The Intervention
After posting so much non-fishing stuff over the winter Feral speculated whether an intervention was required. Ballerina statues, book recommendations…that stuff was not going to cut it with my blog readers. We joked about that for a while then drove up to the Pine River near Bristol. There’s lots of state land and river access up in the northeast corner of Lake County and after the opener you pretty much have the streams to yourself. We pulled into popular spot for camping and youth partying and fished a stretch neither of us had visited in years. A wide bend of river swings around an open field then narrows down and cuts though woods into a large deep pool. The river was high and muddy. The bend is relatively shallow which looked promising. Third cast and Feral hooked a nice brown about sixteen inches. I was still fumbling around picking a lure.
The way it works with Feral and I is this: when you catch a fish the other guy takes the lead. Or, you get so embarrassed about not catching something out of good cover you tell the other guy to take the lead. So I stepped in the river above him and started casting to some sparse overhanging cover on the opposite bank, finally seeing a fish that missed my lure. I worked that fish for a few minutes and finally hooked and landed him. Another brown, maybe seventeen inches.
Feral moved back in the lead. Wading was difficult with large rocks and boulders deep enough you had to inch your way along blind. We managed to cross the river in waist deep water but the narrows through the woods was so deep we had to get out a couple times. We crossed back to the other side of the river above the deep pool, again, inching our way across blindly.
Feral had me take the lead after going fishless on the deep pool (understandable – bottom hugging fish likely never saw his lure). Right off I overcast some cover on the opposite bank and hooked my lure on a log jutting out. A brand new eight dollar lure. So I broke it off and went back across the river and tried to find it. Somehow it disappeared. Later, back at the car, Feral said I should have cut the line so I could snag and follow the line right back to the lure. Very good advice, just a bit late. We had a good laugh about great advice an hour late.
I hated to give up on the Pine (and a real good shot at a lunker) but Feral is more circumspect about treacherous wading and suggested the Little South (branch of the Pere Marquette). The Little South is much smaller water and much easier to wade. It had missed what must have been a deluge that flooded the Pine. The water was high and coffee color though which was inviting under the overcast, cloudy sky. Once again Feral hooked a nice fish while I was putting on a lure. Another brown with spectacular color.
I decided to drop down a bend below Feral and try that, telling him I would catch up soon. I caught two keepers right away then circled back through the woods to catch up. He was having similar luck. The coffee colored water was providing just enough opacity the fish weren’t seeing us but they were seeing our lures.
Honestly, we caught so many fish we lost track. We released them all. I should have kept a couple for the skillet but we were sort of caught in a rhythm. The sun would peek out from behind the rolling clouds once in a while and warm us up, then it would darken down again making the river that much more inviting. We were both tired but wanted to keep going. We finally cut out about seven-thirty PM which made for a long day.
Fichigan 