How do I fish this river?

[Rocco 0]

Try the sloping edges of the deep water in dim light -- early AM near dark PM --  with streamers and nymphs. They will come up to feed. 

Also if the FOX gets hex hatches by all means use hex nymphs and larger # 6-8 Borger strip nymphs with mobile tails.  Local small mouth here love them. 

ddb

 

[DFoster 0]

Landon look up a show called Sport Fishing On The Fly.  They're on World Fishing Network or at least they were back before our local cable provider replaced it with the Lifetime Movie "men kill them all" Network (yes I'm still bitter).   Anyway they are on youtube and I would say most of their episodes detail techniques for fly fishing in 10 to 20 feet of water. 

[Mark Knapp 0]

5 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

How would you get the fly down 80'?

I will do it with the same deep sinking line I make for deep sea fly fishing in the salt. Here's the system. fly + bite leader + 20 pound tippet + 30 feet of T20 sinking line + 90 feet of T17 sinking line + backing.

Make my best cast toward the drift ( I will be drifting with the wind), as the boat drifts toward the fly pay out line until I think the fly is at the depth I see fish on the fish finder.

A young man just caught a 20 pound lake trout on a fly in the same lake I like to fish lakers in. He was trolling it behind a canoe. The fish must have been closer to the surface than they commonly are though. I'd like to do it without trolling. In my mind, drifting is a closer match to traditional fly fishing methods than trolling is.

[Mark Knapp 0]

6 hours ago, mikechell said:

Probably true ... but we already know, you're a bit ... not right ... in the head!

😁

Yes, it's already been well established that I am abnormal. 😁

[xterrabill 0]

I was thinking you were doing something crazy like hooking it up to a downrigger, getting to depth, do a false hook set to release it and then drift.

2 hours ago, Mark Knapp said:

I am abnormal

[Mark Knapp 0]

31 minutes ago, xterrabill said:

I was thinking you were doing something crazy like hooking it up to a downrigger, getting to depth, do a false hook set to release it and then drift.

I suppose that would work for short drifts. Because of drift, (the lake is always a little windy), the fly would soon flag high in the water column without a good sinking line.

Also, the use of down riggers and any extra weight breaks MY personal rules for fly fishing. When I'm fishing conventional I would use them, no problem.

Only one other thing, my boats are all set up for fly fishing so I don't have anything like down rigger mounts and rod holders sticking up above the gunnels to mess up my casts. I also don't have any over-head rod holders to mess things up.

[xterrabill 0]

30 minutes ago, Mark Knapp said:

rules for fly fishing

I was just kidding, downrigger with a fly rod, kinda defeats the whole idea of fly fishing to me, but if I was stranded on a boat...who knows.

[Mark Knapp 0]

33 minutes ago, xterrabill said:

I was just kidding, downrigger with a fly rod, kinda defeats the whole idea of fly fishing to me, but if I was stranded on a boat...who knows.

Sometimes, it's hard to tell when someone is kidding or not when you can't see their faces. I am always taking people too seriously on forums like this.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, a lot of people try to use downriggers to get flies down to the deep water.

When I first started fishing with my buddy Rick, with whom I developed this system, he was using a downrigger to get his flies down deep in salt water. On our first day together I was trying to share with him my definition of fly fishing that doesn't include a downrigger, he was trying to set it up and broke his fly rod. That was seven years ago and we haven't used a downrigger for fly fishing since.

We do use a downrigger for conventional fishing for salmon. His boat is full of all kinds of annoying things that almost make fly fishing from it impossible. Things like rod holders, overhead rod racks, pot pullers, cleats and downrigger mounts. He's a nice guy but his boat is annoying. He and his boat are in many of my salt water fishing videos. We have a great time together.

[SilverCreek 0]

Landon,

Have you ever gone to the Badger Fly Fishers Spring Opener in Madison in February or Trout Fest in Winneconne, Wi?

https://badgerflyfishers.org/spring-opener/

https://www.cwtu.org/troutfest.htm

[Landon P 0]

31 minutes ago, SilverCreek said:

Landon,

Have you ever gone to the Badger Fly Fishers Spring Opener in Madison in February or Trout Fest in Winneconne, Wi?

https://badgerflyfishers.org/spring-opener/

https://www.cwtu.org/troutfest.htm

No neither. Really want to go to the one in Winneconne! Do you know if It will be held next year? 

[SilverCreek 0]

Kind of depends on whether there is a Covid Vaccine. I have my fingers crossed.

[Landon P 0]

6 minutes ago, SilverCreek said:

Kind of depends on whether there is a Covid Vaccine. I have my fingers crossed.

Hopefully it is still able to be held. 

[spiralspey 0]

Last time I was in Wisconsin a guy in the fly shop in Brookfield recommended the Fox at Waterford or Rochester. Fish below the dams there, where you can wade and there's some current. I'd swing and strip a bugger or a crawfish pattern, there's some nice smallies in there. There's a lot of weeds drifting down the river from Lake Tichigan, but the fish don't mind. 

I grew up fishing the Milwaukee R, and several other rivers, a little north of the city. I much prefer the water in that direction.

[vicente 0]

If you don't have a sinking or sink tip line you can add a versa leader to your regular one it will add a bit of wt so you will be overlined but they work well. 

Disc golf is one of my favorite pastimes, I don't get to play much anymore but used to play my fair share of tournaments.