Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. West wind 7 to 11 mph. Hot and sunny today, but it mellows back out for the weekend. We're still seeing a bunch of hatches right now including; Caddis, craneflies, sulfurs, cahills, and yellow sallies. Add to that terrestrials on the surface (ants and beetles, no hoppers yet) and you have a great chance for some fun dry fly action this weekend. Subsurface fishing has been great on thinner bodied patterns. perdigons, pink and purple belly pheasant tails, spanish bullets, zebra midges. Creeks are clear to slightly stained with only one or two still running with a heavy stain. Water temps are in the mid to high 50s. Remember, we have Andrew Grillos as a guest tier this Saturday at the Bad Axe Country Club in Esofea! The event runs from 5-9. Free event with brats and sides available for purchase, and a cash bar! Call or e-mail for more info.
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May 2019
Mostly sunny, with a high near 76. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. Creeks are all clear except one or two that have a slight stain to them! Water temperatures are in the mid to high 50s. We have seen caddis, craneflies, olive spinners, midges, sulphurs, and yellow sallies on the surface the past couple of days. In other words, we are in a bug soup situation! Creeks are mostly clear to a medium stain at worst on one or two larger bodies of water. Fish are feeding in the slicks and flat pools in the mornings until the sun shines on the water. They then push into the runs below riffles waiting for hatches and feeding heavily subsurface. In the evenings, they spread out again looking for mayflies. If the sulfurs continue hatching, look for trout to feed on them the last few hours of the evening. Subsurface fishing has been best on pink and purple belly pheasant tails, as well as purple zebra midges and scuds.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. West wind 6 to 11 mph. Yesterday was excellent with clear water. The morning rains did not affect the creeks at all. Last night we had some very quick and heavy rains. Rainfall totals for the past 24 hoursup in La Crosse were pushing 1.5 inches, Richland center register 1.75 inches, down in De Soto 1 inch. Viroqua was less than half an inch and Newton only received 1/4 of an inch in last nights storm. What that means for fishing is that the closer to Viroqua you are this morning, the better the water will be! Scouting this morning, creeks just to the east of us were in great shape, clear to slightly stained. There is fishable water out there, and the creeks that are running muddy will drop and clear quickly as the rains came and went very rapidly last night around 10 pm. In the murky to stained water, it's worm time! A San Juan or squirmy wormy can be deadly. Add to that leeches and large scuds and you will be set. On the clear water, we will see caddis on the surface again, as well as craneflies. With the bright and sunny weekend, it is doubtful any olives will show up except late in the evening. Subsurface bugs should have a bit of thickness to them to imitate the caddis and cranefly larvae. If you run into a murky creek, drive into the next valley! It might take a bit of exploring first thing this morning, but there is fishable water out there and rising fish were spotted at 6 this morning!
UPDATE 10:30 AM. The storm lost intensity on the Mississippi. While it is still raining lightly, it looks like we escaped the heavy rains. There is no storm backing this one up, so expect some creeks to stain up this afternoon, but with no major muddy damage for the most part. In other words, later today and into tomorrow are looking quite good! Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 67. East wind 8 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. We're watching rain start to develop this morning. Overnight we had some light rain, not enough to do any damage. Expect updates throughout the day as we monitor the rains. If this storm hits it will not be anything to permanently muddy up the creeks outside of for this afternoon. The holiday weekend will be fine. As of 8 this morning the storm is in central Iowa and losing some intensity as it travels east. Fishing has been quite good lately as the storms have barely touched us leaving our water in great shape! Caddis, olives, craneflies and midges are hatching daily (usually in the afternoons) and, while not on every stretch of water, pods of rising fish are being found. Subsurface fishing has been great with heavy bead heads with a thicker profile (pork chop express, purple pills, prince nymphs, and brush hogs are catching fish regularly. We're fishing them under hippie stompers and chubby chernobyls. A few fish are eating the large indicator fly too! Leeches and streamers have been excellent on the days with cloud cover and if we have some stain on the water.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 66. West wind 9 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Creeks are clear to slightly stained with water temps in the mid 50s. Caddis (both black and tan) and craneflies are hatching, and we ran into a pretty nice olive hatch last night too. Everything is humming along in the Driftless! Subsurface fishing has been good on pretty much everything. From scuds to zebra midges, and brush hogs to dirty birds. The key is changing quite a few times to find out what the trout want! Get out there and fish, this is the peak of season!
Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 72. Breezy, with a southeast wind 16 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph. Fishing remains strong! Creeks are a bit stained up after up to an inch of rain last night, but most streams are slightly stained while only a few are murky to muddy. Everything will drop and clear quickly as the rain hit last evening and we are not predicted to receive any more today. The rollercoaster weather has everything hatching, but in limited numbers. We are still seeing caddis, craneflies, a few olives and midges. You can find pods of happy fish, but we haven't seen entire packs of risers the last couple of days. Subsurface action has been good as we need a bit more stable weather for excellent dry fishing. Fishing a heavy pattern right along the bottom can get fish to eat all day long.
Showers likely, mainly after 4pm. Cloudy, with a high near 53. Breezy, with an east wind 7 to 12 mph increasing to 16 to 21 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Things are clear to slightly stained with water temperatures in the low to mid 50s. It looks like things will cloud up a bit but we are not supposed to get any significant rain. Look for olives and craneflies again today! Subsurface fishing has been hot on scuds and brush hogs as well as purple and pink belly pheasant tails. Do not neglect leeches and streamers, especially on cloudy days like today.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. North wind 6 to 11 mph. The storms this weekend just brushed us and never hit hard. We have clear to slightly stained water with only one or two creeks unfishable in our area! Fish have been eating craneflies and tiny olives on the surface. If the clouds stay overhead the olives will continue to hatch. If it clears up and becomes sunny then look for caddis to be more abundant. Craneflies are hatching regardless of the weather. Subsurface fishing has been best on purple belly pheasant tails, coulee scuds, and brush hogs. The photo is from yesterday mid day!
Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before noon, then a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5pm. Cloudy, with a high near 69. Southeast wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. Wow have we lucked out. The rains last night missed us and the storm today is splitting around our area! Creeks are clear to stained and fishing quite well. On the stained water, leeches and scuds are key, while on the clear water fishing a dry/dropper with a high visibility attractor fly (hippie stomper/chubby chernobyl) with a flashy dropper nymph. Yesterday our guides were even fishing dries as there are craneflies, caddis, and a few stoneflies and olives around;.
EDIT 1:30 Rain missed us mid day. It doesn't look like anything is behind this storm right now, so fishing will remain solid into the evening!!! Showers and thunderstorms likely, mainly after 1pm. Cloudy, with a high near 58. East wind 11 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Creeks are clear to stained with the exception of the largest creeks which are stained to murky. We had no more rain after the brief storm yesterday morning which means things have dropped and cleared significantly for today. We're forecasted for showers with a random storm cell here and there in the afternoon. Nothing to freak out about through the day so far. Things should be on track. The weekend might be a different story. Tonight is a wild card, we might get some rain again, but nothing significant. The same goes for Saturday. Saturday night is the rough forecast as it is supposed to dump an inch or two of rain on us. What this rain will do we will not know until it falls. If it is a shower or gentle rain we will have fishable water. If it falls heavily and over a short period of time, then things will get messy. We will keep you posted! For today, caddis and craneflies on the surface, as well as small terrestrials (ants, beetles, and attractors such as the hippie stomper). Keep an eye out for some larger spring stoneflies too as they were coming off yesterday. Subsurface fishing has been excellent with scuds and pink squirrels as well as pink and purple bellied pheasant tail nymphs in the clear water. Swinging soft hackles and leeches below riffles has also been extremely effective.
EDIT 4:45: Creeks to the north were clear to a fishable level about mid day. Some of the medium sized creeks have lost their murk and are now fishable with a heavy stain (leeches and scuds!). We're still have sunny skies and rain is still not predicted to hit until tomorrow afternoon. Lots of positive reports on the Coulees and other smaller streams from mid day! Of course there will be muddy water out there, especially on the larger bodies of water, but there is water out there that is in good shape (even caddis hatches on a couple). Get out of your comfort zone and explore on days like today! EDIT: 2:00 Rain hit hard this morning, but the storm was very brief. Guides found stained water and fish already this morning on some smaller, upper sections of creeks. Things are dropping and clearing quickly and there is no more rain forecasted for today (it is sunny in Viroqua as I type this). The photo is from Nick's trip this morning. Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%. The rain today is a narrow band that is currently north of us (as of 7:15 am). The storm looks to be very brief and should not do any damage to our creeks. We will keep you updated! With the switch in weather, look for olives to show up today with a smattering of caddis and craneflies. Subsurface fishing will be quite good on leeches and scuds with the cloudy day along with the normal nymphs that have been working (brush hogs, pink and purple belly pheasant tails). We are not flooded! The flood warnings you see on weather reports are for the Mississippi river, not our trout creeks. The creeks are clear and slightly low with water temperatures in the low to mid 50s.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Northwest wind 3 to 7 mph. Another gorgeous day in the Driftless! Creeks are clear with water temperatures in the mid 50s. The sun today will be a bit of a limiting factor. Plan on fishing dries early and late, and concentrate on deeper pools and undercut banks or shady areas mid day. We're seeing caddis and cranefly hatches on most creeks. These hatches have not been steady or consistent. More like a pod of rising fish here and there throughout the day. Dries are definitely working though, both matching the caddis and cranes as well as attractor dries and small terrestrials (ants have been hot the past couple of days!) Subsurface fishing has been best on heavy tungsten beaded nymphs fished directly below the riffles and near undercut banks. When the sun is off the water, fish are very grabby on leeches and smaller streamers too.
Partly sunny, with a high near 66. South wind 7 to 10 mph. Creeks are clear and a touch low with water temperatures in the low to mid 50s. Fishing has been quite good with craneflies and caddis hatching. Move your dry flies as trout are picking up on movement on the surface right now! Subsurface action has been best on brush hogs, pork chop express, pink belly pheasant tails, and scuds. It's gorgeous out there right now and the bankside vegetation is low and manageable! This is the peak of season, get out and fish.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. North wind 3 to 7 mph. Creeks are clear and flowing well with water temperatures in the low to mid 50s. Fishing has been quite good lately with fish eating craneflies and small training wheels on the surface. There have not been any predictable or major hatches, but we have seen a few caddis here and there on certain creeks. Scuds are starting to really ramp up, as long as they are fished quite deep. Leeches and streamers have been catching some nicer fish in the evenings too!
Mostly sunny, with a high near 57. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph. Creeks are clear to slightly stained. The rains a couple of days ago did nothing to our water levels or clarity. Yesterday was a good day of fishing! Today will be a touch more difficult with the sun shining on the water. Look for fish to be most active morning and evening when the sun is off the water. Unless we see a caddis hatch, fish close to the banks with small terrestrials and fish the deeper runs and pools with heavy bead heads. Do not neglect the riffles as fish are starting to move into shallower water to eat emergers! Water temperatures are right around 50 degrees. We're still seeing olive hatches (mostly on cloudy days) as well as craneflies and caddis. Subsurface fishing has been best on brush hogs, pink belly pheasant tails, and Spanish bullets.
Isolated showers before 10am. Cloudy, with a high near 45. Breezy, with a west wind 8 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. The rains yesterday were thankfully light in our area. While we received up to an inch in or more in Vernon County it never poured. What that means is we are expecting light to heavy stain on the water this morning, and everything dropping and clearing quickly today. With few exceptions there was not any crazy flooding of the creeks. Fishing leeches and san juan worms in the off color water will be excellent, then switching to craneflies, caddis, and olives as things clear and fish start rising will catch fish.
Periods of showers, with thunderstorms also possible after 1pm. High near 45. Breezy, with an east wind 15 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 36 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible. Chilly drizzle this morning. Creeks are clear and flowing well with only one or two having some stain or color. It doesn't look like this rain will muddy things up over today and tonight, but we will keep you posted. On cloudy days like this, the olives have still been hatching well and we are also seeing craneflies throughout the day. Subsurface fishing is best on frenchies, spanish bullets, and hot belly pheasant tails. We are also still having quite a bit of success with a small training wheel (attractor terrestrial) with a bead head tied below. It's not too early for dry/dropper!
Partly sunny, with a high near 58. East wind 9 to 11 mph. Creeks are clear to stained with water temps in the low to mid 50s. The fish are very happy as long as the sun is not shining directly on the water. Craneflies showed up yesterday in pretty good numbers. If you see splashy rises without seeing many bugs, they are feeding on craneflies. Subsurface fishing has been best with your fly right on the bottoms. Tight line nymphing with a heavy tungsten bead or too is deadly right now. There are a few olives hanging on and that hatch should intensify with the clouds and drizzle the next couple of days.
UPDATE: We did find that the West Fork is muddy this morning. Other creeks are in good shape. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Northeast wind around 9 mph. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Most of the week is calling for cloud cover and showers! This weather has been excellent for fishing. Creeks are running clear to slightly stained with water temps in the low 50s. The rains last night were brief and didn't do any major damage to the creeks. Things are in really good shape again today. We're seeing olives hatch in the cloudy weather, and caddis when the sun peeks out. Craneflies are hatching all day regardless of weather. There are pods of rising fish, usually in the mornings and evenings, but if the clouds stay overhead we have had some risers all day long on a handful of creeks. Subsurface fishing is solid on pretty much anything from pink squirrels to spanish bullets to purple zebra midges. Add in leeches and streamers for larger fish and you have the perfect conditions for fishing the Driftless right now!
Partly sunny, with a high near 59. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the afternoon. The clouds are all but gone in the area meaning the olive hatch will disappear and (hopefully) be replaced with caddis. Creeks are clear and flowing with temps hovering right around 50 degrees. Surface fishing has still been best on terrestrials. Fishing While the olive hatch was strong the past couple of days, with the loss of clouds it will fade into the background bit. Watch for caddis and craneflies. Subsurface fishing has been best on brush hogs, pork chop expresses, and purple belly PTs. Don't forget to move your flies! Action and movement has been catching a bunch of fish that were otherwise lockjaw!
Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 7 mph in the morning. The cloud cover the past couple of days has made the fish very comfortable! We've had olive hatches that have lasted hours the past couple of days. If the clouds stay in the area, expect more solid fishing. Creeks are clear and running normal to a touch on the low side with water temperatures in the high 40s to low 50s area wide. With the cloud cover the olive hatch has been excellent. While we are not seeing them on every creek, the ones that do have them are cranking out bugs! Subsurface fishing has been great on pink and purple belly PTs, brush hogs, perdigons, and, of course, pink squirrels. We are seeing creek lamprey on their beds too. Fishing a larger olive leech or streamer can be a great way to get a really large fish to eat right now!
Isolated showers before 10am. Cloudy, with a high near 52. Northeast wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Although the temperature is a bit chilly, the olives returned and fish are rising happily through most of the day! Creeks are clear and flowing well with water temperatures high 40s to low 50s. Fishing leeches and streamers are very effective while trout are waking up first thing in the morning. In the later morning and through the afternoon we are seeing rising fish to olives and a handful of craneflies and caddis (this hatch will last as long as the cloudy weather stays overhead). Smaller foam terrestrials are still working too. Subsurface fishing has been best on smaller, heavy tungsten bead heads. Zebra midges, pheasant tails, brush hogs and frenchies. Late in the day, throwing a larger streamer can move some signifiant fish.
