Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Date: June 8, 2008
Location: Bridge & Great Lawn
Air temp: 70s
Water temp: ?
Hatches: ?
Fish landed: 3 browns

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

Xan
Booter
Scoot

Scooter, Booter and myself headed to the Bridge to play in the brown water. Recent rains had slightly raised the water level, while discharge was about twice the norm. The water was very murky, but fortunately, the river wasn't blown out and the fish were feeding.

We parked by the bridge itself, and started to make our way up the stream. I was able to land a decent trout just in front of the bridge to start the day. Reassured that the day wouldn't be a complete bust due to the water color, I continued to nymph the run, much to my future dismay. The prior day I had spoken at length with a fellow fly fisherman. The topic of suckers came up, and I happily declared that I had yet to catch one this year. Naturally, I hooked one the very next day. My second fish quickly splashed the surface when I set, giving me the false hope that it was troutish. It kept low for the remainder of the fight, though after seeing it flash a few times through the murk, I started to get a bad feeling. As I brought it to the surface after it tired out, I let out a shriek of disgust. I had on a large, disgusting sucker with my stone fly impaled through its inflamed sphincter of a mouth. Still awaiting my new net to be shipped, I was faced with the prospect of handling the putrid bag of mush with my bare hands. However, I got lucky, and the large fly I had been using was easily accessible, and I was able to pop it off without having to handle the shit eater. After the unpleasantness, I moved upstream to find fish of repute.

Fishing was slow all day, with few rises due to the brown. We worked the immediate area and then headed to the Great Lawn. We stuck close to the immediate lawn area, and each of us pulled a few fish here and there.

Scooter pulls in a nice brown.

Once we were tuckered out and hungry, we decided to forgo the EPB&G and try out the Lawton Bar for a change of pace. The Lawton had been closed for a while, but was now open again. It is a very simple bar, with a small menu of mostly burgers and fried apps. We tried their curds and had a few burgers, but were not overly impressed.