Eddie Rivard Fly Fishing: Minnesota Drift

This year I have made a concerted effort to explore some more of the waters in my home state. This was an easy choice last Saturday because it was the Wisconsin Fishing opener and I didn't want to deal with the crowds on that side of the river. My friend Shebs felt the same way so late Saturday morning we set out to explore some new water.

I've heard legends about a big deep pool miles from any road that harbors large numbers of trophy trout. The ones who know about it call it Big Blue. I ended up having to resort to blackmail to get the location from a guy I know but I hoped it would be well worth it. Besides the location being a closely guarded secret it is also almost entirely surrounded by privately owned land. "One way in and one way out." I told Shebs as we made our way along the seven mile trail in. "This better be good", Shebs stated. When we made it over the last ridge we saw what it was that we came here for.

The river flowing out of Big Blue was every bit as beautiful as Big Blue. I reminded me of some of the photos I have seen of New Zealand.

While beavers are predominantly viewed negatively by the trout fishing community the remnants of this beaver dam have created a nice little pocket in an otherwise characterless section of river.

We decided to check out another creek. I caught this nice little Brown shortly after we arrived.

Another beautiful place.

Nice riffle.

Some cool moss growing on the bank.

At this point I believe that Shebs had landed for or five to my one. We had both lost several nice trout. After seeing a Sculpin swimming around 20 minutes before I decided to match the hatch and I tied on a Skulpin Bunny. My choice of streamer seemed to make an immediate difference. I had a few strikes and suddenly I was in to something big. It was an epic battle where the trout took me around to all points of the run. But the 3X Fluorocarbon stood strong and she made it into my net.