First Musky on the Fly for the Season

We have been hitting the St Croix a bunch lately.  Even though water is a little high the clarity has been good and it's warmer than the Namekagon.  Brian and I hit it Memorial Day weekend and even though the day finished pretty slow, it started great.  A 30 inch musky started the day off on a chartreuse sculpin I tied for such an occasion.

Minutes later and slow moving 19 inch smallie hit the same fly.

 

Not pictured is the pike (Brian likey big pikey) caught on the same fly.  I'm sending it to one of the main fly companies for it to go into full production.  Brian got the St Croix Grand Slam on the same fly - I don't know how we didn't touch a walleye dredging the thing.  That would have been amazing - maybe next year.

 

Last weekend we hit the section up by T and caught some big girl SMBs. 



As you can see from the photo - the boys were with me.  I don't know why I think every year it works to take 4 people, 2 of which are little boys, out in the boat.  At least they weren't bugging mom.

 

Fish are starting to move a little more - nothing on topwater yet but I assume that will be changing pretty quickly. 





Driftboat Season Underway

Started the season off last weekend with two full days of floating the Namekagon and St Croix.  There were high hopes but quickly it was realized that the late spring has delayed everything.

We started with a short float by County Rd T which had pretty good clarity.  The gauge at Riverside said 3,030 but that includes the Totagatic which was dumping a ton of water to fix the dam and the Namkagon which was dumping a bunch of water from late snow storms. 

Nothing - Matt had a walleye strike but that was it.

We then floated the Namekagon for 10 miles.  The river was moving very quickly but still had that clear clarity we love.  We switched to a jig with some plastic to try and get down and find a walleye or two since the smallies weren't around and musky is closed.

Matt caught the largest redhorse sucker I've ever seen on the jig.

We floated the Namekagon 10 miles in about 5 hours - record time. 

We went back to float the same stretch of the St Croix thinking the warm sun might have helped.  One pike and this small musky.  Matt caught it on a tiny Rapala.

On the St Croix the following day the winds were in the 20+ mph range - but at least at the back of the driftboat.  One lowly pike at the take out.

We'll be out again for Memorial Day - probably will be epic with about every warmwater species in the post spawn eating frenzy at once.  Or at least that's what comforts me from 2 fishless days.

Florida Trip

 

Why didn't I do a post on my Florida flats day trip sooner?  Because it didn't go well that's why.  It seemed like a great day, warm, nice and sunny, tide coming in, fish moving - but 25 mph winds.  It was really difficult to sight fish through the 1 ft chop let alone put a fly where I wanted it.  I had shots at fish - and I missed takes.  But basically I landed one small redfish and a flounder on the clouser.  It was cool but not getting fish is tough.

 

The next day a couple of guys from the wedding and I took a 65ft charter out 15 miles into the Gulf.  It was simple and we caught lots of fish - mainly gray snapper and porgey but there was all sorts of crazy stuff brought up from the bottom.

 

Other than that I'm just tying flies and waiting for the Fly Fish Film Tour Friday February 1st.  We have 20 guys going - should be fun - maybe I'll win a new rod.

Musky Fly Time

It's winter now and I've been working on some great musky flies.  But before I get to that - take a look at this video I was slow on uploading.  This was a 36 incher caught on the Namekagon in late October.

Underwater Musky Release from >Charles Metzig on Vimeo.

I've been working on a bunch of musky flies.  Most the Supercharger by Jared Ehlers - here's a pic.

 

You do go through an entire packet of Flasabou per fly.

 

Here are the video links for tying (it is pretty quick and easy).

Supercharger Part 1

Supercharger Part 2

 

Next up is spinning deer hair for heads.  But first I head to Florida for a little redfishing.



Musky on the Fly

Fished the Namekagon last Saturday for a full day float with Matt and Brian.  We had 8 musky bites on flies but only got one in the boat.  Brian had one hit and a great hook set but somehow she came unbuttoned.  The river was super clear which was expected with the lack of rain - unfortunately there was a lot to look at and Matt and I both missed fish that were on our fly next to the boat while looking at others.  In total we saw maybe 10-12 muskies and caught 3 nice pike.  This was the only photo taken (it's pretty bad) - 29 incher.  I vow to start taking better photos and not just of people holding fish.

We mainly used 6 to 9 inch minnow patterns on sink tips and the fish were active.  Honestly, just about every spot that looked like it should hold fish did. 

Sunday we did a super short float (really sweetie) on the St Croix and didn't move or even see a fish. 

Musky Maddness

Just got back from our annual trip to Lake Vermilion with the work guys.  The past 2-3 years we have really focused on muskies but have yet to get one in the boat - many close calls.  That changed this year.  This fella bit my black bucktail on the second turn of the figure-8 - 46 inches.

The next morning we started out and decided why not head back tot he same spot - got this girl on the figure-8 as well but I did it for a number of times after she lost the bucktail on the first figure-8 of the retrieve.

This one was about 47 inches.  We saw 4 other fish and Matt had one bite right at the boat and turn but the fish missed - it wasn't Matt.  Basically all fish where moved on double-bladed bucktails - it was great.

We also had some decent walleye action and were a fish shy of limiting out the first day in about 3 hours of fishing and had to throw back 3 19 inchers out of the slot. 

Vermilion is awesome with tons of islands and structure to cast too.  We saw fish in a bunch of spots and it really built our confidence to finally get one in the boat.  I can't wait for next year.

I two weeks we'll switch back to the drift boat for Namekagon and St Croix musky floats.  This low water should really concentrate the fish.

Klickitat Steelhead

Brian and I are back from fishing the Klickitat River in South Central Washington and it was epic.  We fished for two days at the Steelhead Range owned by Jack and Jen Mitchell (http://theeveninghatch.com/Klickitat.htm).

The Klickitat starts from the glacier on Mt. Adams which you can see from the ranch.

This time of year the fishing gets more consistent but it can be hit or miss with visibility depending on the weather for the glacier.  The river itself was really cool.  In total we covered somewhere around 27 miles.  Parts of it were pretty dicey and I was glad I wasn't rowing.  While we were there the flows were around 900 cfs, Jeff and the crew told us it hit 60,000 cfs this spring and there were significant changes from last year.

The fishing for the most part was really easy.  We would float down and look for the troughs, buckets and slots which basically were different color than the rest because it was deeper.  We had 7 and 8wts rigged with a nymph and an egg under a big indicator and let it ride.  The takes we slow and easy but after that it was anyones' guess how crazy the fish would go. 

The guy in the front of the boat did have an advantage.  In the first 45 minutes of fishing I hooked and landed 3.  Very quickly the trip was exceeding expectations.  The picture above is me with the "Corbra" aka Jonny.

One of the best parts is that we were wet wadding.  Even though I have about $2,000 in Simms waders I really like wearing shorts and sandals when fishing.  It was cool in the morning and at night but otherwise the 50+degree water was fine.



 The wild (unclipped fish) you are not supposed to take out of the water, hence the belly in for the photos.

I botched the picture of Brian with this 20+lb Chinook

And I botched this one (my bad Brian) - here he is with Kevin and nice wild fish.

We hooked almost 30 fish in 2 days and landed at least 20.  We were having so much fun that we stopped taking fish pictures.  It also made losing some fish that went absolutly crazy easier to handle.  Some fish just dominated us.  We even tried swing flies from spey rods too.  The fishing was great and mixing in some chunky 20+ inch whitefish (not pictured), 15 inch resident rainbows (not pictured) and about 50 smolts (also not pictured) you were able to stay in the game from 9:00 am to sun set.

I highly recommend it and I will be back.