One morning in late February found Chuck Rohloff, his wife Dolores and myself west of Madison on Highway 18, our destination, the area along the Iowa-Grant county line, our hopes high and the occasion, our '84 season's first trout fishing trek.

There had been a February thaw, three or four days of fifty degree weather, most of the snow was gone and the day had dawned bright and clear.

We were armed with fly rods, an area map, a dozen or so flies apiece and high hopes.

Actually, it probably should have been called an exploring and trout fishing trek. We planned to spend time on Castle Rock creek's catch and release section, but the day was young, the weather gorgeous, so we meandered a little getting there.

West of Dodgeville, mostly for nostalgic reasons, I persuaded Chuck to turn right on Q and head towards Highland.

It gave me a chance to show them Flint-Pengally Creek, a stream I had fond memories of from before Blackhawk Lake was formed downstream. I was able to point out, just driving by, where the largest brown trout I had ever seen rose to a dry and I managed to save the fly by jerking just before he grabbed it. It was a classic example of fly fisher's "buck fever".

Anyway the fish went down, and as far as I know, never came up again. I caught several big trout there afterwards, but never saw that one again. That was all of 30 years ago and I still find myself thinking, maybe if I get over there at the right time I just might raise him again.

There was a brook trout stream I wanted to try before we left Iowa County, so west of Highland we turned off Q on Big Spring Road and stopped near a bridge a mile or so down it.

The creek, Big Spring branch, meanders through a wooded valley. It has deteriorated the last few years because of beaver activity. What was once a sparkling brook is now a succession of beaver dams that have turned much of it into flat, silted water.

We spent about one hour there and Chuck caught and returned a nice fat brook trout. It was 10-1/2 inches long and came out from under some shelving lime stone to take a silver nymph.

Returning to Q we drove north a short distance to Shenak Road, then cut across on that to Q again just outside Castle Rock. Q makes a big loop north, then returns back down. Cutting across here saves several miles.

After Shenak Road leaves Q, it runs parallel to, although some distance from (possibly a quarter of a mile), the Blue River.

We had just gone a few rods when we saw an old timer coming across a field carrying some fish in a landing net. We stopped and waited for him.

He had two browns, 14 or 15 inches long and a fly rod still baited with a worm. He told us it had been quite a walk from the river and he wasn't sure it was worth it.

The fish were still on a stringer and bleached from hanging dead in the river. It makes me feel bad whenever I see this. I am amazed how many anglers don't know how to take care of trout. They will never know how delicious they can be.

Trout have a small abdominal cavity, but very fast acting digestive juices. If not dressed at once, the stomach juices begin to taint the flesh almost immediately, even in cold weather.

If you are going to keep one for eating, do these three simple things before you even cast again: Rap it on the head with your knife handle, then break its neck by bending the head backwards. Remove entrails and gills, place it in a well ventilated creel with dry grass inside and around the fish. If grass isn't available, crumpled paper toweling will work. The idea is to keep it dry and to let air circulate around it. If you keep more than one, don't let them touch each other in the creel.

Prepared in this way, they will stay bright and firm for hours, even in hot weather, and it takes hardly any time. This is why split willow creels have been popular for centuries. They can't be beat for air circulation.

So far we had seen very few fishers, but Castle Rock was a different story. The road along the part of the catch and release stretch we had hoped to fish was lined with cars. The stream was still roily and flowing fast from snow melt and we just had no luck at all in the area we did try.

We talked to an angler from Waukesha, however, who had taken and released one brown. He was using a mylar tubing streamer, quite large, a 6 or 8 I would guess.

After an hour or so of this, we elected to try one more place. Proceeding towards Fennimore on Q, we turned left on Church Road, then left again on Everson Road and stopped at the bridge across Doc Smith branch. Doc Smith, like Castle Rock, is a catch and release, fish for fun only stream and fished quite heavily. As luck would have it, however, we had this stretch to ourselves.

Chuck took off downstream and we didn't see him again for a couple of hours. Dolores stayed closer to the road and I walked downstream a ways and worked back up. When I came back up. When I came back to where Dolores was fishing, I found she had caught and released a 12 or 13 inch brown from a foam flecked eddy using a silver nymph. All I could report were some chubs and one shiner.

Moving on upstream, I came to a pool that had caught my eye earlier and I decided to try it again. I just couldn't shake the idea that our flies weren't getting down to the fish. They were size 14 silver nymphs and unweighted. I had been using a 4X tippet about 18 inches long and a single knot of lead wire just above the tippet.

The water was roily and fast here also, but not as bad as at the other creek. It was moving swiftly enough though, so that there was a pronounced streak of broken water where the main current moved through the pool. A couple of hours later when we left, it had subsided enough so the surface was smooth clear across.

Breaking off the 4X tippet, I tied on a piece of 5X about three feet long (twice the length I had been using) and made two knots with some .030 inch lead wire above the tippet. I tied on a silver nymph, threw into the current and let it swing back into the long eddy on my side and got a hit.

I threw again and hooked a foot long brown. Dolores was within earshot so I called her over.

She rigged up the same way I was and began catching fish. The pool was large enough for both of us to fish. We stayed down and well back on the bank. We didn't take fish every cast, but did get hits nearly every time. They ranged from 10 to 13 inches, all of them plump and healthily colored.

The action would be fast for 10 minutes or so, we would move away and rest the pool for a little while, then return and catch fish again.

Finally, after one of these catching sprees, rather than moving, Dolores tied on a muskrat scud and kept right on getting hits. After that, just switching back and forth between silver nymphs and the little scud seemed to work as well as resting the pool.

About this time, Chuck returned and we had to explain to an incredulous partner what we were up to. In fact, we had to show him. He had spent a fruitless two hours downstream and found it hard to believe that fish had been hitting well for us.

He rigged up like we were, long tippet, extra lead wire and all, and caught and released several trout before it was time to go home. I moved to the other side of the pool and hooked two or three there.

The fish were bunched up at the bottom of probably the deepest hole in that entire stretch. They were healthy, active and hungry for our flies when we got them down to the bottom.

At one time I caught on a snag and the tippet broke about half-way back. I tied on another silver nymph and continued fishing. Everything else was the same, fly, weight and all, but the hits stopped and didn't start again until I tied another long tippet. The longer one must have presented the flies more naturally.

They wouldn't take if we gave the flies action either. They wanted that natural drift the slow current in the long eddy gave.

The silver nymph and the little scud are described in an article, "Two Flies For Winter Trout", in the February, 1984 Badger Sportsman.