[voodoofly]

OK,

So I get to my favorite river late this morning only to see 7 guys either baiting with spawn or spinner fishing. This is crowded for this time of the year. Of course. I'm the only fly guy out there and the only 2 hander since December. I'm swinging my freak fly. The wind crashes every now and then from the NW. Creates single to below zero wind chills. Eventually they all end up leaving. Too much ice build up in the guides I guess. Only the voodoofly remains in the river. The voodoofly gets rewarded. It's better to catch fish with no one else watching. I AM THE voodoofly.

Enjoy your quality time on the river.

Gary

P.S. Looking forward to testing the Meiser 13' 5/6 and 6/7.

 

[fredaevans]

Gary,

you'll love both rods.

This is not a 'trust me' on this one.:devil:

 

[Interceptor]

Spooky and chilling I must say.

But I know what you mean Voodoo Fly.

:hehe:

 

[juro]

Voodoo -

Ain't got a thing without that swing! Good stuff.

 

[Robert Meiser]

Hey Gary,

Teenaged in the early 60s in a little L. Michigan coastal town in Wisconsin called Port Washington.

At the time, Port Washington was primarily a sleepy commercial fishing community, and a coal power generating site....No six lane boat ramps in those days !

Smith Brothers had a small fleet of gill net tugs used for Lake Trout, and Great Lakes White Fish. Their boats where always in the harbor when I was a kid....And my dad knew most of these guys.

.... Even in those days we'd target coastal browns, brooks and bows, but the Pacific Salmonids had not yet been introduced.

With the completion of the St. Lawarence Seaway, an entire host of exotics entered the Great Lakes, the most infamous being the Sea Lamprey....Shortly followed by the Alewife.

Maybe you remember this, not sure how old you are, but these two critters sure had a major effect on the indigenous top-of-the food chain game species...Including the already well eastablished Browns and Rainbows. The greatest effect of the lamprey being on the soft scaled gamefish like Lake Trout, Brookies and Bows.

Pretty grim days for the Great Lake's gamefishery....As it appeared that the top of the food chain for several years became the Jumbo Perch.

Although this was a very good thing for Friday night fish fries at the local pubs, and for the local net makers.

... As the gill mesh got a lot smaller on the Smith Brother's fleet to net the now super-abunance of Yellow Perch.

Then came the Alewife.

I remember seeing miles of closed Summer beaches on the South Lake Michigan coastline because of continuous windrows of wave washed, dead Alewife piled up on the sand 3 or 4 feet high for as far as one could see....Stinky !

The irony is the cause and effect role that the Lamprey/Alewife played in the introduction of the Salmonid family of gamefish into the Great Lakes, and it's resulting extraordinary present fishery !

Man I remember the first few years that the Kings, Coho, and Nad Steelies were intro-ed throughout the Great Lakes following this series of disasters....It was a revelation !

Within two seasons there were HUGE fish everywhere, and we were spinning on our heals, smacking our foreheads trying to figure out whether we should move to Door County or Chequamagon Bay to target this new found Cornocopia.

In actuality Vietnam made that decision for me, and have since left the Midwest, and for many years now lived in Southern Oregon.

But I still go back and fish my old haunts like the Wisconsin Brule, and some of the "best-left-un-mentioned" rivers of the UP South Shore for Browns and GL Steel.

You guys now have an epic fishery, and good on ya.

And yep...I'll oversize the giudes for those brisk mornings.....

I remember them well............... };^) !!!

Meiz

 

[Interceptor]

You guys now have an epic fishery

Well it used to be better 20 years ago, maybe it was epic then.