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Mid-Summer Brown on a Trico

The Kinnickinnic is in wonderful midsummer form and a pleasure to negotiate.  Fishing was fantastic all day, beginning with an early morning Tricco hatch.  Kinni Creek Lodge & Outfitters made the experience effortless which only added to my enjoyment.  Thanks Paige.
Dan Callanan
River Falls, WI

Fly Fishing the Kinni

Greetings from the banks of the Kinnickinnic River! The fly fishing for Trout has been absolutely spectacular this spring! I’m once again offering fly fishing schools and happen to have a few openings. You can see the school schedule at http://www.kinnicreek.com/fly-fishing-school.htm
I’ve got 2 openings for the Ladies fly fish school on Sunday, June 20th. With oportunities for Co-ed’s July 10th (5 hour), July 11th (2 hour), August 14 (5 hour) and Sept. 11th (5 hour). Call right away if you would like to register for one of these schools 1-877-504-9705.
We have the privilege of having 100% fly fishing access to the Lower Kinni with our Kayak rentals! Of course you don’t need to be a fly fishermen to rent them and simply enjoy the day! Just be sure make reservations ahead of time at 1-877-504-9705.
I’ve got a lot of great items in my fly shop for 2010 too, stop in and check it out! www.kinnicreek.com

I’ve got some vacancy in the Lodge too, you can choose a B&B rate or Entire Cabin rate! book online at www.kinnicreek.com

Casting in your daydreams!

The following are words of wisdom from one of our Ladies fly fishing club members, Margaret Lebien~

Get out your mind’s eye fly rod. Lay out 25 feet of line in front of the rod tip for a medium length cast.  Point the rod tip down at the ground. Take a deep breath or two and relax, except try not to relax your hand and wrist, as relaxing the hand and wrist promotes a wide arc or curved path of the tip resulting in a wider back cast loop. There is no energy in a big fat wide open loop and life is already hard enough. Turn a little sideways so you can look up to watch your imaginary back cast. No cheating, you absolutely have to watch that back cast unroll all the way out before moving to start the forward cast..

Anyway, keeping a firm hand, wrist and forearm all-in-one-piece, starting at 8:00, think about smoothly raising the rod handle up and back with your index finger. Suddenly stop that rod tip pointing to 12:00 on an imaginary clock. Stop hard like you mean business. If the tip moves  back to 1:00  the loop is too wide and you bent your wrist.  You can try to fix a floppy wristed back cast by making a hard forward cast, but it won’t work. A hard forward cast only makes it worse. Do the back cast again with a firm wrist. As you watch your back cast line unroll, you can see the loop automatically tighten and get narrower  and that sets you up for a good strong forward cast.  Repeat several times back and forth and then relax again. Day dream false-casting should be fun and relaxing which is what we deserve in these hard times.

Your final forward cast loop can be tightened up even more  by pushing down with the thumb and slightly turning down your wrist, immediately following the 10:00 stop on the forward cast. You see very good casters achieve a nice tight  `V’ shape to the front edge of their beautiful loops because of this subtle follow-through with the turned down wrist. This slight turning down of the wrist simultaneously relaxes grip pressure, absorbs the rod tip bounce down, minimizes shock waves to the line  and  really tightens the loop. It is so subtle you can’t see it when you watch a great caster like Andy doing it but it is there and you can have those  tight loops if you do it, too. (Note: Sometimes on the final forward cast you want the rod tip to bounce back and put waves into the end of the line and leader to avoid drag when casting a fly across currents– but that is another type of cast for another daydream.)

So, ok, while wide loops are bad, tailing loops* are worse. Awful.

Every caster has seen the fly catch the line or fold back on the leader creating big ugly knots in the leader and line.  This is the infamous tailing loop, the opposite of too wide a loop.. We are all trying to get more distance into the cast and sometimes we resort to the`hit it harder’ method. At least I do.

*A tailing loop is  the result of the tip of the rod curving under a straight line path because you are trying to overpower the rod. It  happens when you are trying to throw the line way out there on your final forward cast and accidentally make a too short, too fast, hard  punch stroke –which  makes the  tip top dip under  and away from a straight line path causing a tailing loop. Smoothing out the power throughout the whole forward -and  backward -stroke before you suddenly stop will reduce or eliminate tailing loops.  Don’t jerk the rod up on the back cast or punch out the forward cast to try to make the line go farther.  It won’t.

 Take another deep breath. Relax. Don’t rush  things. Keep the wrist firm, make the stroke very very sm-o-o-oth, stop the rod with sudden authority.  Wait patiently to let the line and leader unfurl behind and out in front.  (The sudden stop of the rod helps the tip track a straight line path; the closer to a straight path, the narrower the loop. The narrower the loop, the more powerful and straighter the line.)  Ahhh. Wasn’t that fun?