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Sunday, June 14th

My campground is full. It’s a county park about 5 miles outside of Viroqua Wisconsin. I would guess most campers are local. Beautiful weekend. People have been stuck inside for some time and want to get out.

Last night about 9:30 someone or some people set off a great fireworks display about 100 feet from my trailer. I couldn’t see the source cause a big trailer blocked my view. Seemed like it lasted for 15 minutes but I’m sure it didn’t. They were pretty good size fireworks. Anyway, it was fun.

I don’t fish here on the weekends for two reasons. One reason is that I like to fish alone unless I’m with a friend. The other reason is I can fish anytime but most people can only fish on the weekends so let them have it. Why crowd them when I can fish the weekdays and have the streams pretty much to myself.

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Friday, June 12

Caught one brown trout about 13 inches on the Timber-Coulee this morning. It’s a beautiful day.

Had to change campsites today. Moved my trailer about 100 feet to my new site where I will be until next Friday.

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Wednesday, June 10th

Fished Tuesday morning on the Timber-Coulee without much luck. Had a couple on but they escaped. Started raining about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and didn’t stop until 10 pm. A stream runs through my campground at Sidie Hollow County Park. Around 8 pm a policeman drove through and stopped at every camper to warn about the possibility of flash flooding. The stream is about 50 feet behind my trailer. It was rising which was a concern but it never overflowed it’s banks.

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The Driftless Area Instead of New Mexico

A good friend of mine informed me that the area around The San Juan River is a COVID-19 hot-spot right now so on June 8th I’ll be heading back to the Driftless Area for a two-week fishing/relaxing trip. It’s less than a four-hour drive to a beautiful area. Fly fisherman from Montana fish there in May and June.

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Going back to The San Juan River in August

I had several trips planned for this spring and summer that I’ve canceled because the main intent of these trips was to visit friends. Can’t really do that these days. Going on a trout fishing trip is almost automatically a self-quarantine trip. Just won’t go to restaurants, fly shops, museums, etc.. I’m too old to get this virus. Damn shame cause Georgia O’Keeffe’s home, which is now a museum is about an hour and a half from my campsite. You have to make a reservation well in advance to take a tour. Maybe I’ll do that if possible.

August 20th I’ll head out to Navajo Dam NM and The San Juan River for 12 days of fishing. Better than sitting in my condo. New Mexico State Park Campgrounds are a great deal. My site has a concrete pad, concrete picnic table with an overhead, water, and electricity for $14 a night. I stayed at that same site in September of 2018.

My trailer is in the center.

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Photos of Still Life 1

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It must be two years since I started this one. Today I added some white highlights and a little bit of a red glaze to the apple. I’m not crazy about the background and hope to fix it.
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Thursday, Sept 5, 2019

Another fine day in a beautiful area catching some beautiful brown trout. Nothing big but that’s ok.

This was the biggest fish I landed. I think there were two I had on briefly that may have been bigger. They hit a big barbless hopper. They were jumpers and threw the hook.

Caught one trout and lost one fishing a hopper in these riffles.

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Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019

Fished the Timber-Coulee today and did ok. Maybe 10 strikes. Caught 5 little browns. They loved a nymph called an Orange Coulee Scud I bought at The Driftless Angler in June. Then a tree loved it. So after finishing fishing I went to The Driftless Angler. Very nice and helpful guy. He said “yeah tie a Chernobyl Hopper on and then tie an arms length piece of 5X tippet to the bend of the hook. Tie the Orange Coulee Scud to the tippet as a dropper. You’ll catch fish all day”. There were a lot of big hoppers about and I saw what looked like a dragonfly hatch. Don’t know if it works that way with dragonflies.

We shall see about the fishing.

Fall isn’t too far off. Very comfortable fishing in waders wearing a fly vest. Never broke a sweat. Forecast for the next 8 days looking perfect, highs in mid 70s, lows in mid 50s , and partly sunny.

Fly patterns used to have pretty dull names such as an Adams or a Light Cahill or a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear.

Today some smart ass tiers come up with much better names such as a Chernobyl Ant or a Home Invader.

I may have mentioned this some time ago.

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Tuesday September 3, 2019

No phone signal but there is a little park building about 100 yards away that has WiFi I can connect to. Haven’t seen anyone in the building.

The grill was a retirement gift from work. Works out great. No mess.

In the distance on the right is the building that has hot showers and cold toilets. In the distance on the left is my nearest neighbor’s trailer. He stopped by. He’s been coming here to fish for 20 years.