Great July Fishing!

[WxGuy]

With my wife and son out of town for over a week, and a couple days off from work, I had no choice but to round up the boys and get into trouble...err...fish too much.

We set up camp on the Root River Friday and fished all around SE MN this last weekend. We fished cold spring creeks for trout, and some warmer water on the Root for smallies. All-in-all, the fishing was great, and the company was even better (until about 3am Saturday morning, but that's a different story all together ).

Friday morning we fished near Forestville in hopes of finding a good trico hatch, but that didn't really pan out. We didn't catch much right away, but I did manage one plump 14" brown in the hour we fished there. We drove 15 minutes east and fished a cold spring creek. One of my friends who was brand new to fly fishing this weekend managed to catch a nice rainbow after a quick lesson. That was fun to watch. In a couple hours of fishing in the midday sun, I caught over a dozen fish, but interestingly there were some big 'bows caught. One was taped at 18", and was a wonderful fight. Fish were caught on PTs, Princes, scuds, black wets, and hare's ears, mainly size 14-16. There were also some very nice browns caught in the mix. The weekend just started, and on a good note.

Then it was back to camp for a little grub and relaxing. While a nap wasn't really in the cards for me, I took a friend over to a very low, clear, and well canopied feeder stream of the Root. The fishing on this small stream is tough this time of the year with no, or extremely tight, casting lanes. We snuck into one deep pool and threw some small dries into the head of the pool. I managed one brown on a dry and, having worked hard just to get into a casting position without shutting down the pool, was quite pleased. After a few more casts, they were on to us, and it was back to camp.

I waded the Root in pursuit of bass and found a nice, deep eddy. Standing in the belly high current, I caught a 12" smallie on a clouser. What a fight! When they run into the deep current, it's a fight to coax them back up.

When we finally shook the cobwebs off Saturday, it was back on the stream. Good day, not a lot of fish, but plenty. The cloud cover was a pleasant change. We did some brush-beating later in the day to get well off the beaten path. It's fun to get deeper into the valleys and fish new water. It was also good to see small hoppers! Perhaps there could be some great hopper fishing in a few weeks. I tied a hopper on and got a few looks, but no takes. There were also fish sitting in the shallow water along the banks waiting for whatever bug to take a fateful fall into the water. Ants, crickets, and madame x fished close to the banks should coax some fish.

We went in search of tricos again this morning, but came up short. We arrived on stream around 8:30am, which turned out to be too late for this morning's hatch.

Having only slept a few hours the last couple nights, and getting tired of the heat, we closed up camp a day early. It was a great weekend of fun and fishing. After I sleep like a baby tonight, I'll have to get out again tomorrow, pending it's not raining buckets...which it could be.

I haven't seen many anglers out over the last few weeks. The fishing is still very good if you can stand the warmth, high grass, and bugs. That's the stuff that makes it all more of an adventure!

Good luck!

[Dan Thiem]

Bugs, sweat in the eyes, weeds, etc... You can have them. I'm am SO READY for the hard water.

Them biting deer flies can drive a guy insane!

[Magneto]

WxGuy:

Nice report. Sounds as if you fellows had some fun.

Just my thoughts on the Tricos that you say you failed to find. With the night time temps not falling into the 60's you have to be on the water at sun up. They (the Tricos) will hatch sometime in the night and the spinner fall (which is what we fishermen look for) will happen at the coolest part of the morning. Usually they fall when the temp hits about 68*. I've been hitting the water around 6:00am and that seems too late as the morning temps have not been very cool, but I have been having decent dry fly fishing of late. This coming week should have a stellar Trico spinner fall about 8:00 to 10:00am every day.

Mike

[turiprap]

Nice report, WxGuy. I was out trout fishing three times last week for trips of just a couple of hours each. In every case, I got a little warm, but I never got skunked, so I haven't anything to complain about, especially since it was real obvious that, while it's been beastly hot, summer is already sliding away from us and it won't be long before we're wondering where the season went.

[-Marc V-]

Nice report WxGuy! Sounds like a fun few days of fishing. I might be headed down to Root this Thursday and Friday. Long awaited vacation days. Hopefully I'll find similair results.

[tie flyer]

Great report! Glad you guys had fun...and managed to catch some fish.

[trico]

WxGuy and I went out this AM - no bugs, no sweat, and no other anglers either . I love the dog days of summer for just that reason: plenty of trout but not plenty of people.

Tricos for all,

D.A.