Granny and I are still enjoying my old stomping grounds of Wisconsin. We are now way up north near Ashland where I studied at Northland College 1983-1987. We passed through Ashland yesterday and camped in the National Forest last night. It’s been absolutely gorgeous. Cold but gorgeous.
Until today we hadn’t fished again since our day down south in the Driftless Region. But today we fixed that problem because we are now staying with my college roommate Matt Norton “Howie” and his wife Sue. They live here in Iron River and we are going to stay here a few days and fish hard.
As for today’s hard fishing – it was hard. We experienced some big rain yesterday and most the rivers are colored up. The soils around here are very red and it doesn’t take much for them to color a river. We chucked streamers below a waterfall for an hour today on one of Howie’s sneaky Lake Superior tributaries but between the three of us we didn’t move a single steelhead or trout.
I should mention the old Explorer ran into an issue. About 400 miles ago a rattle started underneath the front. Then yesterday a terrible squeak to go with. When we got to Iron River Howie arranged for us to visit his mechanic and lucky for us he’s good. Seems my 4 wheel drive hub, despite being in off position, engaged itself on the driver’s side and we didn’t know it. I’m a useless mechanic so I’m not going to try and explain. But for $68 he has us running but I’ll need to get my 4 wheel drive fixed when I get home. Always something!
Howie and Sue have 79 acres and their own lake. They have a cool house and a cabin on the property. Granny and I settled into the cabin this afternoon. Should be a great few days visiting and fishing with Howie. In the morning we will fish their lake.