Get Social
Learn How to Fly Cast Saturday April 20 in Cross Plains
Each April, Southern Wisconsin Trout Unlimited holds its Riversmith Fly Casting Clinic for anyone interesting in learning how to cast a fly. The clinic is free. This year's gathering is 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, April 20, at H.M. Zander Community Nature Park in Cross Plains. Beginners are especially encouraged to attend. Loaner rods will be available for those who do not own their own equipment. For more information, including how to lend a hand, contact Scot Stewart at scotstewart2@gmail.com.
Premier Partners
Gateway Feature
True Confessions from Black Earth Creek
By Claude Clayton "Bud" Smith
AS A KID in Connecticut I went trout fishing once a year—with my older brother, father and grandfather—on Opening Day, April 15th. We got up at four o’clock, as sleepy as on Christmas morning, and were at the Pomperaug River by five, standing elbow to elbow in the cold and fog with hundreds of other fishermen, waiting for someone with a wrist watch to announce that it was, finally, six o’clock, and time to wet (and tangle) our lines. In all those years I caught but a single trout, tossing a goldfish lure with my spinning rod, a brown trout a measly eight inches long. Fast-forward sixty years, and I’m no longer an adolescent but a retiree, having downsized to a condo in Madison, WI, where I was happily prowling the local lakes for bass in my fishing kayak until a good friend, as pure a trout fisherman as the immortal Ted Williams, introduced me to Black Earth Creek, of which I’ve been a devotee ever since. Never mind that, unlike my friend, I still fish with a spinning rod and don’t wade in the water. I’m here to tell you that Black Earth Creek has some of the best trout fishing in America.
AS A KID in Connecticut I went trout fishing once a year—with my older brother, father and grandfather—on Opening Day, April 15th. We got up at four o’clock, as sleepy as on Christmas morning, and were at the Pomperaug River by five, standing elbow to elbow in the cold and fog with hundreds of other fishermen, waiting for someone with a wrist watch to announce that it was, finally, six o’clock, and time to wet (and tangle) our lines. In all those years I caught but a single trout, tossing a goldfish lure with my spinning rod, a brown trout a measly eight inches long. Fast-forward sixty years, and I’m no longer an adolescent but a retiree, having downsized to a condo in Madison, WI, where I was happily prowling the local lakes for bass in my fishing kayak until a good friend, as pure a trout fisherman as the immortal Ted Williams, introduced me to Black Earth Creek, of which I’ve been a devotee ever since. Never mind that, unlike my friend, I still fish with a spinning rod and don’t wade in the water. I’m here to tell you that Black Earth Creek has some of the best trout fishing in America.