Creek Addict

Left from my office on Friday and headed to my dad’s farm in IA. The old man has a spring fed trout stream right next to his acreage. The stream was FILLED with trout – I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of fish. Their trout season is year round, and the water stays under 65 degrees even in the dead heat of summer. I took all the trout on either elk hair caddis or woolly buggers.

Saturday my dad decided to come out and fish with my cousin Tom and me. He hadn’t fly fished in nearly 9 years, but that didn’t stop him from finding the best hole of the day and pulling a few good fish out. Tom got to try his luck with a fly rod for the first time and managed to pull a nice trout out of the “honey hole”. It only took Tom about ten minutes before he was looking like a regular pro. Must be something in that Michels blood, or I’m just a damn good teacher.

Sunday my cousin Tom and I decided to get up at the butt crack of dawn and get into some trout. Tom decided to leave the hardware at home and try his luck with the fly rod again. The fish were sipping flies pretty aggressively so we decided to try our luck with some dry flies. Both of us, armed with caddis flies, took a few pretty good fish. I’m glad I got Tom hooked up to his first fish on a dry. For me, dry fly fishing is the essence of fly fishing, nothing gets the adrenaline pumping like watching a clear water trout come up from the bottom and dry smash your fly’s shitbox.

I was supposed to fly out Sunday afternoon but my baby plane out of Mason City was spewing hydraulic fluid from the landing gear so I got to spend one more night in the heartland. We went back to Tom’s house and fished his little farm pond where I took one small LM bass and a good size crappie. Then my uncle Jeff pulled out his .44 and I got to get dirty harry on a tree. I think I found my next purchase.

Iowa is always a great time. Great people, great (cheap)beer and some world class trout fishing.