Yesterday was the last day in a series of warmer that normal days for November in Wisconsin, and John Beth, Doc Zavadsky and I met on one of our favorite Wisconsin tributary streams to search for browns. I was up at 3am, on the road by 4am and casting by 6:30am. Right away I had three salmon take the fly, one king and two cohos. Two of then fought their way off the barbless fly, but the third one stayed pinned.  It was a nicely colored male that took an egg and fought long and hard. Ya gotta love the cohos.

I then moved to another section of the river looking for browns, and soon found some fish working under overhanging trees. In the early morning glare, all I could see was an occasional tail and dorsal. They were browns and big ones, but I couldn’t see their heads, only an occasional tail and dorsal. The fly swung through several times with a touch. I switched to a black and blue Collared Leech. On the second swing the water erupted and an obviously very large fish ripped out of the shallows and into the deep water of the pool. Its weight was heavy and it fought like a demon. From the angle of the line I could tell the hook was on the correct end of the fish, and I got very excited. But that lasted for only a few minutes. As the fish swung past I could see the fly was anchored just behind the left gill plate. Snagged! Ugh. But it happens. The fish was so big, however, that rather than break it off, I decided to land it and get its dimensions. The big female was 35 inches long with a 24 inch girth–26.9 pounds. The biggest brown I’ve ever seen in a Wisconsin tributary stream. Ah well, next year it will be over 30 pounds, and then it will worth catching correctly.

John and Doc arrived and we pounded the river senseless. We saw no other browns but we did manage several more cohos and a couple more old kings. John and I were spotting a section of riffle from a high bank when I noticed a wrinkle in the water near the opposite bank that didn’t look like it was caused by a rock. As I watched it, a tail stuck out and then disappeared.  Glare prevented me from seeing the fish, but the tail told me it was not a brown. The browns have a distinctly black band at the end of the tail. This was a salmon–probably a coho, but its size said it could be a king.

I decided to have a tray at it. I crossed well above the fish and crept into casting position up and across from it. Sitting back on my heels, I watched it for a while and then began casting. The fly was positioned so that it swung across right in front of the fish. I tried a big collared Silver Leech, a black Collared Leech, and a red-head purple Collared leech without a connection, and yet the fish remained, moving about a bit and looking aggressive. I changed to an Icicle and on the second swing the fish grabbed the fly and tore off downstream, splashing and thrashing on the surface as the hook popped out.

I stripped in and checked the hook point. It was fine. And suddenly there was the fish, coming right back to the same spot. I pitched the Icicle back in, and the big coho slammed it. This time the hook caught firmly and the battle was on. Both John and I were surprised at the size of this coho. Years past, we had caught big cohos, but the average had fallen and now the ones we caught were smaller.  This looked like a vision from the past. Handsomely marked and with big male tusks, it did indeed seem like a blast from the past.

A bit later, John was swinging his fly through a riffle below me and suddenly a male coho came racing out of seemingly nowhere and grabbed his fly. It wasn’t a huge one, more average in size, but it fought like it was twice as big. That’s always a plus.

The day ended without any browns except the bit foul hooked female, but the warm weather and cooperative cohos made the outing very pleasant, indeed.

The first Coho of the day took an egg fly hard and fought with great vigor

One big momma brown.

A nice male Coho that took a swinging Icicle.

John and his feisty male Coho that acted like it weighed 20 pounds. Even now it's trying to bite him.