The Highs And The Lows; or, Losing The Fish of The Season

I had one of my best days, if not my best day, of the season fishing for smallmouth in the Milwaukee River earlier this week.  I got up early Thursday morning to fish the same stretch hoping for similar results.  Instead of fish on back to back casts, I got the skunk.

It was cold that morning, mid 50s.  The water was in the 70s, and as high as it was Monday morning with a similar rate of flow.  It was actually relieving to escape the coolness of the air by wading wet in the warm water.

The wild card seems to be water clarity and multiple hatches.  I'm not sure why the water was cloudier Thursday than it was Monday right after the rain.  Maybe it just takes all the silt that long to wash downstream from the headwaters.  There were little white mayflies and tricos everywhere.  The bass may have fed on the hatches all night.

I found a pool with what I thought were fish feeding on the surface, but learned that they were carp.  I made a few casts into the pool and hoped for the best, but... I continued down to the same spot I caught so many fish earlier but never even had a strike.

I made my way back up and fished one final pool, a pool that is usually good for a fish or two.  On my first cast I had a strike and a good hookset.  But this was a big fish that I never got the upper hand on.  I had a hard time pulling the fish from its lie with my five weight.  When I finally got it out of the pool it rose near the surface.  I saw a flash of green through the cloudy water, so I'm sure I had a decent sized northern pike on.  Once it was out of the pool, then the fish let me know I was not even close to having the upper hand. my reel hissed as the fish peeled off line, making a beeline for the weeds.  My line tangled, the fish broke my 5X tippet easily.

The streams will probably not be great for fishing for a while with the rain we are expected to get over the next few days.  On the plus side, if the weather stays cool, overcast and rainy too much longer, we might see an early salmon run!

How To Tie a Woolly Bugger

If you are only going to learn to tie one fly, it should probably be the Woolly Bugger.  I know that I can approach any body of water that holds fish anywhere in the world, tie on a size 10 Woolly Bugger and have a pretty good chance at catching a fish.  They are pretty simple to tie, and easy to modify with various materials.  Once you learn how to tie a Woolly Bugger, you can easily tie an Egg Sucking Leech, which is a productive fly for steelhead and other anadromous species in the Great Lakes.

Below is an 8 minute video on how to tie a size 10 black bead head Woolly Bugger.

If you're new to fly tying, I have a post about commonly used tools and materials, and another post demonstrating basic fly tying techniques.

I usually tie a size 10 Woolly Bugger for stream trout and panfish.  If I'm  going for smallmouth,  I usually start with a size 8, if I have a lot of short strikes, I'll go to a 10.  I usually tie size 6 Woolly Buggers for largemouth bass and for salmon migrating up the streams.

Sometimes I'll tie black Woolly Buggers with grizzly hackle instead of black.  I almost always tie olive Woolly Buggers with grizzly hackle.  The olive dye from the marabou will leach into the lighter grizzly hackle and make for an interesting fly.  A few strands of Flashabou in the tail of your buggers may increase their attraction.

Here are some Woolly Buggers and variations I've tied this year.

Size 6 conehead 

Size 6 beadhead with Flashabou

Size 10 Egg Sucking Leech

Size 10 Force Choking Leech, a fly of
my own design.

Here are some fish I've caught on Woolly Buggers.

Summer 2012, Minnesota's Otter Tail River 

fall 2007, Otter Tail.  Biggest smallmouth I've
ever caught

Grizzly hackle bugger, Milwaukee

Milwaukee River smallmouth

Olive and grizzly bugger, Milwaukee

That's a nice Milwaukee River Smallmouth
caught within city limits

Nice rock bass, Milwaukee River

Chinook salmon from the Menomonee

See the Bugger in her mouth?

If I were only going to carry one fly, it would be a black Woolly Bugger, they are just so effective for so many species of fish!  They are kind of like the fly fishing version of the Mister Twister curly tail grub.

feel free to ask any questions, have fun!

I Don't Know How Much Longer I Can Hold This

All this time we've lived in our new apartment, I would always go upstream to fish the more natural stretches of the Menomonee River.  Keep in mind, "more natural" is a relative term, meaning, much less concrete and spray paint.

I had errands to run, which brought me near a park along the Menomonee about two miles farther downstream from where I usually fish.  I parked my car, got my gear,  jumped the wall, and saw fish everywhere.  Suckers, salmon and pike all over among the piles of "evidence" of so many unsolved, possibly unreported crimes.  Fish finding cover amongst skateboards, refrigerators, a stop sign, construction barrels, bicycles, chef's knives, chef's knives?  CHEF'S KNIVES!  I start casting, but it's a tough crowd.  The pike are amongst the suckers, why would they chase a swimbait?  I walked a ways up and down stream, amazed by the size of the fish I saw, but time was short, and after this, I knew where to find fish.  This kind of water is all new to me!  It reminds me of the motorcycle chase scene from Terminator 2.  The lower urban stretch is still within walking distance, I've always just been walking the wrong way, a return trip would be necessary.

A pair of northern pike.

Click to enlarge.

The weekend found me in the concrete canyon of the lower stretch of the Menomonee River an awful lot.  I had never seen another person down there, but apparently the word is out that the autumn salmon run has begun, despite the catastrophically low water levels.  Instinct can overcome low water, log jams, even miles of concrete and mounds of forensic evidence.  I wasn't ready to fish, I was just there to observe, as were many others.  I only saw one guy catch a fish, a beautiful female.  Saturday evening while walking with my baby in the carrier, we found a sweet fossil.  Weekends are always crazy for salmon fishing, I waited to wet my line until monday.

This guy caught her on a spawn sack.

Pretty awesome trilobite fossil.

Catching a salmon on a fly was something I've always wanted to do, so I tied some egg sucking leeches over the weekend.  I waited until mid morning to hit the stream with my gear, there were salmon everywhere -- and I had the stream to myself.  It wasn't long before I was hooked up with a big female.  She was tired, but still had some spirit!  I landed her and released her above the rapids she was struggling to get over.  A male followed, also released above the rapids.  The third fish fought the hardest; a nice male that ran downstream, forcing me into a thousand yard chase; the concrete bank makes for a great sidewalk.  The fish eventually tired and came in.

One of my hand tied #6 egg sucking leeches.

Fish on!

Nice female

Not as pretty as the female.

Action shot, I was just along for the
ride with this guy.

I love the color of
a spawning male

Resusitating the fish.

Such a beautiful sight, seeing
him swim away,

Three fish landed on the fly, three fish released.  What a great way to start the week.  I followed it up by catching and releasing three more Tuesday on spinning tackle with my baby girl, landing two of them by hand.  All of them were caught on Thundersticks.  One had a gold Little Cleo stuck in its tail that I took out.  Wednesday, I caught and kept a 34" female.  Seven fish in three days, those accomplishments are coming along pretty nicely.

34" salmon 

Achievements unlocked

1. (*) Gold Hook (Catch a game fish over the minimum length requirement)
2. (*) Baby Bear (Catch a member of the family: Salmonidae)
3. (*) Mama Bear (Catch a member of the family: Salmonidae that measures over 30")

ITEM Pickups

1. GOLDEN LITTLE CLEO
2. TRILOBITE FOSSIL

A New Hope

Eventually, there will be a time when you're out fishing and you just aren't catching anything!  It's really not that big of a deal, you know?  The worst day fishing is better than the best day at work, am I right?  Nonetheless, getting skunked is a bummer.  It's gonna happen from time to time, but you have a secret weapon, you have (or at least you should have) a rarely used Mepps spinner!  I like to keep at least two at all times, a shiny one, like silver or brass, and a brightly colored one, like Firetiger (orange/yellow/green).  The Aglia comes in sizes 0-5, and is the best known Mepps spinner, but there are other lesser known models that are super effective (like Charizard using Inferno on Paras) for some particular species.  The only setback to Mepps spinners is the price.  They usually run about $5.00 for a number five, and they get cheaper as they get smaller,  and assortments of five will cost over $20.00.  There's a reason they're this expensive, they work!  And really, that's a fairly average price for most lures.  Sometimes you'll find some off the wall color on sale, like my pink one pictured below.  Don't question the color, just buy it!

A collection of Mepps lures.

My current Mepps Aglia stash.

Nice Lake Michigan brown trout, note
the lateral line in the glare.
(Click to enlarge)

In order to know what makes Mepps spinners so effective, you need to know a little about fish anatomy.  Fish have an additional sense to the five senses we have, actually, it's more of a hybrid sense combined of several senses from how I understand it.  The receptive organ for this "sixth sense" is the  lateral line, it can be seen easily on most fish once you realize it's there.  It runs from just behind the gills to the base of the tail.  This organ helps the fish with spatial awareness when traveling in schools or when tracking prey.  It detects electrical impulses caused by muscle movement of other fish, and it detects vibrations caused by water being displaced, almost as if a fish could "feel" outside of its own body, and "feel" sound.  The Mepps spinner blade spins rapidly as the lure is retrieved, causing a lot of vibration and displacement in the water.  So you got the vibration stimulating the lateral line, and then the blade will flash very brightly, triggering a visual reaction, And I'm sure there is all kinds of noise coming from the blade as well.  The triggering of these senses almost seems to initiate a striking instinct.  Even fish that aren't feeding may chase down and attack a spinner.  Some people say that the blade doesn't have to be spinning to initiate a strike, and I'm sure that's true-- but it's like using a fully loaded Desert Eagle to melee someone to death, why wouldn't you just shoot them? Here's a brief story about a time I witnessed a pike chasing my lure.

One time, I was retrieving a spinner off the breakwater in Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, and as it became shallow enough to see, I spotted a pike giving chase!  The lure was almost reeled all the way in, so I slowed my retrieval to allow the pike to catch up.  As it slowed, the blade stopped spinning, the lure started to sink, and the pike stopped dead in the water, six inches from the lure.  I decided to really rip it hard, get that blade cranking as hard as it could, The pike lunged like a lightning bolt and grabbed the lure like it couldn't control itself, the spinning of the blade drove the pike into a frenzy!

 In  a trout stream, choose a small Aglia, a 2 or smaller.  In slower currents, cast upstream and reel back fast enough to spin the blade, you will feel the blade start spinning.  Reel it over submerged boulders and other cover.  You can cast across the current ahead of a pool and let it drift through, the current will make the blade spin as it swings through the pool.  You can use these same techniques in smallmouth streams, but you might want to use a bigger size.  I usually use a size 3 for smallmouth.

An assortment of Aglias

In inland lakes, choose a size 4 or 5 for largemouth bass and pike.  Mepps makes a huge spinner (sizes 6-7) for musky, called the Musky Killer.  It looks like a squirrel hanging from a remote controlled helicopter!  I just stick to the standard sizes.  If you're fishing for panfish, a size three or smaller should do the trick.  My step-grandpa was an avid fisherman, and he loved the Mepps Comet Mino for Pentwater Lake smallmouth bass.

A Musky Killer, measuring
5.5 inches long!

Mepps Comet Mino.
(R.I.P. Grandpa Joe)

In Lake Michigan, and the channels, a size 5 might work for salmon when nothing else will. My dad loves to tell a story of a time he was fishing for salmon off the south pier of the Muskegon Lake Channel during the early 80's.  During the salmon run, guys will fish shoulder to shoulder on the pier.  My dad found a spot on the rocks and saw that everyone was casting spoons with no success.  He tied on a number 5 Aglia and limited out in like a half hour!  He said guys were offering him hand fulls of cash for his Mepps as he walked back with a cooler full of big salmon; to this day, I don't think he goes out without at least one.  I'll even cast a size 5 along the channel rocks, big rock bass will strike a number five.  There was this one partly cloudy day that I was fishing the rocks and just killing the rock bass with a brass number 5.  The sun disappeared behind the clouds, and they just stopped biting.  So what I did then was tie on a size 5 Firetiger and killed 'em again, until the sun came out.  That's why I keep a shiny one and a brightly colored one.  The shiny ones seem better in the sun, the bright colors work under clouds.  So all that day I kept switching colors, depending on the conditions.  I kept eight rock bass between six and nine inches that day and threw at least that many smaller ones back.

So, next time you're out fishing and just not catching anything, open up your tackle box, reach for your brand new unopened size 1 Aglia and say "help me number one, you're our only hope," and start fishing in an epic way!

Keep Calm And Carry Wildeye Swim Baits

I’m positive that you will enhance your fishing experience once you’ve gotten the hang of fishing with curly tail grubs.  When you fish with live bait, the bait does the fishing, but when you fish artificials, you do the do the fishing by making the lure resemble something they want to eat; you have to know how the fish think.  The next fishing lure every angler needs in their tackle box uses the slogan, “Think Like A Fish,” it’s the Storm Wildeye Swimbait.  They are soft plastic bodies molded around an internal weight.  There are some pros and cons to these lures, let’s just get the cons out of the way and then we will be free to discuss how truly awesome these things are.

My current Wildeye collection.  Note the sunfish
on the right with the missing tail.

Most Wildeye Swimbaits have a single dorsal (back) hook and a ventral (belly) treble hook.  The treble hook tends to get snagged a lot.  When fishing in areas with a lot of snags, you can take the treble hook off; it’s only attached with a split ring.  The lure isn’t quite as effective without the treble hook, but it’s better to lose fish than to lose lures.  Also, a big fish tends to wreck these lures in a fight.  The soft portion may be torn from the solid center, the tail may be bitten off, or the lead weight may be knocked loose from the dorsal hook.  Honestly, any fish you can catch that’s big enough to wreck a lure is something to be proud of.  Release the fish, and keep the lure as a trophy.  And the final issue has to do with quality control.  Sometimes you will get a lure that won’t swim straight, or the tail won’t move during the retrieval.  I’m not sure if it’s the packaging or the production.

Ventral hook removed.

Despite these setbacks, Wildeyes are amazing lures!  They are usually sold in packs of three, and usually cost around $5.00.  They are shaped and painted in many different body styles to resemble a wide variety of small fish that big fish eat, so these things attract just about any kind of fish that may occasionally eat smaller fish, and they are pretty easy to use, just cast out and reel in.  The tail paddles on the retrieve making it look like a swimming bait fish, hence the name swimbait.  You don’t have to work too hard to impart action into the lure, since the tail does it for you.  The final reason you should have Wildeye Swimbaits in your tackle box is because of the size of the fish they catch.  I am consistently shocked by the monsterous fish caught on these!  The smallest fish caught with these was a 10” musky while bass fishing; to this day, it was the only musky i’ve ever caught.  Here’s my list of fish caught on Wildeye Swimbaits.

• carp
• chinook salmon
• freshwater drum (sheephead)
• largemouth bass
• muskellunge
• northern pike
• rock bass
• smallmouth bass
• splake (brook trout X lake trout hybrid)

Suspending Wildeye
Swim Shad.

In streams for smallmouth bass, I like to use a suspending Swim Shad much like I’d use a Mister Twister.  Cast upstream ahead of pools, or along cover likely to hold fish.  The suspending Swim Shad sinks ever so slowly as the current carries it through the pool and into the mouths of hungry fish.  When I “Think Like A Fish,” I imagine the bass think it’s a dazed minnow, and they can’t pass it up!

In the Great Lakes region, when the salmon are running up the streams in late summer, I like to cast a weighted walleye Wildeye (walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye, walleye Wildeye) into deep holes just before dusk.  The eyes of the walleye pattern glow in the dark, and this drives the salmon crazy, and they will strike out of anger!  A lot of times there will be deep holes under overpasses that hold big chinook.  If you’re ever driving over a bridge in the fall and notice cars parked all along it, chances are pretty good that the salmon are running.

West Michigan's White River under the countyline bridge.

White River from the bridge.

This beautiful chinook took a Wildeye walleye.

My cute little wife talks to seagulls
along the inner Muskegon Channel pier.

Another place I love Wildeye Swimbaits is deep channels and harbors.  Use a sunfish pattern; you can cast them along the rocks of the breakwater and reel them back in to try to lure out largemouth or pike.  You’ll want to retrieve right away when the lure hits the water to avoid getting hung up on rocks and driftwood.  Fishing along the rocks is fun and effective, but what I usually do in the channels and harbors is cast out as far as I can and let it sink to the bottom.  Reel back just fast enough to make the tail move, give some little rod tip twitches, and HOLD ON!  You’ll never know what you’re going to catch, but you’ll definitely know when a fish is on.  I caught so many big sheephead out of the Muskegon Lake Channel on these.  I know sheephead are not the most sought after fish, even considered “rough fish” (more on rough fish in a later update) but they are among the strongest fish I have ever caught!  The long casting technique was how I was fishing when I caught a 24” splake. Such a beautiful fish, and I didn’t have a camera with me.

In Great Lakes marinas, like Milwaukee’s McKinley Marina there are usually some nice fish, like bass, brown trout, carp, pike, walleye, and in the fall, salmon, but lots of snags.  If you get hung up, make a mental note of it.  You don’t want to lose your lure on a picnic table that someone used for ice fishing that didn’t get removed before the thaw, but it probably provides cover for a really nice bass, be careful!  Fish love the shade provided by docks, and the shoreline has some nice rocks for cover.  “Think Like A Fish” and have fun, I bet you can figure it out!

even carp will strike these! notice the sunfish
Wildeye in his mouth.

same fish, Mckinley Marina, 2010

There is one more lure that everyone needs in their tackle box that I will talk about in my next post.  It’s sort of a last resort, when you don’t know what the fish will strike, you’ll be glad to have this Jedi Master of a lure in your arsenal.  Hope the suspense doesn’t kill you!

The Straight Talk on Curly Tail Grubs

My collection.

The first lure that every angler needs is the Mister Twister Curly Tail Grub.  Mister Twisters are very natural appearing soft plastic and the slightest movement in the water will cause lifelike motion in the tail.  You can get a package of 20 Mister Twisters for around $3.00, there are also variety packs with several colors.  You’ll need to buy jig heads as well but those are also super cheap.

Since you have to rig Mister Twisters yourself, they are highly customizable.  You can get heads painted in colors that stand out from the color of the lure, or heads that have eyes painted on them.  I usually get very small unpainted jig heads.  Mister Twisters come in many colors, with the most effective being chartreuse flake, pumpkin pepper, purple, and black, but they are all good.

purple, pumpkin pepper,
and chartreuse flake.  I
ran all out of black.

When rigging, make sure the hook
goes the opposite way of
the tail.

Rigged like this, the tail is more
likely to get hung up 
on the hook.

The most amazing thing about Mister Twisters is that they catch just about anything!  Here is a list of fish I have caught on them.

• Bluegill
• Sunfish
• Crappie
• perch
• rock bass
• bullhead
• creek chub
• smallmouth bass
• largemouth bass
• northern pike
• walleye
• sucker
• carp

When fishing in a bass stream or river, I like to use the smallest jig head I can cast.  Cast them up and across the current to the head of a deeper pocket, or just alongside cover likely to hold fish.  The lighter head makes the lure sink very slowly and naturally in the moving water.  I retrieve the line just fast enough to keep it tight while my lure bounces across the bottom, and if the line goes tight, set the hook!  In the Milwaukee, I’ve caught many smallmouth, some nice rock bass, one 24” carp, and even walleye using this method.  One day earlier this summer, my dad and I caught about 40 fish in the Milwaukee River in just a few morning hours.  My dad borrowed my spinning rod and used Mister Twisters, I used my fly rod and Woolly Buggers.  It was seriously like video game fishing!

Smallmouth on a hand tied Woolly Bugger while
fishing with dad.

One of dad's smallmouths on a
Mister Twister

Nice one!

Nice sized rock bass on the fly.

Beautiful fish.

Rock bass on a Mister Twister.

Chartreuse flake FTW!

When I lived in Michigan, I would fish the rocky walls of the Muskegon Lake Channel using Mister Twisters under a float with good success.  In this situation, a bigger jig head can be used.  The float would go about 4’ above the lure, then cast almost parallel to the rock wall.  The ebb and flow of the water between Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake will keep your float and lure moving along the rocks while the waves give it vertical motion.  The lure will present itself to spaces between the rocks and dark hollows where panfish, largemouth bass and rock bass love to hide.  If your float disappears under the water, set the hook!  This technique also works along the rocks in Veteran’s Park in Milwaukee, or out on the rocky section of the breakwater, and even right in front of the Milwaukee Art Museum!  Don’t be afraid to climb out on the rocks, find one that looks fairly level and sturdy and make it your home.

A dreary summer day under the Art Museum

The wings of the museum close and open at noon.

This big perch took a black Mister Twister

The rocks along Veteran's Park with
the breakwater in the background.
So much cover for fish.

When I'm in Michigan, My dad, my brothers and I would go out in my dad’s fishing boat and fish in inland lakes.  Most of the time we’d go to Twin Lake on weekday evenings.  Twin Lake is close to home and not too big, so it doesn’t get a lot of fishing pressure during the week.  On the water, you simply cast your line out, then let the breeze push the boat.  You can give your lure some twitches by lifting the tip of your rod occasionally, but a lot of times, that isn’t even necessary.  Largemouth bass or northern pike won’t hesitate to suck up a purple Mister Twister just crawling by at a snail’s pace.  When Kyle, my youngest brother was just a little toddler, we wanted him to feel like he was fishing.  What we did was gave him a yard sale kid’s rod with a brown Mister Twister on a huge orange jig head (we called them “pumpkin heads”) and let his line drop about 8’ below the surface, just to make him feel like he was fishing.  The waves kept his lure moving up and down, and wouldn’t you know it, he caught the biggest bass of the day “pretending to fish.”  It must have been 17” long!  Poor little boy, it scared the crap out of him!  I still remember him crying out “Put that whale back!”  

Magician Lake.  Kyle's all grown up now.  My dad and my other
brother Shane in the background.

If you don’t have access to a boat, fishing from shore is still a lot of fun.  Cast toward docks, lily pads, downed trees, anything that gives fish cover.  You can also just cast out and steady retrieve your line back in, big bluegill will give chase!

Because of their affordable price and effectiveness for so many species, if you are only going to fish with one artificial lure, Mister Twisters are the one.  But i’m betting, once you get into fishing with artificials, you’ll be hooked!