Pushing My Way Through The Winter Season

I've stopped asking myself why I subject my digits to being wet and frozen this time of the year. Amidst the icy eyelets, frozen reels and uncomfortable winter clothing, I've already had some special moments during this early season.

A Very Large Canine

A couple of weekends ago, while fishing some brook trout water in central Richland County, I stumbled into some unusual animal tracks. In the snow, a trout fisherman will find all manner of deer, raccoon, possum, rabbit, sasquatch...just, all kinds of tracks. But these tracks gave me pause. I didn't want to immediately tell myself that these were wolf tracks like some nieve tourist, but I do believe now that this was the case. I've passed photos of them by a number of friends and folks who live in the area and are knowledgable about these things and they do indeed appear to be wolf tracks.

Tracks (likely wolf) in Richland County

The 2013 Wisconsin Inland Trout Season Begins!

Cough! Hack! Sorry, this blog has collected a bit of dust since my last post about Iowa or wherever. But it's time to bring things back to life. The 2013 WI trout season has arrived!

Temps where in the mid to upper 20s this weekend, but the sun was bright and the wind was minimal. Given the slow bite this time of year, I chose to stick close to home and started on streams last saturday, the opener, that were in or near Sauk county.

My plan was to hit some deeper holes on the Melancthon, then head back towards home fishing the next valley over, Willow Creek and then the final valley, Bear Creek. But there would be no time for Bear. Melancthon also had to be removed form the mix. My target spots all had too much ice on them.

Fortunately, not too far away was the West Branch of Pine River. I went to an area I was familiar with and proceeded to catch a nice brown on my 5th cast of the new season!

First fish of the new season! Caught by stripping a #6 marabou tailed, cone headed, weighted bunny leech.

The reality of fishing this time of year