With its short days and sullen skies, December is a dreary month. But
for a handful of hardy fly-rodders, Wisconsin's Lake Michigan
tributaries offer some great fishing for a mixed bag during a time of
year when most of us have hung up the rods for the season.
One of the best of these streams is the Milwaukee River. The removal of
both the North Avenue dam in 1997 and more recently the dam at Falls
Road in Grafton has allowed the river to scour out its silt-laden bed
and opened up miles of runs, riffles and pools to migrating trout and
salmon. The chinook run in September and spring steelhead run in April
attract plenty of attention, but the late-fall fishing goes largely
unnoticed.
I recently fished the Milwaukee with Matt Panosh, who guides out of The Flyfishers in West Allis, on a relatively mild Sunday morning, when
there were more joggers and mountain bikers than anglers on the banks
of the river.
Cruising high above the river on Capitol Drive, Locust Street or North
Avenue, you'd never know there was anything going on below. But step
into the river and the city fades behind high wooded banks, where
you're as likely to see a coyote or a whitetail as a jogger.
Matt Panosh moves quickly from hole to hole, then fishes with intensity
in runs where he's caught fish before and expects to again.
"I'll find a run and fish it 'Atlantic-style,'" he said. "I'll make
three or four casts, then take a couple steps downstream to work my way
through it. It's a good way to fish productive water and learn where
fish hide."
If he hits fish in the first run, Matt said, it's likely he'll hit fish
throughout the river because they're ready to feed. When he's fished as
far downstream as he wants to, he goes back upstream and starts over or
else hits the holes in reverse order. Either way, he always fishes
downstream.
That Sunday, we covered about a mile of water, but fished only a few
hundred yards of it, moving on when we reached unproductive shallows or
riffles. This time of year, steelhead, browns, coho salmon, and brook
trout all are in the river. Brookies and most of the browns have
spawned by now. They are on their way back to the lake. The last of the
cohos are spawning. Like chinooks, they'll die when they finish. A few
salmon carcasses litter the banks and shallows, but gulls and furred
scavengers have cleaned up most of them. Steelhead are moving upstream
to reach the gravel beds where they'll spawn later this winter or next
spring.
Steelhead were our main target, but Matt said he's caught a steelhead,
a brown, and a brook trout all from the same run on the same day. If he
had found a pod of spawning cohos, he might have taken a fall grand
slam.
Matt tied on an egg imitation and a nymph of his own design he calls a
Hot-Butt Stonefly. It looks like an ordinary stonefly nymph with its
tail-end on fire. Catchy name. Catchier fly, as it turned out.
The rig is pretty simple: To the end of a nine-foot weight-forward
leader, Matt adds a short length of tippet material with a surgeon's
knot. He leaves a 2-inch tag end, to which he crimps a couple coated
split shot, which grip the line better than plain lead shot. Then he
ties on a Glo Bug (egg) about 8 inches below the split shot tag. He
ties a 15-inch length of tippet material to the bend of the egg hook,
and ties the nymph to this.
"The egg serves as an attractor, and the nymph imitates the natural
insect larvae present in the river," Matt said. "Browns almost always
take the egg pattern, while steelhead usually take the nymph."
He fishes this rig on a floating, weight-forward line, using a 9-foot,
7-weight rod or a 13.5-foot, two-handed Spey rod. The longer rod lets
him reach out to fish wide runs or fish from the bank when the water is
too high to wade. The conventional fly rod is more sensitive to subtle
strikes and better suited to finessing a drift through a tighter lie.
That day, we tried both rods for three hours without a single take. We
watched two anglers catch and release several cohos from a group of
spawners splashing in a shallow side-current. Those guys had the salmon pretty well corralled, so we didn[base ']t horn in on
the action, as much as I was eager to feel something other than the occasional
rock grab my flies.
Finally, after sizing down from a No. 6 Hot-Butt to a No. 8 and adding
more split shot to keep the rig right on bottom, Matt tied into a
steelhead in a fast run. The fish rolled on the surface and bounced off
rocks, but the hook held. When Matt slid him onto a gravel bar, the
Hot-Butt was stuck in his jaw.
A few high fives and photos later, Matt[base ']s steelhead, an 8-or 9-pound
male, swam back to his run. We had finally found the right combo.
Matt
had started with the larger stonefly pattern because of low water clarity.
When that failed to produce, he switched to a No. 8, which was closer to
the naturals in size. The naturals lacked the hot butt, however, which is
probably the clincher for this pattern.
Encouraged by this first fish, we crossed the river to try a hole where
we'd struck out three hours earlier. On my third or fourth drift, I
felt a solid take and reared back on a good fish that made a hard
downstream run. I applied as much pressure as I dared, as he took all
my line and 10 yards of backing before stopping. He made a few more
runs before I could steer him to Matt's grasp. We both whooped as Matt
hoisted another bright male, the nymph in the corner of his jaw.
Hot-Butt had scored again.
To fish comfortably in December, dress in layers, beginning with silk or
synthetic underwear to wick away perspiration. Add fleece pants and jacket,
breathable, waterproof outerwear and waders, a warm hat and fingerless wool
gloves. Silk liners, Merino wool outer socks and boots big enough to wiggle
your toes will keep feet comfortable. Well, almost.
The 35-degree water had chilled our feet enough that we decided to
follow the lead of those two steelhead and get something hot to eat.
"It's not easy to fish in these conditions, where you have to dress warmly and come out in the cold," Matt said.
No, it's not, but Matt's Hot-Butts made my cold toes a lot more tolerable.
To book a trip with Matt Panosh, call The Flyfishers at 414-259-8100, or log onto www.theflyfishers.com.
