Dennis Anderson: The Brule calls, a sign of spring

ON THE BRULE RIVER, WIS. — Whatever spring is to normal people, to many steelheaders in Minnesota and Wisconsin it begins with a visit here, to the Brule, a river still, after these many years, of beauty, mystery and lore.

Husbanding this long waterway as it flows north to Lake Superior, trees tower alongside its banks, fewer white pines now than when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant fished the Brule in the 1870s, but enough still to inspire a cathedral's reverence.

Beneath a few of these the other day, Dave Zentner and I picked over a selection of colorful yarn flies, some pink, some green, some multicolored, most on No. 5 hooks. Nearby, snow remnants lay in the woods like patchwork. And along the river's edge, ice extended canopy-like over the cold moving water. A good day best spent here, we figured, castaways casting away.

"Tough fishing, but the river is still cold," Dave said. "Better days are ahead."

My son Trevor was along also, freed from school for a week, on spring break. Not far from Dave and me, he stood midstream in the Brule, never more comfortable than when unfurling fly line over rippling water. Overhead, the sun shone in a sky that was as blue as any. The air bore a chill, but by steelhead fishing standards, the weather was a walk in the park.

Now if a fish or two would take our flies.

Wading again into the river, Dave sent a cast upstream. Then he focused intently on his rod tip, imagining his fly being swept along the river's bottom by currents that first formed some 50 miles upstream. A truly wild river, the Brule flows barrier-free, collecting itself in bog country far upriver before stepping down more rapidly north of Hwy. 2.

In the river's higher reaches, its brook, brown and rainbow trout reproduce naturally, as do its lake-run salmonids -- steelhead, brown trout and coho salmon -- in the lower portions.

"Before the steelhead spawning begins, the river temperature will have to be in the 40s," Dave said.

Then he cast again.

Most of the Brule's steelhead -- migratory rainbow trout -- enter the river in fall, with the migration's peak occurring in early to mid-October. A spring migration is also made, though by fewer fish. Steelhead from the two runs differ in color: the over-wintering fish are duller, while the spring migrants are bright chrome.

Bob Nasby of St. Paul, a fly-casting instructor, is among those who fish the Brule exclusively in fall. More of the fish are fresh then from the big lake, and he can sweep the currents with yarn flies and other imitations borne by actual fly line, rather than monofilament spooled on fly reels, as is common among anglers on the Brule and up Minnesota's North Shore.

But not everyone fishes here with flies. Some anglers cast hardware, cruising for takers; others dangle spawn sacks and other bait on bare hooks.

One fellow we happened across last week hung a white jig and a wax worm below a large bobber.

Some of these methods can be more effective than flies, depending on the time of season and water temperature. But the fun quotient for some steelheaders is much higher when swinging flies, and that's how they choose to play the game.

Dave has done it all. He first fished the Brule in 1955, and every year since, just after the river's steelhead season opens, he totes a long rod to its shores, intent on hooking one of these fish -- or two or three -- on a fly.

Not only fishing trips, these sojourns are benchmarks on Dave's clockwork of seasons. Some of the first geese of spring hereabouts can be spotted then angling toward their nesting grounds farther north. Also a skein of sandhill cranes might be seen, or a wood duck pair flitting over the riverway, the hen soon in the cavity of a rotted tree around the bend. Also there are whitetail tracks on the footpaths that rim the Brule's stream banks, and one can imagine the cold winter nights they've spent curled beneath nearby conifers, comforted by the sound of the moving river, even when the temperature falls below zero.

Time passed, and the Brule fell beneath a broad archway of shadows. Continuously the water tumbled, a sound often likened to music, a cantata perhaps. Or symphony. Or rock 'n' roll.

All-enveloping, the soft rush of water comforted even the worrywart pleadings of newscasters we now all carry as baggage, dateline Tokyo or Tripoli, bummers of our times.

We gave it a final go in a stretch of water Dave knew well. The hour was late and we wanted to feel our lines straighten, that old familiar tug.

A dozen casts and Dave had one on, his rod bent deeply.

Quickly airborne, the brilliant fresh-run steelhead he hooked contorted acrobatically before nosing once more into the refuge of the foamy river.

Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com