Fall in the driftless...

is a beautiful time of the year.  Fishing, hunting, and gathering are all part of the season...a good friend stopped by yesterday and brought some ginseng seeds to plant on our property and look for root.  He stopped back after a couple hour walk with some in his bag...we talked about hunting and fishing and family.  He's married to my wifes cousin...everybody knows everybody in the kickapoo valley and we had some catching up to do.  Its what we do in small towns everywhere.

Hunting will start in earnest, soon enough...I don't like to burn out on bow hunting too early.  Our stands are up and bows ready...I'm hoping one of my sons gets a buck first.  I like to wait and look them over.   Besides, there is still fishing to do.  And what better than to close the season on your home water.  Bob Hunt, longtime head of Wisconsins cold water resource, once told me after catching 50 trout with a friend on our land, that this stream is the best naturally reproducing small stream in the state.  Indeed, conditions are so optimum that tiger trout are often produced.  Tonight I caught multiple year classes of trout to prove it.

School and other obligations kept me off the water, yesterday...I've been fishing enough and nobody was feeling sorry for me.  So I got out today in the late afternoon...the sun was putting on a light show with the multi colored leaves and making havoc of my angling when trying to see in the reflections.  I still caught some fish...you see, I was in my home valley fishing just downstream from our farm.  I could see our hillside for most of the time.  Its a beautiful valley and I never feel it necessary to put the fishing first, though sometimes I do.  But, this afternoon it was the show...