Wisconsin, as of late has been producing some pretty nice trout, when it is not raining, which may come as a surprise to troutier parts of the country, like Montana or Pennsylvania. Surprisingly, it has also been producing a slew of country/folk singer-song writers. There are Peter Mulvey and Hayward Williams, but Jeffrey Foucault, originally of Whitewater, seems to me to be a couple levels above either of these talented gentlemen.
He put out his first album Miles From the Lightning in 2001. He has since put out two more solo records, Stripping Cane and Ghost Repeater. The former contains a song called 'Mayfly' which makes me wonder about Foucault's possible fly fishing pastime. But, it is the song 'Northbound 35' which caught my attention. Here it is (I think his resemblance to Brett Favre would have at one time brought him great fanfare in WI. Maybe that is why he now lives in Austin, Texas?)
Here is Foucault in his home venue in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin:
Every time I listen to Foucault and then hear him speak, I wonder where that singing voice comes from. He has also done an album of John Prine covers called Shoot the Moon and an album of murder ballads with Mark Erelli called Seven Curses. Here is Foucault covering John Prine's 'Billy The Bum'
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Rain, Rain Go Away...
According to the graygoatflyfishing.com, last night Western Wisconsin got six inches of rain. Some of the roads were washed out. Streams are chocolate and largely unfishable. On top of that it is 95 degrees today in Saint Paul and the dew point is 70 degrees.I feel like getting Thai for dinner.
When is gets like this I go over to the corner coffee shop, take in THEIR air conditioning (so I don't run up expenses burning out my own window unit--I live on the top floor of a three story walk up and it's equally hot in the winter when everyone has their radiator wide open.
I've been re-reading the complete catalog of novels and novellas by Jim Harrison, at least the writings that contain copious amounts of trout fishing. Here's the list:
The English Major
True North
Returning to Earth
The Woman Lit By Fireflies
Julip
The Beast God Forgot to Invent
The Summer He Didn't Die
The Farmer's Daughter
If you are also a fan of food and drinking and carousing with women then he is a good author to read. He's filthy and funny. Though his settings and material seem to point to Hemingway, Harrison seems to have more in common with Faulkner, Welty, and Flannery O'Connor. Sense of place is important as it is with those Southern authors, but unlike Hemingway whose characters seem to have deeply hidden scars, the damage in the characters of Harrison's work is plainly evident and in fact the crux of his writing seems to be more about the effects of the scars on those close to key characters rather than the scars themselves. A good comparison would be to read Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Harrison's True North, and O'Connor's Wise Blood. All the books deal with characters damaged by WWI and WWII. But, the way those scars manifest themselves is quite different. Plus, two of the three texts deal beautifully with the healing powerss of fly fishing for trout.
There you have it. Go to the library and read. Then when the sun gets low go fishing!
Here is Jim Harrison as profiled by the PBS News Hour Last Year.
Or watch it here:
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Fat Bronze Is Still To Be Found
Check out the large arachnid on the bottom right. I'm not sure if it's a wolf spider or a fishing spider--I think it is the latter. I nearly walked right into it.
I love this river but it has been running really high, and since I am on foot, it's been tough to reach the really good holding water at times and even cross back and forth to fish an entire stretch effectively. No, brutes thus far this year. Just some solid fish.
Where I've Been...
It's been a closterphobic summer. My 6'6'' fly rod has been getting most of the work. The years of focusing mostly on smallmouth have spoiled me and I don't like fishing with other anglers present, and when it comes to trout fishing near the cities it's hard to find a creek without a well worn trail along it--even on those so called quiet little streams.
Heat , Small Bugs, and Sight Fishing
I've been fishing mostly teeny tiny brookie creeks and getting small brook trout with the odd twelve incher near dark. Though, every once in a while one of these things (look left) turns up. I'm a snob. I much prefer the natives. But, a guy like this does put a bend in my short 3 weight.That's what there is to report. That is what this summer has been like--beyond a series of family related disasters.
Though the rivers north of the cities that I fish for smallmouth have either been running perilously high and skeeter infested, or low and the big fish have dropped back to larger systems, and a few have been fished out. I mean this literally. The economy in the middle of Minnesota resembles the 1930's and people are hungry. People have turned to fishing and shining deer to get by. One creek that runs crystal clear and holds, held some enormous smallmouth now has well-worn trails along its banks and nightcrawler cartons and beer cans strewn along its length. The pools where smallies were clearly visible are largely vacant. It seems that fifty years of economic prosperity (and easy credit) had brought about big boats, trolling motors, and fish finders. And, if that didn't work the seafood section at the supermarket. These rivers were largely untouched, except by a few weirdos like me.
Trout streams with their fussy browns and high densities seem to survive. That and it has been so damn hot that people don't seem to want to don their breathable Sims waders and sweat it out on the stream. Seems, nay is... The Driftless is a planty, itchy place and the heat can be miserable.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The Anonymity of the Net
On the Minnesota Trout Unlimited forum there has been quite a bit of a kerfuffle. There was tensions over Bait/Flies/Regs/HI etc.
Often when I go to the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press websites I read the articles and then glance at the comments and it is a war between Liberal/Conservative talking points. People call each other names, question patriotism, etc. Sometimes it devolves into homophobia, xenophobia, racism, elitism, classicism, "I hate your goddamn dog...."
There seems to be a certain level of comfort with saying stuff to someone you've never met, never seen.
I fly fish. I occasionally throw jigs for skittish smallies in low water. But, mostly I fly fish.
Contacting employers in an attempt to settle scores over bait/flies debates is silly. Getting into these stupid arguments is even sillier.
We may as well scream at each other over abortion, gay marriage, gun rights or whatever. No one is going to change there mind.
I dunno. Seems like we can't get anywhere with each other.
Often when I go to the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press websites I read the articles and then glance at the comments and it is a war between Liberal/Conservative talking points. People call each other names, question patriotism, etc. Sometimes it devolves into homophobia, xenophobia, racism, elitism, classicism, "I hate your goddamn dog...."
There seems to be a certain level of comfort with saying stuff to someone you've never met, never seen.
I fly fish. I occasionally throw jigs for skittish smallies in low water. But, mostly I fly fish.
Contacting employers in an attempt to settle scores over bait/flies debates is silly. Getting into these stupid arguments is even sillier.
We may as well scream at each other over abortion, gay marriage, gun rights or whatever. No one is going to change there mind.
I dunno. Seems like we can't get anywhere with each other.
Monday, March 1, 2010
On Memory and the New Season
I come from a family of demented fly-fishermen. Not persons, men. The women (who think the activity is ridiculous) in the family look on at the obsession in an If You Ignore It, It Won't Matter sort of way. My mom has never been interested in it, and probably was disgusted by it when she say my dad tying his own flies from various dead birds and mamals--their wings, hides, and tails spread out on the kitchen table on a Friday before fishing, the bits of loose fur and feathers finding their way into the corners of the house...the smell of tanning fluid.
We have all seen A River Runs Through It a million times. We read Hemingway, The River Why, Jim Harrison... Every relative has a giant stack of old fly shop catalogs somewhere in the house, a library of old copies of Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod and Reel, American Angler, Fly Fishing, and Trout. We head out for SE MN when the winter seasons opens on January 1st--provided it's warmer than ten below. One year it was twenty below and my dad and I went anyway. We got to the South Branch of the Whitewater River, put on our gear, caught one fish after about five minutes, got back in the car, and drove the two hours home along the river on Highway 61--the highway, to me, of classic vinyl and trout streams.
But our traditional beats are the Kinnikinnic River and the Rush River in Wisconsin. They are closer and better--plus a few nameless brook trout streams that only get fished by herons and us. There have been many trips to the West. Yellowstone in particular, miles of wilderness and remote streams. But, we don't go there anymore. Strange fish diseases and the prolonged drought have made the area not what it used to be. Besides Montana has about 1200 miles of trout water. Wisconsin has like over 13,000 miles.
Some of the best trout water in the world is around here and few people know about it. The one native stream trout is not a trout but a char (lake trout, too), the brook trout. They are very colorful and stupid and are caught very easily. They require very clean, cold water and when settlers plowed the soil and logged the hills their habitat suffered and they disapeared from most of their range. The brown trout is the only true trout in the midwest. The varieties we have here are natives of Scotland and Germany. They are difficult to catch and tolerate warmer, more polluted water. Rainbow trout are native to the west coast, are a species of Pacific salmon and don't do well in our streams. The migratory variety, steelhead, were introduced into Lake Superior and do fairly well there. Fishing for them on the Brule River in norther Wisconsin in the fall is absolutely magical. The Brule is classic, boulder-strewn northwoods river surrounded by old growth forest. Though the farther away streams are the less likely I am to go there anymore. I like being able to get up, work out, get a coffee, scan the paper, and then leave for the stream--no more of the fall out of bed at 3am and get back at midnight from a distant northern river.
So here we are...another year of angling.
There is a certain planty, veggie smell that the limestone spring creeks have during the high summer. Coming into contact with what makes that planty smell makes me itch. There is the memory of leaping into the 48 degree spring water in mid-July to wash off that feeling. There is the smell of worms being impaled on hooks. There is the smell of impaled worms and little brook trout on my hands after a full day of spring fishing on some nameless stream. The fly line makes a certain sound when cast correctly--there's a memory for that too. Fireflies take on strange forms in the fog. I remember being freaked out by that. I remember catching a bat on my back cast. I remember an osprey stealing my fish on a high like in Colorado. I remember a loon trying to do the same thing on a little lake near Grand Marais.
There was one time while fishing a remote beaver pond in northern Minnesota I heard a crash in the alders. I turned and was face to face with a very confused moose cow. Moose are large, unpredictable and not particularly bright. This animal likely strolled into this pond to feed on lillies every evening and I broke the routine. Swampiness and muck prevented me from going anywhere and the moose found herself in an unsolvable situation so we stood face to face for over an hour before it occured to the animal the back up and try another route.
There was another time I lay awake in my tent along the Little Isabella river as two enormous bull moose argued (not fought, argued) just a few feet away over a beaver pond filled with water lilies. The only other sound were the millions of mosquitoes dying to get into my tent and suck the life from me. This took place in an area known as the Kawishiwi (Ka-Wiss-A-Way), the Ojibway's Land of the Dead, an area where millions of fireflies take on the shapes of the almost human in the low-lying fog.
I think of this because when everything is in prime condition the lilacs are in bloom and to pass them at night reminds me of every funeral I have attended. A little over ten years ago my Uncle Bob died--the best fly fisherman among us. The guy that taught me everything. Uncle Bob was a career Army man. Fishing with him meant getting up at four to head into the mountains of Colorado, his beat, by sunrise. He taught me how to cast, fishing dry and wet flies, and all that. But, I do not adhere to his early morning routine. I do well if I get on the river by noon, but usually later and fish the low light and the hatches, placing the fly along the opposite bank they way he would.
We have all seen A River Runs Through It a million times. We read Hemingway, The River Why, Jim Harrison... Every relative has a giant stack of old fly shop catalogs somewhere in the house, a library of old copies of Fly Fisherman, Fly Rod and Reel, American Angler, Fly Fishing, and Trout. We head out for SE MN when the winter seasons opens on January 1st--provided it's warmer than ten below. One year it was twenty below and my dad and I went anyway. We got to the South Branch of the Whitewater River, put on our gear, caught one fish after about five minutes, got back in the car, and drove the two hours home along the river on Highway 61--the highway, to me, of classic vinyl and trout streams.
But our traditional beats are the Kinnikinnic River and the Rush River in Wisconsin. They are closer and better--plus a few nameless brook trout streams that only get fished by herons and us. There have been many trips to the West. Yellowstone in particular, miles of wilderness and remote streams. But, we don't go there anymore. Strange fish diseases and the prolonged drought have made the area not what it used to be. Besides Montana has about 1200 miles of trout water. Wisconsin has like over 13,000 miles.
Some of the best trout water in the world is around here and few people know about it. The one native stream trout is not a trout but a char (lake trout, too), the brook trout. They are very colorful and stupid and are caught very easily. They require very clean, cold water and when settlers plowed the soil and logged the hills their habitat suffered and they disapeared from most of their range. The brown trout is the only true trout in the midwest. The varieties we have here are natives of Scotland and Germany. They are difficult to catch and tolerate warmer, more polluted water. Rainbow trout are native to the west coast, are a species of Pacific salmon and don't do well in our streams. The migratory variety, steelhead, were introduced into Lake Superior and do fairly well there. Fishing for them on the Brule River in norther Wisconsin in the fall is absolutely magical. The Brule is classic, boulder-strewn northwoods river surrounded by old growth forest. Though the farther away streams are the less likely I am to go there anymore. I like being able to get up, work out, get a coffee, scan the paper, and then leave for the stream--no more of the fall out of bed at 3am and get back at midnight from a distant northern river.
So here we are...another year of angling.
There is a certain planty, veggie smell that the limestone spring creeks have during the high summer. Coming into contact with what makes that planty smell makes me itch. There is the memory of leaping into the 48 degree spring water in mid-July to wash off that feeling. There is the smell of worms being impaled on hooks. There is the smell of impaled worms and little brook trout on my hands after a full day of spring fishing on some nameless stream. The fly line makes a certain sound when cast correctly--there's a memory for that too. Fireflies take on strange forms in the fog. I remember being freaked out by that. I remember catching a bat on my back cast. I remember an osprey stealing my fish on a high like in Colorado. I remember a loon trying to do the same thing on a little lake near Grand Marais.
There was one time while fishing a remote beaver pond in northern Minnesota I heard a crash in the alders. I turned and was face to face with a very confused moose cow. Moose are large, unpredictable and not particularly bright. This animal likely strolled into this pond to feed on lillies every evening and I broke the routine. Swampiness and muck prevented me from going anywhere and the moose found herself in an unsolvable situation so we stood face to face for over an hour before it occured to the animal the back up and try another route.
There was another time I lay awake in my tent along the Little Isabella river as two enormous bull moose argued (not fought, argued) just a few feet away over a beaver pond filled with water lilies. The only other sound were the millions of mosquitoes dying to get into my tent and suck the life from me. This took place in an area known as the Kawishiwi (Ka-Wiss-A-Way), the Ojibway's Land of the Dead, an area where millions of fireflies take on the shapes of the almost human in the low-lying fog.
I think of this because when everything is in prime condition the lilacs are in bloom and to pass them at night reminds me of every funeral I have attended. A little over ten years ago my Uncle Bob died--the best fly fisherman among us. The guy that taught me everything. Uncle Bob was a career Army man. Fishing with him meant getting up at four to head into the mountains of Colorado, his beat, by sunrise. He taught me how to cast, fishing dry and wet flies, and all that. But, I do not adhere to his early morning routine. I do well if I get on the river by noon, but usually later and fish the low light and the hatches, placing the fly along the opposite bank they way he would.
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