Fichigan

Small Stream Trout fishing in Michigan

Archive for the category “Trout Advice”

09 Sep 2012

Pine River, Lake County

Six Mile Bridge over the Pine River

Michigan has several Pine Rivers. The Pine River in northern Lake County holds some nice brown trout, rainbows, and the occasional brook trout. It gets fished heavily on the opener but through the summer you most likely will get the stream to yourself other than some canoeists on sunny days. Feral and I went up there this weekend mainly because it rained Friday and we hoped for a stained or muddy stream – something to help get the trout in a mood to chase lures. We parked at Six Mile Bridge and went upstream from there. The river winds though some private property but in Michigan that’s not usually a problem – just stay in the stream. (Rules vary by river.)

Fishing was tough. It looked like rain while we put on our waders so we took our rain jackets, but after the first bend the sun came out and we knew we would have to do some coaxing to get a fish. The water was low and clear. Feral and I changed lead every couple bends and tossed a variety of lures without seeing a fish. When that happens I start making dicey casts into thick overhanging brush and trees over deep water where it would be impossible to retrieve the lure should it hang up. Lost one lure but I managed to retrieve an expensive Rapala by breaking the lure off and then fighting my way though a tangle of vines on a sheer bank.  Not my best day of casting.

Feral wearing camouflage to up the odds

Clouds rolled in and clouds rolled out. When they rolled out the stream lit up like jewelry and even the polaroids didn’t help. We entertained ourselves talking about previous times up that stretch and where we had taken good fish so there were a lot of short conversations that petered out.

Pine River, summer of 2012

We did end up with two trout, a rainbow and a brown, but we tossed them back. Both fish were caught at the end of the stretch so maybe fishing would have picked up a bit. We stopped at an access point on a two-track that runs south off Six Mile Road and we had a long walk back to the truck.

When we reached six mile we saw a large dog on the road that was ambling away from us and Feral talked about how he was once harassed by a huge wild dog that closed in on him every time he turned his back to walk away. He threw the dog a fish and the dog took it and then left him alone. As he was telling me this some dogs started howling and running toward us from a house close to the road. Fortunately they were all bark and we diffused the situation by talking to them. The owner ran out and called the dogs. I think he was surprised to see two guys in waders walking down the road. Not a lot of fishermen hitting the rivers this summer. Might be the driest season on record.

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06 Sep 2012

Giant Fall Brown Trout

These videos were taken during the 2010 fall trout camp and show the Sturgeon River almost to flood stage. The big fish move upstream in the late fall triggered in part by rising water levels. This is exactly where I hope to be at the end of September. I apologize for the unsteady camera work and low resolution not to mention I sound like a blathering idiot but the main thing is the videos show exactly what the sport of stream trout fishing is about: camaraderie, humor and catching big fish.

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25 Aug 2012
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Choosing a Fishing Buddy

I would never say your choice of fishing buddy is more important than your choice of spouse because my wife would use it against me. However, if your marriage is successful you will be spending more time with him than her so it is critical to make sure he meets a basic list of criteria to ensure your happiness until death do you part.  In no particular order here are some considerations:

Find a guy with a big SUV – something that will hold his and your fishing and camping gear. Conversely, make sure you own a small gas getter that is impractical for camping. Take out the passenger seat if he starts talking about using your car. You can always say the bolts rusted off.

He must be taller than you. I’ll have to work on the reasons but that’s my gut feeling.

It helps if your fishing buddy is honest since he won’t be able to lie about the fish he caught. Nothing more aggravating than telling a whopper and having your buddy tell a bigger one. In fact, make sure he’s not a good story teller – that’s your job.

If he is insecure that is a bonus since he will likely want to please everyone, including you. He’ll probably show up with cold drinks, sub sandwiches and even some granola bars for when you’re on the stream.  Thank him of course, but don’t feel guilty because you’d be playing right into his hands.

Make sure he can filet fish because you never really got the hang of it and sure hate to waste good meat.  Also, make sure he has some decent camp cookware and a camp stove in case you want a trout dinner cooked by a master chef (him).

If he has a nice boat add ten points. If he can launch it by himself add five more.

Make sure he doesn’t own a dog. If you’re OK with dogs you might be able to work around this until his dog has your number. When a dog figures out every time you show up he gets left behind it can get pretty ugly.

If your potential fishing buddy has a hot wife that can cook, add two points.

Try to find someone with a sense of humor because there’s nothing funny about fishing. Fishing is the original anti-hysterical activity. You want someone that can say something off the wall after four hours of mind-numbing biteless ozone fishing.  One funny comment can mean the difference between a forgettable trip and an unforgettable trip.

Based on all of the above – I may be the best fishing buddy ever!  I’ll have to ask Feral.

 

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19 Jun 2012

Bass Lures for Trout

Trout have a reputation for being finicky and I can probably thank fly fishermen for that. Most published accounts focus on finding the one pattern that works for a particular time and place and that makes me smile since I have pulled junk out of my congested lure tote that resembles nothing a trout has ever seen and proceeded to catch trout.  One time on the lower Baldwin, in a good rain, I lost a favorite lure and had to try something untested. By chance I had a big-lipped deep diving crankbait with me and since the water was high and rising, I figured what the heck. My second cast brought in a medium size brown around 14 or 15 inches. The Big “O” type lure was mostly green and had a fish type pattern that was supposed to resemble a bluegill. Not much chance the trout I caught had ever seen a bluegill. I caught one or two more keepers on the lure before finally calling it a day.

I haven’t caught a trout yet on the #3 Sperm Whale pictured above but I don’t count it out. My reading is it’s a night lure and I know just the pool to try it on. It’s designed to wobble like a jitterbug and who knows what kind of leviathan it might call up from the deep. I’m half afraid to use it since it may be the only one like it in existence and I don’t have to tell you what the antique lure market is like.

One year Natch, our “wired” fishing buddy, hit the bargain bin at Wal-Mart on the way up to trout camp. He picked up some dollar bass lures of various strange patterns. He caught trout and what really amazes me is that for several years running he took “big fish” honors in our annual contest. I can’t say it was the dollar bass lures, we keep some secrets, but I know he experiments.

I recall another year when we trout camp regulars were disgusted by the rising price of our “standard trout lures” and experimented with new lures by Japanese companies. The Japanese get creative and have made a huge impact on the professional BASS tour. Some lures are reminiscent of their monster movies although this one reminds me of the Nautilus from 2000 Leagues under the Sea.

As you can see the lure has a perch pattern and I’m pretty sure the stream trout I fish for have never seen a perch.  Or the Nautilus. Feral and I ran into this lure by accident. He had invited a buddy from Alpena to go fishing and we stopped so the guy could buy a couple lures. He wasn’t a trout fisherman and chose this to our dismay. Once on the stream we watched him pull in trout after trout while we shook our heads and tossed old standards without luck. So there’s a good clue. Trout aren’t afraid to change their diet. Generally speaking – they are after an easy meal.

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20 May 2012
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Fishing Alone

Back in the 80s and 90s I worked for a large company run by human beings that allowed me to take my vacation time in half days so I was able to run up to the Pine River on rainy afternoons. The Pine would come alive under a summer rain and that meant I brought trout home for my growing family including two young daughters that didn’t mind eating fish if I cooked them up to resemble Chicken McNuggets.  The days of large companies run by human beings came to a close and my daughters grew up, but the desire to head off on my own once in a while never went away. It’s true I fish with Feral often because mainly we seem to key into each others sense of humor and you can’t place a value on that. Still, when we camp, we are not averse to cutting off a good stretch by ourselves because that is the way to enjoy trout fishing – it tests your skill, you get to fish the best holes how you think will work best, and for some people, like Feral and myself, being alone is never a problem.

Trout fishing is a solo gig if you want to do it right. It is a chance to enjoy solitude and breathtaking scenery. It is a way to slow down and feel a part of something larger than you. I worry that I did not do right by my daughters by taking them on trout streams. They were just so feminine and girlish, like my wife, and I ran off too often to do my own thing. It’s true we went bluegill fishing on lakes and we had our family vacations, but teaching them to love trout fishing didn’t happen – so there is my regret. I should have shared that with them too.

My beautiful daughters

I am struggling to say what it is I mean about the value of trout fishing alone. It’s not the act of fishing so much as realizing when you are out there that you are truly alone in the world, and the world is an amazing place to be.  Once you have that perspective, you can face life’s challenges.

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19 May 2012

Refrigerator Bend

On one of our favorite streams, the Sturgeon, there is a very wide gravelly bend where the water level drops down to a foot deep that gives us a chance to relax a bit, mainly because the straight stretch leading to it is log filled and treacherous, and just above the bend the water is channeled so thin it can’t be waded because the water is over the waders. There is an old homestead on the outside bank, with only the footing remaining, along with the white shell of an old refrigerator. I am trying to remember if the fridge is still there or if I have become so numb to it that it doesn’t register any more. It could be someone dragged it away and I’ll thank whoever did it, even though we may need a new name for that spot in the river.

Wide flats like that one are pretty unusual in the Sturgeon – it may be forty feet across. The outside has some log structure and I normally pass right by it without making a cast even though the structure likely holds trout. In my mind, it’s a great spot for fly fishermen since it is so open, but not necessarily a good spot to find the larger trout I’m after. If it’s raining I can’t wait to pass by it just to get to the deep channel upstream where I’ve seen trout in the two foot class.

That’s Feral in the picture, taken back in 05. I suspect it wasn’t much of a fishing day with the blue sky. There’s a good chance we had a cold beer with us and that would have been the place we stopped. I can almost feel the cool breeze from the river, maybe even fooling us into thinking the sun was not a problem, only to notice sunburned ears later. I’d like to make that same trip again this year whatever the weather, if only because the Sturgeon offers such a great variety of holes, flats, deep bends and places where you just know a trophy brown will rise up and surprise you.

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29 Apr 2012
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The Underhand Flip Cast

I did a short stretch of Duke Creek with Harmonica Mike on opening day and managed to get some video of him casting. I took a few short videos, including one of him catching a brown, but wanted to post this one since it has a pretty good angle on his casting technique. It’s all in the wrist. A slight up and down movement timed with the release of the line sends the lure on a straight trajectory into the normally small window of opportunity – a tiny pocket next to the bank or under an overhanging branch that provides shelter for the trout.

Mike, like Feral and I, learned this technique from our grandfather, Jake Lucas, back in the sixties. Jake did trick casting demonstrations at trade shows and was a sponsored “expert” by the Shakespeare Company. There is a tendency for people trying this cast to jerk the rod forward while casting rather than just use the wrist and rod tip action to propel the lure. As kids, just starting out, Jake would cinch our arms to our sides with a belt so we had to use our wrists! He wanted it done right!

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29 Dec 2011
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Pike Fishing

I have a theory that learning any art form helps you improve and mature in other art forms – and this applies to fishing too. If you love trout fishing and want to become more productive, it makes sense to try for Pike. Stop scratching your head!

My mentor, Jake Lucas, was a pioneer at small stream spinning for trout, but his fishing interests were by no means limited to that. He fished lakes and streams all year for most every species in Michigan, with side trips to other states and Canada. He ice fished, he fly-fished, he bait-fished, he threw lures of every size and make. He made lures. He tied his own flies and developed original patterns. He shot Carp with a bow and arrow. And when he wasn’t fishing he was hunting – and he was very successful at that too.

Feral Tweed, my main fishing cohort, bought a kayak last fall with the idea of catching a monster pike. He lives in Lake County and is surrounded by lakes. As an accomplished trout fisherman he knows when to head to a trout stream and prefers to wait for the right conditions. So why not try something new? To be successful he knows he must innovate and that includes learning where to find the big ones, figuring out what lures work where, learning how to land a Pike in a kayak, learning how to fillet a Pike (they are boney) and finally, how to convince me to drag my bass boat up to Lake County so he doesn’t have to land a monster Pike in a kayak.

I understand Feral’s appreciation of Pike. It goes back to our childhood and hanging out with Jake Lucas (our Grandpa) in his basement. Jake wasn’t a taxidermist, but he had a couple Pike heads mounted to boards. It was the skeletal remains of the heads mostly with the mouths wide open and razor teeth showing. It was just the stuff to capture a little boy’s imagination. One of those head mounts belongs to the Pike pictured with this story – a nineteen pounder.

I don’t know if Feral plans to mount the head of his future monster Pike to a board, but I hope he does. And I hope I’m invited to a Pike fillet dinner. His enthusiasm for Pike is contagious – I may drag my boat up there unannounced.

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26 Sep 2011

Witching Hour Trout

Luther and Feral after dark

If you are like me it is hard to stop fishing as the sun creeps to the horizon even when you know that walking out in the dark will be a bad trip. If I am fishing with someone else, like Feral, it is doubly hard because I know if I fall into a beaver hole and break a leg he’ll get me out or at least can direct someone back to the spot. I imagine he’ll recast some of the better holes on the way out, but eventually someone will come for me.

It’s true you can catch big trout during the day, especially in stained or muddy water, but nightfall offers trout free rein of the stream. They stop worrying about Osprey or other predators. They like the cover of darkness and that’s when the larger fish move out to center stream and go on the hunt.

I recall a time on the Pigeon, before the fish kill from the Song of the Morning dam, when Feral and I did an evening stretch by walking down stream and fishing back upstream past where we had parked. It was getting dark and we didn’t want to stop even though we knew we would have to walk out through saplings thick as spaghetti growing in a mud bog with beaver holes (near the stream) that were hidden by lush tangled saw grass. The stream itself had beaver dams spanning the stream and places you had to climb out and try to slip back into deep water, then do a wader dance on tip toes to get to solid footing. I hope I painted that picture clear enough – some places aren’t really made for wading, and after dark you need a special mindset called denial.

We knew there was a nice bend upstream that held good fish and we were not disappointed. The bend had a straight section leading up to it that had overhanging grass and saplings but was clear and open enough for working good casts right to the bank. From there it veered slowly to the left with the same cover overhanging brush and some various stumps and trash that broke up the stream flow enough to be big trout holding places.

When Feral and I fish together we have a system where one guy takes the lead until he gets a fish, or for one or two bends, in which case he is embarrassed enough at not catching anything he reluctantly offers the lead back to the other guy. When the lights go down this unseemly gentleman behavior goes out the window and we scientifically determine who leads by reviewing who has done the best so far and maybe the other guy should get a chance. On this night it didn’t matter who went first because we caught several fish out of the same bend. It happens like that sometimes. The fish cooperate and the fishermen don’t fall in a beaver hole on the way out.

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22 Sep 2011

Feeder Creeks

Feral on undisclosed feeder creek

Some of the best spin fishing can be found on the small creeks eight to twelve feet wide that feed the streams made famous by the Hemingway’s of the world. They don’t get much traffic other than an occasional worm fisherman because casting is next to impossible. If you can cast and send lures horizontally into tiny pockets there is hope. Having been taught by an expert (Jake Lucas) that performed trick casting on Michigan Outdoors in the 1960’s helps in my case. Along with untold years of doing just that: casting into difficult cover.

When possible, fish feeder creeks during a summer rain, enough to boil the water or at least dapple it enough so trout don’t see you standing there. Feeder creeks come alive during a summer rain and can provide the best action you will see for the year. In the summer a sixteen inch fish is good, in the fall when the weather turns nasty and the closer approaches, big fish move out of the main stream and up the feeder creeks to find food. For years I travelled long distances to fish the famous and noted water during the summer and then caught my best fish of the year on a local feeder creek. In Michigan, you don’t have to drive far to find feeder creeks since major rivers crisscross the state.

Rain helps but you can also do well early morning or late evening. The trout are usually aggressive for any lures because the competition for food is great, and the trout are not as suspicious of lures as they are on the main rivers. They will stray away from their cover into the main stream channel for a sizable or flashy (think spinners) meal. While I mainly find brown trout on feeder creeks, there is a good chance of catching brook trout the further you go upstream. Catching a brook trout is like stepping back in time, back before the brown trout plantings and the later steelhead and salmon stocking. I don’t keep brook trout. I look them over, enjoy their beauty, and turn them back. Just seeing one is enough.

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