Badger 2, loading at Antigo, Wisconsin, 1921. A.J. Kingsbury photo, MCRM collection. December 1978 Gazette.

The DrakeCast #69: Wisconsin’s Locomotive Fishing History

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I first met Israel on a steelheading adventure in Southeastern Alaska back in 2018 (a trip we documented in an earlier episode of the podcast). It had been a while since we had seen each other so this past summer he drove sixteen hours north to join me on a search for the best fishing Wisconsin has to offer: smallmouth bass on poppers. It took a couple of days but we eventually found an entire river teeming with willing, surface-feeding fish. But seeing as he had driven all that way, on day three, we decided to shift gears. Or as Israel phrased it, “We absolutely waylaid smallmouth all day yesterday on poppers. So we figured why not kick ourself in the [expletive] and try and go after musky today.”

Hayward Fly Fishing Company

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If you’ve ever flyfished for musky, or even seen a video of others doing so, you have in part to credit (or blame, for those of you who caught the bug) Larry Mann and Wendy Williamson. The pair had cut their teeth guiding in Colorado but in the late 1990s familial obligations brought them to Hayward, Wisconsin. “Our friends in Colorado pretty much thought we were crazy,” remembers Mann. “Then they came and fished with us. And they said, ‘maybe not so crazy…’”

This is your brain on musky. Photo by Lee Church

First Step

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LIKE MANY FIRST-TIME ATTENDEES, he sat in the back for several nights, drinking coffee and working up the nerve. I noticed him, but I’ve seen plenty of his type come and go. Some have hit rock bottom and are ready to deal with their problem. Others know the truth but aren’t ready to accept their dependency until it destroys everything they once held dear. When you’ve been to as many meetings as I have, you learn not to get attached to the dabblers.

The author holds his hard-earned musky. “Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.” –Samuel Johnson. Photo by Brett Meany

Musky Flies

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Hours into the float already, we’d chucked green and yellow, chartreuse and pink, and black and purple—some with big reflective eyes and others with barred feathers that enticingly slip and slide behind the body of the fly. Nothing was working. Brett, my musky copilot, and I weren’t moving fish like I thought we would, considering the cold mornings that fall had been delivering.

Photo by Kurt Budliger

Tiger King

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2021, Homepage Content, Humor, Lodges, Outfitters, and Guides, MuskyLeave a comment

My older brother Charlie—the red-haired menace of my youth, and the protagonist of so many fishing adventures—came to visit me in Canada. It was mid-August when I picked him up from the airport. He was hungover and indignant, as one of his rods had been lost in transit. We headed straight for a well-regarded trout stream in southern Ontario where there were rumors of giant browns, stopping eight hours later at the local fly shop to book a half-day trip with some dude named Larry.

Photos: Hansi Johnson

Photos: Hansi Johnson

Mississippi Learnin’. Smallies and pike on the mighty Mississippi.

Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2020, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2020, Homepage Content, Lifestyle, U.S. places6 Comments

Minnesota’s Mississippi shoreline bounds the “Southeast Blufflands” region, or what anglers know as the Minnesota Driftless. All five of us fish it: A magical world of pastoral valleys, each drained by a spring creek, mostly brimming with wild fish. 

A Magnificent Seven

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Fall 2018, Lodges, Outfitters, and Guides, The Put In, U.S. places1 Comment

Craft beer and flyfishing go together like Jell-O shots and bachelorette parties. In the fishier towns in America you’ll find angling-themed beers of every taste and style, from Trout Slayer Wheat Ale (Big Sky Brewing, Missoula, MT) to Cutthroat Porter (Odell Brewing, Fort Collins, CO) to Steelhead Extra Pale Ale (Mad River Brewing, Humboldt County,…

Barracuda Blues

Barracuda Blues

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2011, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2011, Humor, Lifestyle, Saltwater Fly Fishing2 Comments

For every good shot at a tarpon, permit, or bonefish, there’s a cast-per-hour-of-effort ratio that on most days looks like a line graph of the U.S. economy. Then there are those days that you instantly know you’re losing, like a cold February morning when even the boxfish are lurking deep and you’re just hoping for…