Fichigan

2025 Spring Trout Camp

We didn’t camp in our regular spot on the Pine River. A young couple was camped there. I talked to the guy and offered him $40 if he would pack up and camp elsewhere and he seemed tempted but passed. The regular spot overlooks the river on a high bluff and has lots of room for trailers and tents. It’s first come first serve so that’s fine. No problem. Natch spent Thursday night in another spot, called me, and said it was too small. I drove to the spot and we decided we could make it work, and, turns out it worked well. We set a campfire and later found rocks and small boulders to build a fire pit.

Feral and Jake arrived on Saturday. Feral had a new vehicle, a 94 Ford Ranger with something like 80k miles on it and no rust. He towed Jake’s 1961 Apache Chief tent camper. The two rode together. Natch and I lined up our trailers along one edge of the clearing to make sure there was room for the tent camper. The small clearing/hollow is surrounded by trees that act as a windbreak. We couldn’t see the river but it was an easy walk from camp. Bottom line: This is a great camp option in the future.

Natch brought a grill that fits over a campfire and Saturday night we cooked up a load of morels as appetizers to a trout dinner with beans. I had caught a couple of trout on an upper stretch of the Pine River on Saturday afternoon. As I was heading back downstream to my truck I ran into another fisherman from the Detroit area. He saw my fish and asked what I was using for a lure, and I told him, but he wanted to look at the lure. So he climbed out of the stream and broke through some thorn bushes to get a closer look. I offered up a few alternatives I’ve had good luck with but he was determined to know what exact lure was used for the two fish I was carrying. One was 17 inches, the other 15. I guess seeing is believing.

This was our best year ever for morels. Our go-to spot is a fifteen-minute drive from camp. Natch and I scored about twenty on Friday. Saturday morning we went back with Jake and Feral and picked another 30 or so.

We always remote camp (dispersed camping) on state land with a form you post on a tree for anyone to see, including the Michigan DNR. It’s free to do this but there are rules to follow including what distance you must camp from a trout stream. I had brought along a framed photo of the Phillips Gang for Jake. I hung it up just below the camp tag. I thought he and Feral would get a kick out of seeing it there. The photo shows what appears to be an early 1900s photo of an outlaw gang, which in my mind was like a warning to people to turn around before pulling into our camp. A ridiculous idea if you know the guys I camp with. They are all friendly and laid back. The photo includes Feral, my step-dad Ken Phillips, myself, an old friend, Don, from high school, and Denny, a trout camp regular. If you type “Phillips Gang” in the blog search tool you’ll find a better photo.

Natch brought some antique pellet pistols and rifles and we spent one afternoon plinking tin cans around camp. Natch is a serious collector of rare rifles from the early twentieth century. He also brought some hand-built sling-shot rifles using rubber slings meant for slingshots. Very creative guns. They looked dangerous, were difficult to load, but would launch small stones and round shot like a catapult. I give Natch a lot of credit. Making some sort of gun was a camp challenge and he always rises to the occasion.

I was hoping we would have a jam session so I brought my kit-built telecaster with an amp along with a second amp with a microphone for vocals. I asked Natch to bring his bongos. Natch and Feral started drinking White Russians which are made with vodka, coffee liquor, and cream. I took a sip of Natch’s and realized it was super heavy on the vodka so I stuck with NA Coronas with lime. After an hour, Natch and Feral talked about having a jam session. Feral, who also goes by the name Rock Bottom, was our lead vocalist. I jammed out a variety of songs, sometimes with distortion, and Natch played bongos with abandon, somehow turning it into a full set of drums. Jake was a little shy about joining in or maybe the cacophony and the occasional off-key blend was enough to convince him there was no place for a real musician in the mix. We jammed for a couple of hours. It was after midnight before I pulled the plug.

We had cold nights and cool days. Monday the sun came out and suddenly we were scrambling for shade. This may sound like BS, but Feral needed to go into the woods for you know what, found a spot, and thought: this looks like the same kind of area I found mushrooms yesterday. He looked down and saw one. Then scanned the ground and found four more. Later, he and Jake went back there and found another twenty. So there you go. First weekend in May start looking for morels in Lake County, Michigan.

Natch found the first mushroom. That’s me, Luther, with my walking stick. We didn’t do as much fishing as usual – mainly because our regular spot (that was taken) has good fishing right over the hill. Also, the river was flooded when we arrived. By Sunday it was coffee-colored and wadable. Natch did a stretch and caught five keepers which he released. Jake and Feral did a stretch together and brought back two to take home. I did another stretch and caught one and missed a few others. So the fishing was good. We talked about tossing worms into a big hole below 6-Mile Bridge on Monday night but we were still in recovery mode after the late-night Sunday jam session. We packed up on Tuesday morning and vowed to figure out some more trips this summer.