Trip Report

Trip Report:

7/2/09

2:00 pm: Depart La Crosse, WI

4:00 pm Arrive at Turkey River and fish with John, catch a couple of 10” rainbows in very turbid waters.

5:00 pm: John and I eat 1 pound of beef, two rainbows, and some deritos.

6:00-9:00 fish Turkey river more, catch a couple more rainbows.

9:00-12:30-Campfire with John, topic of conversation: how good the fishing will be tomorrow at a different, less turbid creek.

Observations on the Turkey River: The Turkey River is a very large warmwater stream. But there is a spring at one of the margins of the river, which the Iowa DNR use for a water supply for a hatchery (Big Springs Hatchery). They then release the water into the Turkey and also stock it with trout. There were plenty of trout in the river to be sure, but the water was turbid, and the good trout fishing looks to be limited to near the hatchery (and most people seem to know that-crowded)-probably won’t go back.

7/3/09

5:30: Breakfast with John, coffee, and egg-sausage-cheese-bagel sandwiches (good).

7:30 arrive at Sny McGill and fish till noon. Climb up high into the creek, past poison ivy, nettles, cow parsnip and get into some nice brown trout. John catches a 15 inch brown out of a classic run, about 2 feet wide. John dropped his fly right on it and landed the fish, very nice. Move even farther up river and John gets a 14 incher and I another 14 incher, the biggest fish of the trip-brown and copper buggers.

12:00 lunch: cold coors light and two rainbow trout on bagels with cream cheese, deritos.

1:00-3:00 fish lower Sny McGill, catch a few fish, river looks nice, but fishing slow.

4:30: arrive at Yellow River State forest in Iowa at Big and Little Paint Creeks.  Eat a pound of beef, deritos and beer.

6:00-9:00 fish big paint creek, catch a couple of small rainbows-fishing sucked, Big paint creek is a total bust-needs severe habitat work and probably watershed conservation practices. Get chased by a bull.

9:00-11:00 fire with John: topic of conversation: how tired we are.

7/4/09

5:30: Breakfast with John, coffee, and egg-sausage-cheese-bagel sandwiches (good).

6:30: Depart Yellow River State forest for Wisconsin, John heads home.

Observations on Iowa trout fishing. Most people don’t know or respect Iowa as a state with good trout fishing. But it has some really nice streams, some with natural reproduction. Sny McGill might have natural reproduction, but certainly had some big browns. Other rivers need major habitat work to reduce the amount of in-stream erosion. Removing cattle from the river banks could help Big Paint out a lot. Iowa spends a lot of money on stocking fish, perhaps they should stop stocking some streams and fix them up first. The future for trout fishing in Iowa is bright because the DNR and fisherpeople are just now learning about what a valuable resource they have in cold water streams. 

7:30: Arrive at Big Green River in Wisconsin (near Fennimore in Grant County) and fish till 12:30. The Big Green is awesome was a drastically different river than Big Paint in Iowa. , runs, riffles, holes everywhere and fish in just about all of them. Cold and clear water with plenty of submersed vegetation-good instream production.  Caught fish on streamers for a bit and them on beetles with rubber legs on the surface for hours. Biggest fish were a 12 inch rainbow and a 12 inch brown, but most fish caught were larger than 8 inches. In hindsight, I should have spent more time here. Of the 11 or so miles of good trout water I maybe fished 1.5 of them. Too many places for fish to hid. I think the folks from Chicago know about this one because I noted several overly large and far too shiney SUV’s with Illinois plates parked along the river.

1:00 lunch in downtown Boscobel, cooked brats on my camp stove while the 4^th of July parade went by-serendipity.

2:00-4:00: Fished Crooked Creek just outside of Boscobel. Cooked creek was the essence of a spring creek. Water as literally seeping up out of the floor of the river. It was probably 3-4 feet across in most places and at least that deep. Water was very clear and I spooked more fish than  I caught. But by spooking them, I knew they were there, and there were many. I caught a dozen or so small brown trout on streamers, nothing larger than 10 inches.

5:00 Drove north across the Wisconsin River to Eagle Cave Campground in Richland county to set up camp. Observations on Grant County: Awesome place, steep wooded valleys and beautiful meandering streams. Note to self, find a job in Prairie du Chien.

5:30 set up camp next to some rednecks. Quick supper, finished the deritos and on the road to scout some streams.

6:00-7:00: Drive by Ash creek and west branch of so and so creek, not impressed-sandy, lacking depth and structure.

7:00-9:00: found Knapp creek and fished it till close to dark. Knapp was small where I fished it, but gave up a few nice fish. I caught all fish on a black beetle with rubber legs. Best fish was a 12 incher that took my beetle and ran upriver. I thought it was snagged because fish don’t typically try to run upriver unless they are snagged. The fish took me up stream around the corner of the run I was fishing. I thought it was going to be bigger than 12 inches. Probably the hardest fighting fish (pound for pound) of any fish I’ve caught. All the fish from Knapp fought hard.

9:30: back to camp, tied more beetles and some ants to the sound of fireworks in the distance. 

7/5/09

5:30 finished the eggs and coffee I brought for breakfast, packed up tent for last time.

6:30-12:00 fished Camp Creek in Northwest Richland county. Small water with small fish, flowing through a meadow with tall grass caught close to two dozen small (less than 10 inch) fish on beetles. Fun, but hot, the sun came out early for the first time in days. Put the fish down.

Observations on Richland County: remote. For being smack in the middle of the US, it feels like you are in the middle of nowhere. The valley floors are so flat and frequent to flooding that there don’t seem to be that many homes built, some agriculture-but that seems to be limited to floodplains. The bluffs are so steep here. Ones choice for living seems to be the floodplain or the side of a mountain-everyone has chosen the floodplain so far. Good trout fishing here, many more streams to explore.  There are big fish in portions of these streams, the methods I used (mainly dry flies) didn’t really provide the same big fish opportunities that fishing a streamer deep would have.

1:00 Brats and my last coors for lunch at West Fork Sportsmens club in Vernon county. Fished West Branch Kickappoo (a river I’ve fish a number of time and know well). Oddly, of all the rivers I fished, this is the only one I didn’t catch a trout at. High and hot sun put the tout down. Caught 4 creek chubs and drove north to La Crosse. 

All-in-all a good trip. I wanted to explore some new water and I did. Looking back, I wish I would have spent more time at some streams, like Sny McGill in Iowa and The Big Green in Wisconsin, and less time at others, but I suppose that’s how you learn.