SW Wisconsin spring creek report

[johnny costanza]

While I realize that this part of the country is not one that many here will 
likely be visiting in the near future, I thought that I would nonetheless 
post a report about my experience fishing the spring creeks of this area for 
the past two days.   Let me begin by saying that I did not travel from my 
home in Spokane to Wisconsin specifically to fish these creeks, but was 
visiting friends in Green Bay and the local fly shop there suggested I make 
the 3 1/2 drive to fish this part of the state.  For those of you who have 
never been there, this part of Wisconsin is quite beautiful.  Unlike most of 
the state, SW Wisconsin has lots of hills and semi-"mountainous" terrain 
through which cut some very scenic spring fed creeks full of wild browns 
(and some brook trout as well).  The cool part was that the state leased the 
private land from the farmers who own it to allow for public fishing access. 
 Most of the water I fished ran through private land which would have been 
otherwise unaccessible.  The land was very well taken care of and there was 
no noticeable damage done by allowing public access.  I wish that we could 
do more of that in this state as it seemed to benefit both fisherman and 
public land owners alike here in Wisconsin.

As for the fishing, it was typical spring creek fishing with very spooky, 
well-educated fish which were not easy to catch.  I have not done a great 
deal of spring creek fishing, but in comparing  it to the one time I fished 
Armstrong's spring creek in Montana, I thought that overall the fishing here 
was even more challenging than that, at least on one of the creeks I fished. 
 The two specific creeks I fished were Timber Coulee Creek (which was the 
most challenging) and the W. Fork of the Kickapoo.  The creeks themselves 
were small and intimate, requiring casts of no more than 35-40 feet in the 
widest of spots, but more typically casts of 15-20 feet which would put you 
on the opposte bank.  The weather did not cooperate in that the cooler 
temperatures (a week earlier they had temps in the 70s and low 80s) I think 
diminished the insect hatches that are expected to come off this time of 
year on these creeks.  The only "consistent" hatch I witnessed were midges, 
but those coming off were cream colored in about a size 26 or 28.  I had to 
put my nose "on the water" to see these guys as you really could not see 
them any other way.  I noticed these bugs coming off on a number of 
occasions, but there was only one period of sustained feeding on these 
insects by the fish, which happened during the late morning/early afternoon 
on the Kickapoo.  The day was somewhat overcast and cooler, and the expected 
baetis hatch did not really get going until around 3 pm.  From 11-1 or 1:30 
the fish were up taking what appeared to be emerging adults or pupa in the 
film or just below the surface.  This was one of those times when the fish 
were so selective in their feeding it would have been helpful to have a 
seine or an aquairum net to capture the natural to try to match them.  I 
unfortunately did not have anything smaller than a 22, and all attempts to 
hook a fish went unrewarded during this time (very frustrating fishing to 
see fish up and active yet refuse every artificial I threw at them).  I 
should have moved on and fished other places as I had done fairly well 
earlier nymphing with midge pupa imitations and a local pattern called the 
"pink squirrel".  These fish were of a different order and had keyed in on 
what I could only surmise was the pupal/emerger stage of the cream colored 
midge adults which were abundant on the surface.

Feeling frustrated, I quit fishing at about 1:30 to eat some lunch and get 
some confidence back following my "skunking" during the midge hatch.  When I 
came back to the same spot around 3 pm, the fish were were up again, only 
this time I noticed a large number of small, grey-olive blue wing olives 
floating on the surface of the creek (along with the tiny cream colored 
midges).  In watching several of these insects float down the creek I never 
really noticed them disappearing, but the fish were still taking something 
in the film.  Having had no luck fishing with various midge imitations 
earlier, I switched to fishing baetis emergers trailed by a unweighted 
Sawyer's pheasant tail nymph (18-20) even though it seemed likely some of 
the fish were still keyed in on the midges.  This approached resulted in 
hooking up with five times with some of the most beautifully colored brown 
trout I have been fortunate to catch.  Bright yellow bellies with 
brilliantly colored red spots on the sides of these fish were the norm.  
None of the fish were large (8-11 inches), but each one was rewarding 
nonetheless.  I found that the most sucessful approach was to cast straight 
downstream and retrive the flies against the current with erratic short 
strips near the surface.   All fish took the PT nymph and I could not coax a 
fish to take the emergers or dun pattern I threw at them (other guys I spoke 
to did well fishing dry flies - grey adams, sparkle duns, etc - during this 
hatch on another part of the creek).

Unfortnately, this hatch did not as long as the earlier midge hatch I 
witnessed, but I managed to at least hook some fish this time around 
(although I certainly did not do as well as I would have liked).  When the 
fish stopped showing themselves, I abandoned this area and left to explore 
different parts of the creek.  I fished for a few more hours and with the 
hatches having ended, I went back to nymphing (without an indicator), which 
resulted in another 6-7 fish before calling it a day.

The second day, I set out to fish Timber Coulee creek and of the two creeks 
I fished, this was the most demanding (at least for me).  The fish were 
significanly more spooky than those on the Kickapoo, thus the capacity to 
stalk these fish with steath and caution was of a premium (as were 
delicately placed, accurate casts not preceded by false casts over the top 
of the fishes heads).  This creek was smaller than the Kickapoo, and crystal 
clear.  I ended up only fishing to those fish I could spot, and avoided 
fishing likely looking areas where I could not see fish (probably a mistake 
on my part, but I enjoy sight fishing more than "fishing blind").  Upon 
arriving, I noticed a nice fish of about 13-14 inches quitely finning 
between two large grass beds in 2-3 ft of water.  I spend about 15-20 
minutes on this fish to no avail, and was about to move on when suddenly I 
(in a "Zen like moment") instinctively set the hook even though my fly had 
passed by this particular fish.  Much to my pleasure, there was a fish I had 
failed to spot sitting behind the one I was fishing to and I had managed to 
coax him into taking my sz 20 black zebra midge.  The fish did not fight 
particularly hard, but it was rewarding  knowing that I managed to get a 
good drift in water that presented difficult presentation challenges to the 
fly fisherman.  After releasing this beautiful 12 inch brown trout, I moved 
upstream where I came across some fish appearing to be feeding once again on 
the ubiquitous midge.  This time, I fished pupal imitations near the surface 
on a greased leader using a downstream slack cast presentation from my knees 
(do you not love spring creek fishing!).  Again, the fish which were up near 
the surface were feeding very selectively, but this time I managed to hook 
four of the guys in about an hour.  Every time I hooked a fish it felt like 
an "accomplishment", but the down side of this was that after playing these 
fish, each one of them came unbuttoned before I could bring them to hand.

Once the surface feeding subsided, I fished another 3 hours without so much 
as a bump.  I could not get a fish to take a fly when the midge hatch ended, 
even though ever so briefly a black caddis hatch came off and the fish 
seemingly were responding to it for about 30-40 minutes.  The creek humbled 
me tremendously as I went fishless the rest of the day, except when I went 
back to the Kickapoo for a couple hours that evening and managed to catch 
5-6 more fish (half brook trout, half browns).

All in all, it was a great trip fishing new waters that challenged a 
fisherman of my skill level.  I would recocmmed visiting these creeks if you 
are ever in the area.