Wednesday
Dec052012
Dec. SOTM Entry: Milwaukee's Beast
Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 12:01AM 
Andy Weaverling hoists Milwaukee's Best Beast. Read about it on his blog
tagged brown trout, milwaukee river, slab of the month in Contests
brown trout, milwaukee river, slab of the month in Contests
Reader Comments (18)
1st it a monster brown no one can say otherwise.
2nd in skinny water doing what browns do (spawn) dressed in storm gear and no leaves on the trees would indicate that you are casting to spawning brown on reds, or staging to spawn. I see these guys ever year and I guess they all reading "Landon Mayors" book sight fishing to spawning brown trout. however; i'm sure you were using you 6ft 2wt using a 20ft leader, and a hand tied #52 sparkle ant pupa on 7X. joking
sorry I can't vote for this fish but it would of been cool watching it protect its red in that clean KNEE DEEP WATER.. i might be wrong...
I usually don't vote for pig browns for SOTM much anymore...but this thing is a monster.
here come the browns
It's nice you used the only photo that doesn't display the hundreds of eggs spilling out of her belly. Nice fish nonetheless, however catching fish on the spawn is not much of a feat to me. Kinda the lazy way to find the fish of your dreams
"Hero season" is in full force.
Nice fish. Better story (via your blog). Tellin' it like it is. No shame in your game. The pics and the story do the fish more justice than a silly video. Its all in the presentation. Well done.
I figured I'd offer up my side of the story. The reason I'm dressed in storm gear in the shots is because the air temp was 21 degrees with gusts to 20mph. I'm not sure what you wear in those temps? I like a few layers to keep me warm. As to the skinny water? It's all skinny water right now in the midwest (take a look at the gauges). The Milwaukee was running at 159cfs which is crazy low, and has been throughout the fall due to drought conditions. This run is no mystery to locals, and is actually one of the deeper spots on the lower Milwaukee. There are several grip and grins from this exact location on other well known FF blogs. We walked upstream to skinny water to shoot the pics because this fish overmatched my net and was easier to handle in the slower flows. There's no question the fish had to be staging to spawn, but it wasn't up on the skinny riffle or visible redds. This stretch put out a nice steelhead, small coho and this brown while I was there. If I wanted to hide the fact that this fish was spewing eggs I probably wouldn't have wrote about it or featured those shots on my blog. I sent both shots to Chum, they selected this one. I intercepted a fresh, prespawn female during the peak Seeforellen brown and steelhead run on the Milwaukee. It's pretty straightforward. That's what's so great about democracy, vote as you see fit.
Who cares. They are invasive and destroy ecosystems. I rip the gills out of everyone I get a hold of.
I'll take a fish that wasn't picked off her redd, thank you. NEXT!
look at the dudes blog. fish is literally spilling eggs. WTF moldychum?
This should not have been reposted by the Chum. Ethics should apply to anglers as well as the bloggers that post the hero shots from those anglers.
I sincerely hope that Eric simply didn't bother to look at this guy's blog. That fish should have been left alone, or at least released immediately (preferably without leaving the water).
Unfortunately, the internet has turned otherwise responsible anglers into glory-seekers that seem to care more about "fame" than the well-being of their fish. It is also unfortunate that the Chum seems to perpetuate this sort of behavior.Not intentionally, of course, but it does seem to incentivize it.
Since my ethics are under scrutiny as a result of this fish being posted as a SOTM entry. It's worth pointing out (if it wasn't already clear by my blog entry). This fish wasn't sitting on a visible redd. It was holding in a deeper spot just below shallow gravel that contained salmon redds. It was deep and fast enough that I couldn't even tell the size or species that was in the holding lie. I mentioned that I hoped it was a brown, but that is simply a reflection of my personal goal of catching a Seeforellen as they'd been elusive in previous outings. We snapped a few pics and sent her on her way to lay her eggs that will never come to fruition as there is no successful natural reproduction on the Milwaukee.
It's a well known that big browns in the Great Lakes tribs lurk downstream from salmon redds.
Here's a link to a Field & Stream article outlining the approach: http://tinyurl.com/ausexet
As it turned out this fish had to be staging, as opposed to feeding on salmon eggs, but I had no way of knowing that when she was caught. If you think it's unethical to catch a hen during a run, I'd then suggest you avoid fishing spawning runs altogether.
I thought there were just a bunch of haters being haters here, but if you click through the blog link it's actually pretty true. That fish is literally dumping eggs everywhere. This is the one clean eggless photo.
It's a slab no doubt! Just getting lighter by the minute. The story was a good read.
There is no natural reproduction of lake run browns, steelhead, or salmon in Wisco's Lake Michigan tribs. Too much silt and the eggs don't survive. Michigan's side is a different story as well as the inland trout streams. Haters might want to get their facts straight first....
You still photo-whored that fish. I'm glad you've found a way to justify it to yourself, but you aren't going to convince anyone else.
it is amazing to me how many jealous anglers response to a large fish.
Ahhh yes....reminds me of the old days when MP and his rambling reports were the rage on the great lakes tribs. Hard to believe there are still people blabbing spots and rivers while getting choked out by other anglers on a daily basis. I used to fish the ol mill when they first tore out the dam. It was great solitude for a couple of years...now a circus complete with gay hero shots. Most of the people who fish it are from Illinois.......locals have mostly gotten fed up.
Fish was staging...no worries there. Not going to reproduce anyway....again no worries. Keep up the good work Andy....your blog is a daily drive by for me.