ;( and shocked a few with MDC of this caliber.

The fish that we landed was a hair past 22 after marking her length on my rod. This was a fine specimen of a wild rainbow from the North Fork. It appeared that it had never been hooked, or if it had it was quite some time ago because it was a perfect fish.

It was a perfect spring trip too. The weather was warm enough to get a sunburn during the day and cool enough for a fleece at night around the campfire. We chased turkey gobblers in the woods and caught a lion's share of wild rainbows from the North Fork. Good friends and good times on the North Fork, once again!

Spring in the Ozarks is the best!

Thanks Randy for the awesome fish wrangling skill! NO NET!