...................there are plenty of these 
My bride of 15 years and I were able to take a short trip last weekend to Bayfield WI, for some R&R and to celebrate our anniversary.
Not knowing whether or not we would find time to go fishing in or around Bayfield, we decided to try fishing the Namekagon River on the drive up. This was an
area and river we'd never fished before so our expectations were not too high, but we'd read in a book on the Streams of Wisconsin that there were
pretty good trout populations in a stretch of the river north of Hayward but we lacked the exact details of "where".
That said, we took our chances parking at the end of a dead end road that we knew was "near" the river and hiked in, having no idea what waters would
await us. We emerged from the woods at the river's edge and though it was beautiful, it didn't look a bit "trouty"......at all
.
As far as I could see in both directions up and down, it was a wide, shallow, slow moving river with no noticeable structure that one would hope to find in a
trout stream. We didn't really have time to hike back to the car and go looking for a different stretch of water to try and I was feeling a little
bummed out but then I saw several rises on the glass surface of this river. Upon a closer look, it appeared to be Creek Chubs. OK, I thought to myself,
creek chubs are not what we planned on, and this was the first outing that my wife was using her special Doc Hermann "Mitzi Silver Trout"
reel…......did we really want the first thing caught on it to be a creek chub ?
Luckily the desire to just be on the water prevailed, and after all……."Any fish that will take a dry fly is OK with me !"
We only had a couple hours, but it was a very peaceful outing and not surprisingly, we didn't see anyone else fishing…..I guess the crowds don't go
after the creek chubs 
.
Our time on the water was filled with many of these little ones rising with great vigor to snatch most any dry fly presented to them.
I'm thankful that my mindset has changed this year to where I care less about what is being caught and more about just enjoying the wonderful surroundings,
good company, and the beauty in any fish that is willing to take my fly. In that, Life is good 
.
Here are some photos of our little outing……it is always enjoyable to fish with my better half…..she was using a 6 ½ ft 3 wt Winston Stalker built by Jim Schaaf
with her Doc Hermann special built "Mitzi Silver Trout" reel. I was using a 7 ft 4 wt F.D Lyons with my Doc Hermann baby trout.
The gear:
Mrs Tdoc and Wild Irises:
Though no trout, based on these stone-fly nymph casings there is at least trout food in this stretch of water:
Gear at rest:
The two hours we enjoyed that afternoon catching these little creek chubs was a good reminder that "Any time spent on the water is time well spent"
.
Mark B
