Bois Brule: 2026 First Foray Hits The Mark

Saturday - June 13, 2026

I’m a little late to my favorite Wisconsin river this year. There have been plenty of early season waters to keep me away! From Driftless pastures to Northwoods forests. From limestone bluffs to Gunflint muskeg. I finally arrive in Douglas County, Wisconsin at my own cabin and my own forest creating some of my own distractions: woodpeckers and owls; trumpeter swans and wood ducks; horticulture and lepidopterology.  Enough already! It’s time to hop into a Vintage Canoe with a good friend and paddle some holy water to my own secret places.

I mark the occasion (and this overall Brule River trip) with a pair of new, Simms waders in a vibrant blue. Feeling a bit European this year. Some times, you need to just change it up!

The boat is a beautiful 1917 cedar-and-canvas, Old Town canoe. This one has sponsons which are effectively two extra small buoyant chambers that run along the hull for added stability. Sponsons add to the canoe’s overall weight as they require additional framing, planking, and their own canvas wrap. This one likely weighs over 120 pounds. However, it is gorgeous and seems more befitting of this ancient waterway.

And to make it worth the effort, we load this boat up with some of our essentials: Rods, reels, flies (Filson boat bag), large dry box (camera with telephoto and binoculars), dry bag (in case I take an unintentional swim), and nets (in case we actually catch fish on such a bright, sunny day). And just for fun, I left the life-jackets back at the cabin. They are legally required to be at least in the boat. Much to our surprise and delight, there is a DNR rep at the landing doing some water safety inspections and she has extra life jackets to lone us saying that we can leave them at the landing when we are through. Sweet.

So we are off for a day on the river! The water is remarkably low. We end up needing to drag the canoe over a couple of gravelly areas in the upper wing dams. The boat and all of our gear, including us, exceeds 550 pounds so no surprise. At one of the wing dams, we see a bald eagle perched in a barren tree on the left-side facing down river. So when we hop out to drag the canoe over the shallow gravel, out come the cameras:

I have a specific spot in mind with the notion of paddling pretty far down river and then working our way back up as we fish. We are fly-rodders, so casting while paddling can be a bit more challenging. I know a spot where we can get out and fish while wading.

I had made a plan to fish this spot when I first woke up this morning, so one of my two fly-rods was rigged in advance just for the nature of this spot: 12 foot 5x leader and a tandem fly rig consisting of a bead-head "flashabou prince nymph" and then a #18 pink squirrel for the point fly. Once we arrived at my select spot, it took only two casts on a slow seam to draw out a very nice Rainbow trout:

This was a great fight as this fish took a few nice runs, turning with big arcs that were very visible under water with its bright red sides revealing its size as it turned. How fun!  And there is nothing like the feeling of finally getting a trophy like this into the net. Relief, pride and feelings of success all swell together in that moment. To make this even more fun, two kayak-ers with spinning rods happened upon us right as I hooked the brute. Once landed, one of them commented "I'd call that every bit of 20 inches if I caught it."  Perhaps he would have, but this fish just made 17 inches. It was its girth that was impressive and led to the weighty fight. 

When we finished up here, we paddled back to Stone's Bridge without stopping - we had tarried a bit longer that planned at the magic spot. What a great way to start. I didn't know it at the time, but the next couple of days would produce additional remarkable fish.

Saturday - June 13, 2026. Walk-in Number 1.

There are only a few spots in the upper Bois Brule River where we have discovered places over the years where we can hike in and fish. One of these takes us, with some effort, to some pretty fast water. I have told myself for years that I am going to hike up into some of that fast water and swing my small streamers downstrean on a sink-tip line to prospect for some bigger fish. However, whenever I walk into this particular spot, I always get distracted by fish rising in the slower water that I must bypass to get to the faster water upstream. That slower water has produced some very nice fish over day-time hatches on cloudy and rainy days, so it is always hard to pass up. But today, I am determined to try something new - and it pays off. 

The walk in is heavily forested and quite boggy as the ground there is saturated with water even far away from the river. I know my way in here after years of doing this. Once I strike the river, I have to wade up through that storied, slower water until I get to a nice run that dumps into it upstream. Then It is back into the woods through more heavy forest. I want to get far enough upstream to where it will take me a couple of hours to pick my way back down as I try some select spots and a variety of flies to see if  I can tempt a fish or two. 

I am fishing an Orvis Helios 3D, 9-foot rod paired with an Orvis "bank shot" sink-tip line spooled up on one of my Charlton reels. It's a wonderful rig and I like to fish something similar in the 7-weight class when I work some bigger flies in fast water down in Patagonia. The idea here is to cast across the fast water into the slower water at the far bank and then strip line back to motion the fly to swim downstream parallel to the  bank for a distance. After a couple of attempts at that, I then let the line swing through the fast water to the slow water below me on the near-side bank and strip it back upstream before casting agaib. After working a spot like this with a few casts, I wad downstream 20 feet or so and do it again. The water is very clear and it is fun to watch the fly swimming along the bank on the far side as I anticipate a strike. 

It is during one of the near-side swings that my fly enters a darker, deeper pool on the bank. I get an agressive strike from a solid fish.  I think: "this has to be a nice brown trout."  I work to keep it along the bank by angling my fly rod toward the forest as I strip in line. As the fish swings into the next small bank-side pool, I catch a flash of its finds: bright orange and white. It is a trophy brook trout! My leader is a beefy 2X so there is little chance the fish will escape unless it throws the hook. It is quickly brought to the net and, much like my rainbow in the upper river the other day, it has some incredible girth. 

In the photo below, you can see an abeline dot just beyond its tail. That marks 18-inches. You can also see that its nose does not quite reach the end of the hoop. However, even allotting for that, this fish is a solid 16 inches or slightly more. I think that is largest I have ever caught here. And with its girth, no doubt the heaviest overall for me.  I don't have my tripod with iPhone mount with me (I can only manage so much gear during a hike-and-wade foray like this), so a few photos with the net have to suffice. Just a beautiful fish!

 

Monday - June 15, 2026 . Walk-in Number 2.

I am very late to the river today. It is pushing 7pm before I finally decide to go look for bugs and a fish or two further down river. There is a second, shorter walk-in spot that works perfectly considering the lateness of the day. When I arrive, there is no one else at the spot. Just as I get ready to walk into the woods, another car arrives. Another late-comer like me. We chat a bit and then I head in to find a spot for the evening. When my tardy friend arrives, he says that the hatches have been accelerated this year. Maybe because of the low water.  He even says that the Batisca mayflies are pretty much done, but I can already see a few of those flying over his head. I have never known those to actually end before the hex hatch ends.  He notes that he is planning to wader pretty far down river so I know he must be looking for those large, Hexagenia mayflies.  I decide to stay close to where I got in and wade up and down through this large, sweeping bend. 

I watch and wait as a few fish begin to take those batiscas which are showing up as spinners on the water  now.  The "takers" are all small rainbows with the nicest once shown here:

To be completely honest, I have yet to bring a brown trout of any size to the net yet this year. Not even a fingerling. It has all been rainbows and brook trout. And, yes, many of those were on the smaller size. As the light begins to fade, I hear my first, really large fish rise. it is upstream on the inside bank and out of sight. In reel in my line and start to quietly wade up in that direction. Another big rise from the same fish and I can see the ripple moving out toward mid-river from the bank. When I finally get around the corner, I see some nice, downed timber on that side of the river. When the big fish rises again, I am finally able to get eyes on where he is. I mover further across the river and slow my pace even more,. The water is very still here and I do not want to push  a wake toward the the fish. It takes me about 10 minutes to get into a position across and slightly upstream of my quarry. And it has not come up again that entire time.

There are brown drake spinners in the air now. Not a prolific amount, but enough to induce me to shoot a video and then to switch flies. Another rise comes just as I finish dressing my fly with floatant. I get several nice drifts right over the target spot and no takes. I reel in and wait. Another rise. I cannot see what it took, so I assume it is the batisca as it is the only fly I can truly see on the water. So I switch back. That does the trick and he takes my fly on the second drift. Oh, its a nice, heavy fish and surely a brown trout. I'm using a 4X tippet here so I take care to reduce my drag a bit on the Charlton reel. That drag is butter smooth and this trout makes two long runs back to the bank with me halting the charge each time it approaches that wood there.  After the second run like that, i easily manage him to my net. 

Since this was a shorter walk-in, I have my Gitzo carbon-fiber tripod with me along with my older iphone as a camera. It is sitting in the sandy bottom ready-to-go for a selfie with this fish. I just have to walk over, touch the screen and swipe up for a 3-second timer. 

This brown trout goes just over 20-inces. I have not had a brown trout in this size class here in a number of years, so this completes my "first foray" of the year with great examples of all three inland species of trout here. What a great few days to get things started!

Paul