Troutsmith by Kevin Searock

to fish parts of nearby Devils Lake because some of the better places are dotted with boats every day of the week. Southern Wisconsin’s lakes work hard, even during the winter. I think some species of fish, northern pike for instance, get more fishing pressure during the winter ice-fishing season than they do during the rest of the year.
    I may lobby Teresa to retire to a place where there are fewer people per square mile; at any rate, I’m considering it now for the first time in my life. It’s hard to say how much the Internet has affected this aspect of fishing. On the one hand a quantity of fishing information that used to be harder to obtain is readily available, but the quality of that information? Let’s just say I’m getting wrinkles from smiling. I like the Internet for checking on weather, stream flows, et cetera, before I commit to fishing somewhere far from home, and I like to check Trout Unlimited websites so that I know when and where chapter campouts, state council meetings, and the like are being held. In that way a lot of angler congestion can be avoided. I call one other person fishing where I want to fish “angler congestion.” It’s not that I don’t like fishing with people, it’s just that I really like fishing alone.
    30 April 1995. Marsh Marigolds have appeared in places. Dutchman’s Breeches are in bloom on the rocky, south-facing bluffs. Chironomid hatch is peaking on Devil’s Lake. Yellow-rumped Warblers and several other warbler species seem packed together in the thickets on the SW corner of Devil’s Lake. Dandelions and Daffodils beginning to overrun civilized areas.
    Here’s one of the nifty things you can do with a fishing journal: keep track of phenology, or the seasonal timing of natural events. Anglers have long known that fly hatches can be roughly predicted by looking for connections to flowering times for common plants; dame’s rocket and the sulphur hatch is just one example. Teresa works for the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, and through the foundation we’ve met the surviving children of Aldo and Estella. Nina Leopold Bradley had phenology notes going back about seventy years, and she told us that events like the first frog choruses and the first pasqueflowers in spring are happening three to four weeks earlier today than they did in the 1940s.
    8 May 2004, Devil’s Lake, Sauk Co. Overcast with threatening rain; calm (70F ) at first, with sudden NW wind squall at 6:45 pm. No insect activity. Thought I’d run over to Devil’s Lake this evening, wade the NW corner and spin-fish for bass with twister tails and soft plastics. Wore my Filson Duckbill cap and a rain jacket, and rubber hip boots because I didn’t want to putz around with breathables & wading brogues. Waded out as planned and caught one largemouth bass 14”. With a strong front approaching it looked like it was going to be an evening with fast action and lots of fish. Then the sun came out from behind a cloud. That’s the first thing that went wrong. In the momentarily warm sun I pushed back the hood of my rain jacket and kept casting. Minutes later it clouded over again and I saw what looked like a small model sailboat skating along the surface of the lake next to me. I looked around, but I was the only one there at the moment. Hmmm. Then a squall came up from behind me and I pulled my hood back up. That’s when I realized that the model boat sailing boldly out into the Lake with the squall behind it was really my trademark Filson Duckbill Cap, floating along upside down on its waxed cotton fabric with the hollow part up in the air acting as a sail and the duckbill as the rudder. I waded out to get it, but when I reached the waterline with my hip boots the hat was just barely out of reach. No problem, I thought. I’ll just cast my twister-tail into the hat and retrieve it that way. No dice. Cast after cast landed on all sides