The first of May was such a gorgeous day. I had to get out and do some fishing while the weather was still nice. Currently, we are down to one car. My wife had taken it to work, so I had to stay local and take my baby girl with me.
I don't fly fish when I fish with my little girl, so I gathered up a few lures that work in most situations-- a Mepps assortment in case I saw steelhead, and Mister Twisters for everything else-- and packed them into my fly vest.
I put my girl in the carrier, and we walked out our front door and down into the Menomonee Valley. The river is supposed to undergo improvements to restore it to a more natural state, but for now, it's as urban as it gets. It appears more as a sewage ditch than a naturally appearing ancient river that used to support Native American life with abundant wild rice.
I continued downstream, casually casting to the heads of schools of suckers, letting my jig swing through, just as you would with a Woolly Bugger. A cast toward nothing in particular (there isn't a lot of cover in this particular stretch) resulted in a tremendous strike. I thought it could have been a northern, or a bigger sucker, possibly a steelhead. But as the fish tired and came in, I saw that it was, in fact, a nice sized smallmouth bass. I actually yelled out loud "It's a smallmouth!" This was a first for me in the Menomonee River. I guess nobody told him that bass season opens this upcoming weekend, oops!
We continued to walk a ways. We saw tons of suckers, half a dozen small pike, scores of carp, and a snapping turtle the size of a spare tire. Not one steelhead though.
My Little Cleo was getting tired of fishing, so we started for home.
 |
| My Little Cleo plays in the dirt, Miller Brewery in the background |
One thing I love about urban fishing, the element of mystery and surprise. I never expected to catch that smallmouth in the concrete.
For more information on the Menomonee Valley, check this link.
No comments:
Post a Comment