Last Day Ritual
My long time friend and fishing companion, John Beth, has a ritual of fishing the last fay of the inland trout season in Wisconsin with gear from modern fly fishing’s earliest beginnings (the mid to late 1800s). His reports are always fun because I can see him stalking the spring creeks of SW Wisconsin with his greenheart rod, brass Hardy reel, silk line, and early 20th century, gut-snelled wet flies from L.L. Bean. This is the same John that wields his graphite rod and size 22 and 24 Tricos on the Bighorn, and streamers and egg flies on the Lake Michigan tributaries for the big salmon and browns.
His day was a great one, actually with nice sized browns grabbing the wet flies handily in the morning, followed by some great fishing with terrestrials in the afternoon. A nice brown fell to a midget hopper and then came the crowning glory of the day, an 18 inch rainbow on a size 16 ant. What a great way to celebrate the ending of the inland trout season. Gotta love it
Browns of this size took the smelled wet flies very well in the morning.
A nicer afternoon brown that took a midget hopper imitation.
The big rainbow that inhaled the size 16 ant imitation very softly.