After a month of mixed results in October, Browns and Steelhead are finally starting to be caught consistently.  Unfortunately, these results are limited to the lower reaches of the river.  Me and Anthony have had limited results fishing other favorite runs in the middle and upper reaches.  For migratory fishing, I consider Kletzsch to be the upper reaches FYI.  I’m not the type of guy who will plant in the same run all day, even if I’m catching fish consistently.  I like a change of scenery, conquering as much of the river as possible, and to give other angler’s a chance at a run that’s producing.

I arrived bright and early at a favorite little run of mine in the lower reaches of the Milwaukee and was greeted by an angling buddy Bret.  He had already landed a 8lb hen brown drifting a peach egg.  I gave him his space and wandered upstream to another run and started swinging with my switch/skagit setup.  I got 2 fish to jump on and off pretty quick and decided to join Bret at the lower run.  He too had a couple fish jump on and off since we last spoke 75 minutes ago.  It was clear the activity was red hot.  My 1st pass at the run yielded a nice little brown.  I made a quick coffee run, made one more pass and had another fish jump on and off my offering.  To remedy my 3 on and off fish, I decided to switch to a fly with a stinger.  3 short strikes is more than I can handle.  I spent the remainder of the day failing to bring another fish to hand in the middle and upper reaches of the Milwaukee.  Knowing the runs I fished earlier had good activity I decided to go back and hopefully end on a high note.  I was greeted by a soaking wet angler who took a dip into the Mil but had a very nice brown and chromer to show me on his phone for his efforts.  He said the action just started picking up.  This intel got me all riled up and I waded into position with reckless abandonment, tripped over a rock and face planted in the Milwaukee with a big “SLAP.”  I went from a fishing high to a fishing low in the span of a minute.  I always expect the worst when fishing which is why I always travel with back-ups, dry clothes, duct tape, and toilet paper.  I’m dying to get back out ASAP.

This brown ate a swung black bunny boss