Got into LaCrosse about 4 pm and drove to Westby WI through Coon Valley. Was not sure where I was so instead of following the Timber Coulee up from Coon Valley I went to the Ski Jumps and followed it down. Stopped at the Roulee Coulee junction and took a little walk down the creek. Couple of rises but not a lot of activity. Was a pretty good Trico hatch going on and a lot of midges in the air. Walking back to the car I saw a guy peering over the bridge into the water and figured he was looking for fish so went and talked to him. Turns out he was out from Boston visiting and was also going to do some fishing. There weer a bunch of little trout in the pool right under the bridge and one pretty active feeder at the tail of the pool.
Finished work the next day at around 4 and headed to the Bob Jackson area for some fishing. Had to fight the high grass and casting was very difficult (I'm 5'2" on a good day and the grass was over 4' tall) Not a lot of activity til just before dark. My friend Jim caught two small browns out of the riffles and then started scouting for some risong pods. There was an unbelievable amount of hatch activity, Three or four different caddis hatches, midges, tricos a size 18-20 blue wing olive and we even saw one yellow stone fly. Found a pod od feeding fish and managed to catch one out of there. Was trying to put the fly on a fish about 40' downstream, missed him once and then too dark to see the fly, or the line or anything else for that matter. On Friday we went down to Avalanche and talked to a bunch of folks setting up for the clave that weekend, nice group would have liked to stick around. Fished the Kickapoo river til dark with no luck. Water was colder and no hatch activity not even midges. The fish just stayed down. Saturday I was on my own since Jim had to take his wife to the cranberry festival Oh the high price we pay to stay happily married. Started out at the ob Jackson area but too many other guys parked there. Fished upstream a ways with no luck. That would be the story all day. The water had cooled down by almost 10 degrees in the two days since we had been there and the fish just would not budge. Over lunch it rained pretty hard for about 2 hours. Got back on the stream just upstream of Coon Valley and fished til dark with only a couple of short strikes to show for it. Fishing was so bad that I stopped for about 30 minutes to help a farmer round up his Holsteins for the evening milking. No fish but a wonderful trip all the same. This area is a gem for trout bums and I will be returning in the spring when the insect and fish activity is better and the grass a little shorter. The number of miles of clear springstream fishing is mind boggling. A researcher from Madison (Univ. of WI) who surveys the stream every year estimated that this trout factory holds 6000 fish per mile. In a stream often less than 15 feet across. Amazing. Mike M
