Smallmouth on Stony!

After experiencing the joy of taking brown trout on the Kinni I took my fly rod up to Northern Minnesota to Stony Lake. Growing up, Stony Lake was always full of largemouth bass but I had never caught, or even seen a smallmouth out of that lake. Apparently things have changed. My first evening there, while fishing from shore, I took this 14 inch bronzeback on a rubber legged fly off the surface! It was a great fish... unfortunately it was the only smallie I took on the fly this trip.

 

My first smallie on a fly.

Later, my sister Leah solidified the fact that there was a solid smallmouth population blooming in Stony Lake when this monster slammed her mimic minnow (unfortunately not on a fly rod). Turns out that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has basically determined the smallmouth in Stony to be an invasive species and anglers claim that they are decimating the walleye population. I just think they're fun!

Turned out to be a great trip up north and it was the last time I would use my fly rod before arriving in Loveland, Colorado and taking to the Big Thompson River for the first time.

My Home Stream

While reading Fly Fishing: Rocky Mountain National Park, by Todd Hosman, I was struck by his idea of a fly-fisherman's "home stream". The idea is a simple one and that is that every fly fisherman has a stream that is his. He knows the stream, its hatches, its runs, its pools. While I was still very young in my fly fishing pursuits, I found myself wondering "what is my home stream." Immediately one stream came to mind: The Big Thompson River. From it's headwaters in Rocky Mountain National park through the city of Loveland, Colorado, the Big Thompson is considered one of the best fisheries in the state, so I lucked out when Kendra got a teaching job in Loveland.

I definetly have honed my skills on the Thompson, but when I thought further about the idea of a "homestream" I had a realization that mine was actually not the Thompson and not even in Colorado. Broadening the definition of the term I realized that my home stream is the Kinnickinnic River near River Falls, Wisconsin. I grew up no more than ten miles from one of the best streams in Wisconsin and in June of 2010 when my dad discovered some rarely fished public access on the "Kinni" my fascination with trout and a fly rod began.

My wife Kendra and I at the Kinni

                                                                                                           

My first brown from the Kinni 

                                                                             

This 15 inch brown ate a #14 Elk Hair Caddis and sealed the deal for me... wish I had a better picture!

Prelude to a Trout

My name is Luke. Im 22 years old, recently married to a beautiful and wonderful wife and have just moved to Loveland, Colorado. Over my life, I have always loved fishing and actually just been fascinated by fish, particularly fresh water species. Growing up, I learned to fish on Stony Lake, a beautiful lake near Hackensack, Minnesota. It was on the clear waters of Stony Lake that I began to study fish from my red canoe and catch fish at any means possible. All I knew of fishing here was spinner reel fishing, and I loved it! I learned to catch sunfish, largemouth bass, and other warm-water species.

All I knew of trout fishing was the brown trout that my father brought home from the little Trimbelle River, (really more of a creek), in Pierce County, Wisconsin. The first time I went with my dad to the Trimbelle to try for some trout, I was incredibly unsuccessful... as I was with my second and probably my third tries. Fishing for trout with a night crawler and a splitshot never seemed to work for me while my dad was occasionally successful. When I was 12, my family took a trip to Montana where I was introduced to a completely new idea of trout fishing.... fly fishing. My first time using a fly rod was uneventful as I managed to catch a "farm" raised rainbow out of a pond in someone's backyard. To be honest, I had no idea that the fish was even on the line.

Trimbelle River, Pierce County, WI

Beautiful limestone palisades of the Upper Iowa River

After that, the idea of fly fishing was unappealing to me. It was not until my senior year at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, that my interest in fly fishing was renewed, but even then, I bought my first fly rod, (a $55 Pflueger starter kit), with the intention of using it to catch smallmouth bass from the Upper Iowa, Cedar, or other small streams that cut through Northeast Iowa. In the spring of 2010, I broke in my new fly rod on a local pond in Waverly. I had a blast catching sunfish and watching juvenile largemouth slurp my rubber legged stimulator off the surface of the pond. It was not until later that summer when I returned to my hometown of Prescott, Wisconsin, that I discovered the joy of catching trout on the fly rod. From then on a life-long hobby, if not obsession was born.