Wisconsin Driftless Report 2018

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This morning before the sun breached the hills of Southern Wisconsin I was in my happy place. I was on a driftless trout stream. I invited my friend Sam Delventhal to come with me.




This time of year it is typically too hot to fish for trout. Hot equals too warm of outdoor temperatures which equates to too warm of stream temperatures. Too warm of water does not have enough dissolved oxygen in it for a trout to properly revive after a prolonged battle when released.




The blast furnace weather broke two days ago. Last night the air temperature was sixty-two degrees as a high. This meant the streams cooled down. I had not trout fished in three weeks and was going through withdrawals.

three hours on the water and thirty browns later the drought was over.

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I hung up my beating the bush boots after my third knee surgery.
Josh and Jeremy Hoff did not and I give them some far away and seriously hard places to fish from back n the day when my knees were young and my stamina was abundant.
https://lenharris.blogspot.com/2018/...-driffess.html
Josh scored his personal best driftless brown.

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uncooperative photo subject.

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Trip Report


2 hours on small water
5:30pm until 7:30pm
Outdoor temperature 72 degrees
Water temperature 64 degrees
Water clarity good
Water a little low.
Sunny no clouds.
Trout laying in no specific lays.

23 browns to hand...

one solid brown

She was caught in the top of the churn tight to the bank on the right.

She is wide across the back and fought like a much bigger trout.

Female Brown...around 19 inches.

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An Outing To Remember "negative"

No photos on this one...just the facts

I dropped off my wife at her mother's to help clean up the flood mess. I felt a little guilty leaving and not helping. My back does not allow me lift even medium heavy stuff. Flood mud drenched furniture and household belongs....can't do it.

Is really stark looking around the streams that empty into the Kickapoo River. Just one valley over the streams were not busting out of their banks. They had a little high water two days ago. The weeds were knocked down by the water and the edge of the stream had a thin layer of mud to make the edges greasy.

The weather was cloudy. The water had a slight stain. It was a wide open pasture. Water temp was 62 and outside temp was 72. I hit the water at 10am.

I caught a small light colored brown on the first stretch. Five more came in the first 80 yards. The first trees on stream were in front of me. There was a deep cut caused by the tree roots. I underhand casted under the tree. I was hammered immediately. Was really surprised at the brown. The stream was quite small and I had a deep running trout bull dogging the bottom. It was obviously a big trout.

I finally got it under control and got it to surface. Was a light colored male brown with big ole kype. It was 17-19 inch range. I typically look for netting areas prior to casting into a snaggy mess. This time was no different. I slowly crept downward. I had the trout on the surface and it was thrashing violently so I reached back for my net. Then it happened. I am not sure what exactly happened.

It happened so quickly but I have conditioned myself into jettisoning anything in my hands so I won't break my rod or net. I was in the stream. I hit it face first. I did a check of both knees and my back to see if they still functioned. I recovered my net right away. My rod was taking off upstream and I was up to my waist chasing it. I did not have waders on today. I grabbed the rod and the big male brown had a little energy left in him and did one last head shake and off he went.

I crawled up out of the stream and examined where I had attempted netting the big brown. There were slide marks on the bank where the greasy edge of the stream caused me to do the belly flop in the stream.

I kept fishing. I landed another 15 browns. Nothing large. The fence at the top of the property had an electric fence hiding in the tall weeds along side the barbed wire fence. I got quite a tickle on the top of my head when I crawled under the fence. I caught couple more and continued fishing.

The sun came out and the fish shut down. I knew the upstream property well. There was a field bridge and I fished until the bridge. I had already dried out and used the bridge to cross the stream.

The exit to that property had a field road out all the way to the black top. My knees and back were screaming at me so I took the quickest and flattest route to the road. When I get tired I typically look down at the ground to look for holes and divets . My legs were tired and I was not taking big steps. I was sliding my feet. I was going at a snail's pace.

I stopped for a moment. I was not sure why. I looked upward from my eyes being locked on the ground. My vision was clouded. I was dumbfounded at first but I quickly realized the cloud was thousands of bees. I glanced to my right and there were 10 bee hives not 5 yards away. I had literally walked half way through this cloud of bees and not notice.

Now that the bees had my attention I could hear the low roar of thousands of bees buzzing. My first thought was to run. I quickly dismissed that idea. My legs were rubbery from the long walk and the greasy bank belly flop. If I did a rash movement the bees would sense danger and I might die from multiple bee stings.

I decided I had walked into the middle of all these bees and had none light on me or sting me and a slow walk through was what I was going to do. The bees were on a mission. They were flying in and out of their big red wooden box hives. I slowly walked through the cloud of thousands of bees and never had one land on me or sting me.

I stopped finally about 40 yards from the hives and looked back. I have had many run in with bees in my life. 38 stings in one incident was my worst. All but this one ended poorly.

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friend and I went out this morning...52 to hand total...gnats were insane.
friend scored personal best. I caught a decent male brown.

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pretty brown from yesterday

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October 15th

marked the end of another trout season.

I am already planning for January 2019 opener.