So this past weekend my wife and I traveled to the wonderful metropolis of Milwaukee to visit a friend doing her medical rotation and to see John Mellencamp in concert.  My intent was to pack a fly rod, but it was left at home and we spent a solid 9am to 12:30am people watching at an event in Milwaukee called “SummerFest”. 

About all I can really say about Milwaukee, is WOW.  I guess with all those aging Harley riders in attendance, I was in for a treat.  But the real treat came when a Bon Jovi tribute band took one of the stages.  Holy cow did these guys suck; but hey, he looked the part.  SummerFest is a pretty long music festival held in a pretty good sized park on the Lake Michigan shoreline.  The park is set up with close to 10 different stages, all of them playing music from noon to midnight.  We were able to see a local guy with his guitar that I really dug — Dave Rodriguez, as well as a reggae / funk bankd called Roster McCabe, but for the most part the music styles present were not anything that I was in to.  Mellencamp played on Saturday evening and was an absolute blast.  The guy can’t dance, but he can still sing and sounds as good live as he does on his CD’s, and was someone that I wanted to cross of my list for some time now.  If you ever get the chance to see him, definitely do…….but if you ever decide to visit Milwaukee…..think twice.  They don’t even serve Budwieser.  — Matt Tucker

There was a post on the OzarkChronicles.com forum about cheap fly rods and while I tend to spread the wealth around several different vendors I seem to always go back to the same 2 rods when fishing.

So it wasn’t until I gave this some thought that I had an epiphany.  Sure it could have been the fact that it happened yesterday while dining on lunch at an establishment by the name of “Beavers” (they are selling franchises by the way) regarding this concept of a “cheap rod”.

Truth be told, fly rods are a lot like strippers.  While the expensive ones are often fun to look at, and serve a purpose, they don’t always offer any more functionality.  In regards to strippers, I have always found that the cheaper ones try harder, and that really ought to count for something.  I don’t know……but it kind of makes you think about your next fly rod purchase.

–Matt Tucker

I guess it has been all this talk about “change” in the media, or it could have been the fact that Tim Russert died, or hell it could be that I despise weather over 80 degrees and have no real desire to fish in such heat.  But anyway, I have brought a little change in the design to the OC and have attempted to try and tidy some things up and add some new stuff as well.  I guess the difference between the OC and the candidates is that well….um we changed before we talked about it…..

I have always longed for big fish, there is something about the power and smarts they show when a big fish realizes it has something in its mouth that isn’t natural and then the fight is on.  After my trip to Wisconsin last year, where I was with Tim Biesendorfer when he caught and landed a 10lb brown trout on the Root River (an obvious Lake Run Brown Trout), I knew that I would be back.  The potential opportunity of a 30″ fish in excess of 20lbs was the target of this now 2nd annual pilgrimage to the Wisconsin tributaries of Lake Michigan.

This trip was planned for months in advance and it was something that we were all looking forward to.  So on Wednesday morning (10/03/07), Brent McClane, Todd Butzlaff, and Tim Biesendorfer headed north to Wisconsin.  Craig Peterson, Brent Hinds, and myself were scheduled to head up later in the week on Friday (10/05/07) after work.  The trip finally arrived, but with less suspense than anyone going on said trip had hoped for.

 The weather was unseasonably warm, with bluebird skies and temps in the mid to low 90’s and there of course were water levels to deal with (which were low, but the area did recieve some rain earlier in the week).  The loss of suspense on this trip was when the 3 anglers that headed up earlier decided to do a little homework on these species and visited with local fly shops and guides in the area to find out exactly the best flies and methods to catch these fish.  To be rather blunt about it, these sources indicated that most fish in the river system are caught by lining flies in the mouth and not by the fish actively feeding on the flies (with the exception of the occassional buck salmon crushing eggs).

We rolled in to Kenosha, WI around 9:30pm on Friday night to meet up with the guys already up there, and we traded stories about the trip up and the past days fishing.  We made plans for tomorrows fishing, and decided we were going to tackle the Milwaukee River in downtown Milwaukee.  After getting everything situated the night before, we rolled up the parking area (along a busy city street) and walked down to the river to find a group of about 15 anglers from the Belleville area (including Brad Eirling).  In the first, and only, two hours of fishing on the Milwaukee River I ended up with 3 hookups (2 with decent runs and jumps) and zero fish landed.  The crowds, the skank fish, and the heat had everyone in the group ready to get the hell off of the water.  As we crested the hill back up near the Durango, there are several homeless people across the street from where we parked.  It was definitely an urban fishing scene that I was not ready for.

The highlight of the fishing trip came from fishing Kenosha Harbor for big crusing browns and salmon, catching little salmon smolts off of the pier with fly rods while the bait fisherman got annoyed, watching two kids cast treble hooks into the harbor without any abandon for what was behind them at the time they wanted to cast, and the hoards of non-english speaking fisherman.  The highlight of the non-fishing time was when I got the chance to buy 3 cubs fans some Budwieser in the bottom of the 8th inning as the Cubs went on to lose.

With regards to continuing the annual trip to Wisconsin, I think it is safe to assume that we are looking for another destination for the upcoming October trip.

I spent this weekend fishing the White River in Arkansas.  It was the maiden voyage of my drift boat, so it was a very pleasurable experience.  But there were some important lessons to be learned after the completion of this trip.  The biggest was that one should never take gear marketed as waterproof as gospel.

It rained a pretty good clip this weekend as we floated the 7 mile trip from the Dam to White Hole access on the White River.  Before the rain, we had pulled over to the bank and McClane and I secured the gear as best we could to keep it as dry as possible.

One of the tools we thought we would use was our William Joseph Gear Bags, as they are supposed to be waterproof and float with 45lbs of gear.  So we zipped everything up and took off down the river.  After about 4 hours of additional fishing and off and on thunderstorms we reached our take-out.  Upon loading the boat on the trailer and securing everything to be towed, I was surprised to see standing water in the bottom of my WJ Gear Bag.

The bag had sat on the rear deck of the drift boat , behind me and to my left, for the entire trip.  It is an elevated rear deck, so the bag itself wasn’t sitting in any water (just the wet deck).  Everything inside the bag was soaking wet — flyboxes, GPS Unit, FRS Radio, Headlamp, extra reel, fishing license, my wallet, EVERYTHING.

You can see a video of just how wet everything was in my bag by viewing this video I uploaded to YouTube .

Even though I didn’t pay for this product (both McClane and I were given these to use during our 2004 Trout Bum trip), I still feel that this product didn’t produce as marketed and wanted to let everyone know about it.

The bag is a sharp looking bag, and I really like the looks and storage capacity and layout.  However it just didn’t keep my gear dry as written about in several reviews (Here is an example review), and I wanted to warn everyone before they just assume that something that is marketed as “waterproof” sometimes might not always be.

–Matt Tucker