Kinnickinnic State Park

Essential gear for small river fishing

The Kinnikinnic, AKA the Kinni, is a Class 1 trout stream located in River Falls, WI.  Kinni State park offers 9 stream entry locations, 7 of which classify trout as abundant, and 2 as common.  There are brown trout and brook trout in these waters, brookies being the native species, but browns being far more common.

Picturesque Kinny

I use a 4wt rod and reel and an assortment of small nymphs and dry flies when fishing these types of waters.  I generally look for slower moving waters (1'/sec) and deeper pools to fish.  When nymphing, I use a small oval shot about a foot above the fly (depending on depth of pool), then a strike indicator a few inches above that.  For dry flies, I simply use a 16" 4lb tippet to give the fly maximum mobility.

A large pool that held decent fish

Some midge flies I tied

All trout were taken on a assortment of midge flies I had previously tied.  I used a variety of dubbing colors and different flash on these midges, but all used small, red glass beads for heads.  There is a previous entry on this blog for tying these midge flies.

First nice sized brown trout of the day

I caught 4 trout, with 10" being the largest for the day.  This trout was taken in faster moving water, and was holding behind a large rock.  I drifted the nymph past the rock multiple times until I got a hit.

Second, smaller brown.  Four browns taken that day

Late fern fiddle heads

Fishing aside, Kinnickinnic State Park offered a variety of flora, and an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.  I enjoyed it so much, I bought a WI state  park pass for the season.  I will certainly be returning to the Kinni.

Boundary Waters, Spring 2011

Sun Setting on Fourtown Lake

This year, we headed up to the BWCA earlier than usual.  We entered on May 14th and put-in on Fall lake and made a counter clockwise loop to Mudro lake. This route included 14 portages along the way.  The weather was spectacular with temps in the 70's during the day and dropping to 40's-50's during the night.  The bugs were minimal until the last day.

Courtney and Mark on Basswood

Our 6 day counter-clockwise route

We canoed through Fall lake and camped there for the evening.  We were eager to get out of this lake however due to it being a motorized lake and it also being fishing opener.  We then paddled through Newton and into Basswood. Basswood was gorgeous and although it too is a motorized lake, we saw no other boats, canoes or motored.

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 A loon observes us

We spent a night on Basswood, and then continued on to Tin Can lake and then to Horse lake where we spent 2 nights.  Along the way we saw many loons and other water fowl, such as mergansers.

Common Merganser

We managed to do quite a lot of fishing during our trip and caught A LOT of pike.  There were only 2 pike around 30", but they were a ton of fun to catch.  Pike were exclusively taking top water lures in shallow bays (sometimes as shallow as 8"). When taking lures, these Pike were explosive and would erupt out of the water.  Most pike were caught on a Zara Spook with a walk the dog motion.  We also caught many pike while bobber fishing.  When we would reel in the bobber to do a worm-check, the Pike would strike at the bobber and often become hooked elsewhere on the body.

I managed to catch myself and a Pike

Unfortunately, during a standard hook removal of a Rapala from a landed Pike, I hooked my finger.  After an hour, a needle-nose, and a fillet knife, the hook was removed.  I recommend always using pliers or forceps when removing hooks. Lesson learned.

A strong afternoon's work

Walleye were caught on slip bobbers with hook and worm or with a lead-head jig with a grub jigged along the bottom.  They were fantastic eating.

Author with a nice Smallie

Mark and a nice Pike

The BWCA also offered great photo opportunities and I truly enjoyed taking hikes in the afternoons and evenings.

Great reflections

Fourtown reflection

Trail near camp at Fourtown

Up and Running!

The new blog is up and running!  Many posts are to come in order to get the blog current.  Here is a small taste of a Brown trout taken at Hay Creek last July.