Just got back from a trip up to the north country (WI) where I was able to get into some pretty good steelhead fishing while visiting family for the holiday.
They've had a good bit of rain and snow this spring so the tribs are in good shape. I fished the Root River on Good Friday with my uncle Rick, we split up
right way in the morning, he went down I went up. He had the camera, so we didn't get many pictures until the afternoon. I hooked up a bunch of times,
maybe the most I ever have, probably close to 20 hook ups. I landed about half of them, they are just hard to land. They were hitting either egg patterns
(Estaz eggs, beads, sucker spawn) or streamers (ESL's, woolies, speys). We also caught a bunch of white suckers that ran about 5 pounds on average. They
actually put up quite a fight! You could catch all you wanted of these things.
We fished the Root again on Saturday morning but didn't do as well. We decided to head up to the Milwaukee and check that out. I went 0 for 3 on the Milwaukee and caught several huge suckers. The fish were just starting to come in. The suckers were so thick in places you couldn't fish or you'd just foul hook them every time. This was brownlining heaven! I was using a 9 wt for the steel and I thought I had a 4 wt in the truck but I left it at home, I was going to try that out on those suckers. Instead, I borrowed Rick's 6 wt and I'm glad I didn't try the 4 wt because they would have broken it immediately. They were pushing the limits of his Sage 6 wt. This was the highlight of the trip, we have some video of it. We had a ton of people stop and watch us do this, several people asked us for the fish. I think Rick got a bigger kick out of the people watching during this than the fish. Once I get the video I'll post it.
We did end up getting some pictures, when he sends them to me I'll post them. I'll be watching the rivers, if things continue I'll probably head back up there for the weekend after next. Looks like the Milwaukee is going to have alot of fish in it! The highlight of the trip was the suckers!
We fished the Root again on Saturday morning but didn't do as well. We decided to head up to the Milwaukee and check that out. I went 0 for 3 on the Milwaukee and caught several huge suckers. The fish were just starting to come in. The suckers were so thick in places you couldn't fish or you'd just foul hook them every time. This was brownlining heaven! I was using a 9 wt for the steel and I thought I had a 4 wt in the truck but I left it at home, I was going to try that out on those suckers. Instead, I borrowed Rick's 6 wt and I'm glad I didn't try the 4 wt because they would have broken it immediately. They were pushing the limits of his Sage 6 wt. This was the highlight of the trip, we have some video of it. We had a ton of people stop and watch us do this, several people asked us for the fish. I think Rick got a bigger kick out of the people watching during this than the fish. Once I get the video I'll post it.
We did end up getting some pictures, when he sends them to me I'll post them. I'll be watching the rivers, if things continue I'll probably head back up there for the weekend after next. Looks like the Milwaukee is going to have alot of fish in it! The highlight of the trip was the suckers!
