Fichigan

Small Stream Trout fishing in Michigan

14 Dec 2013
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Respect for Other Anglers

Luther on Sturgeon

Feral and I did a long walk into a remote stretch of the Sturgeon River near Vanderbilt a couple years ago to a favorite spot that gives up some big fish. We hit it just right. The river was up and stained, the cool fall weather meant big browns were moving upstream to spawn and we had the river to ourself. We put in on a straight section that held some good cover and right off the bat Feral landed a nice fish. I moved into the lead and caught the fish in the above photo barely two minutes later. We hadn’t moved upstream 10 feet and already had two nice fish. We looked at each other and grinned. We were in for one heck of a trip.

Just then a couple fishermen appeared along the bank. They didn’t have waders. They saw the fish in the landing net and asked what lures we were using and we steered them in the right general direction figuring they would move on. The public water went for miles both directions. Instead they put on lures and started casting right in front of us. We spoke up and said we were fishing this stretch and would they mind finding a different stretch and they were indignant about it, like who did we think we were? They moved up another 30 yards and started casting again. I was angry but Feral brushed it off and figured why make a fuss – they are idiots or worse. Sometimes you run into people like that.

I hope it isn’t a symptom of a New Era. As kids, our Grandpa raised us to respect other fishermen on the river and that meant if you run into another angler you figure out what they are doing – then you adjust your plans around theirs. Don’t interrupt their fishing experience. They were there first, after all.

Later I tried to rationalize what happened. Maybe the two guys were part of the salmon crowd that fishes Michigan rivers. For that type of fishing anglers often stand right next to each other, elbowing each other out as it were, like it is part of a game. Which brings to mind a funny story.

Our Grandpa (Jake Lucas) tried every type of fishing including salmon. When salmon were first introduced to Michigan rivers he was in a crowd of anglers on the Betsy or maybe Bear Creek and an angler upstream had on a nice fish which broke his line. Jake could see the severed line floating down past him so he cast over it, snagged the line, then tied the end of the line to his pole. Then he fought and landed the fish. Meanwhile, the angler upstream was watching the event unfold. When he saw Jake land the fish he rushed downstream to his side and said, ” Man, I sure was lucky to get that one.”

Jake gave him the fish. I think he figured anyone desperate enough to make a logic leap like that needed the fish more than he did. I should take a lesson. Maybe those two guys on the Sturgeon needed a trout a lot more than we did. One thing for sure, their grandfather didn’t teach them to have respect for other anglers.

Posted in Trout Advice and tagged
05 Dec 2013
3 Comments

Catching a Lunker on the First Cast

Feral withLunker Brown

Feral loaned me some photos over Thanksgiving and a few took me right back to the stream. Several years back we were doing the trout closer up by Vanderbilt and we fished a stretch of the Pigeon that requires a lot of walking to reach. After the long trudge in we  decided hey, we made it this far, we may as well keep going a few more bends. Ultimately we knew it meant 3 hours of wading upstream to get to our takeout point, and another quarter mile walk through tangles back out to the truck. We went a bend to far, so to speak, and we found ourselves on a gravelly stretch that didn’t look to promising. Feral took the lead. There was a downed spruce angled back towards us, almost completely across the river. Feral moved up so he could run a lure in front of it. His first cast was slammed by the brown in the above photo. I believe it was twenty seven inches and that meant some soul searching.

We don’t usually keep big fish – the small ones taste better. Still, it was a trophy in anyone’s book and we could always grill it, or if he wanted to consider the idea, have it mounted. So Feral decided to keep the fish. He put it on a stringer and that is where the real soul searching begins because it meant lugging six pound of flopping lively fish while wading upstream through the most treacherous water we fish, over beaver dams, getting out around deep holes, etc. There is a little known formula: The weight of the fish times the speed of the river times distance = the actual weight of the fish, so about thirty five pounds by the time Feral crawled up the bank to head for the truck. There is a second four-mula that comes to mind: Four Motrin + Four Beers. Just the thing for a compressed main spring.

As far as I know that fish still resides in his ex-wife’s freezer. Once Feral stops having painful flashbacks of his longest ever trout stretch I expect that trout will grace the wall of his basement. Not over the workbench where he’d have to look at it every day. That would be cruel. In the furnace room next to the water heater.

Feral on the Pigeon

Feral pointed out in  his comment he thought the top photo was a brown trout from the Sturgeon River… and he may be right. The above photo is likely the lunker caught on the Pigeon.

Posted in Fishing Stories and tagged , ,
03 Nov 2013
1 Comment

Archery Deer Hunting

Bow Hunting 70s

I found the above photo in an old album and it seems like yesterday so the time machine in my head is very much alive. Our grandpa, Jake Lucas, tried every outdoor sport you can name as far as fishing and hunting and kindled that love in all of his offspring. From the time we could swim he took us out in his rowboat fishing, from the time we could pull back a bow and arrow we were practicing on the hay bale target in the back yard. I should probably mention we grew up on venison burger. Feral and I gravitate to fishing mostly, but there was a time when we couldn’t wait for deer season, in particular the October archery season. It is the most picturesque time to be out in Michigan’s woods with its foggy cold morning landscapes, brilliant turning colors and a chance to see all manner of wildlife.

Every year at this time I imagine/remember how great it would be to sit in a ground blind with my back against a tree watching over a misty low ground or swamp waiting for any sign of movement. It is so peaceful. Or still hunting, which is silent creeping through the woods on the small chance of stumbling on bedded deer and getting off a shot. I won’t kid anyone here – I was more likely to cut myself on an arrow than shoot a deer, and on that score, the deer won. My memories are tied up in the glimpses of giant deer with immense racks sneaking though the wood, and equally, the times when a small doe or fawn would come so close to my blind I could reach out and touch them. Or the camping. Someone would put a paper plate against the two track berm and we’d have bow practice to see who was shooting the best. And discussing among the hunters, as evening loomed, who would be hunting where after spending the whole day scouting for miles around the camp. And the hot bowl of stew after a cold night of seeing no deer. It was all good.

bow hunting 2

Our buddy Al after a good rain. Notice the sleeping bag and blanket hung over bushes. Back then (late 70s / early 80s) there was no such thing as a waterproof tent or a 5 dollar plastic tarp to cover a leaky tent. You could always count on a small lake settled somewhere on the floor after a good soaker.  The white dot above the blanket, off in the distance, is a paper plate for target practice. Not sure who took the shot below, could have been Feral or one several other guys that often met us for the archery deer season. Possible Jeff or Sam, both avid hunters and campers. Or Mike and Denny, two of our trout camp regulars that also bow-hunted.

bow hunting 3

Posted in Survival and tagged , , ,
20 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Spontaneous Campground Jams

Feral with D-35

Feral with the D-35 Martin

I hitched up the bass boat and tossed in the camping basics, grabbed my acoustic guitar, and jumped on the freeway. It was the fastest I have ever gotten out of town. This was on a Friday, with cold rain in the forecast Saturday noon. I needed to get in one last camping trip this year. I swung by to pick up Feral and he tossed in his gear along with a borrowed classical guitar and we set up our tents at campsite one on Big Leverentz. Feral put the classical guitar in his tent and I mentioned he should keep it locked in the truck but he wasn’t too concerned.

We launched the boat and hit the lake with high expectations. I think the fish must have decided to go camping too, in the middle of the lake. Discouraged, we went back to shore and ate a sub sandwich and downed a beer. A stranger walked by and mentioned that he thought he saw a guitar case earlier when we were setting up. The reason he mentioned it was he and his buddy also brought guitars. They were camping too. We told him to stop by later if they wanted to jam.

After dark we pulled out the guitars and set a small lantern in the fire pit as we didn’t have logs for a fire, but the ambiance was still good, in part made so by the warm night and cold beer. It helped there were no bugs out, mosquitoes or otherwise. We played a couple songs and soon the other camper, Kyle, showed up carrying a guitar case. He apologized saying his buddy had crashed out early but he wanted to stop by. That was a shame because based on Kyle’s description of his buddy, we had a lot of music in common, including Jethro Tull which may not be familiar to a lot of people.

Kyle, though, was into blues and said he was working on some patterns. I wouldn’t call either Feral or myself bluesmen and don’t recollect whether we even played any blues, but we played the heck out of some songs and got to know Kyle who added some tasty lead licks here and there. As happens most times, Feral started telling stories and Kyle had some himself so there was no dead space between jams and pretty soon our limited supply of beer was the only source of blues for the entire evening. As the beer disappeared and the guitar playing sounded better and better, Feral and Kyle both indicated, in subtle competitiveness, how each had started drinking at an earlier hour that day than the other guy, so that was a running joke, which sounds lame in the telling but was funny if you were there and under the influence. When I say influence, I mean everything: camping, night air, starlit sky, crossing paths with someone you didn’t know 5 hours earlier, who just happen to glimpse a guitar case, and who turns out to be a guitar player willing to take a chance and play guitar with two strangers.

Spontaneous jams – this has happened before at Leverentz Lake. One year we set up at Little Leverentz and a young couple noticed we had instruments and stopped to ask if we “jammed.” Sure! So they stopped over and she played mandolin (which Feral played at the time) and the young man played an acoustic guitar that he had strung with nylon strings for the high b and e strings, which produced some interesting tones. We had a good jam that lasted pretty late, partly because some other young campers across from us came over and so that jam turned into an all out campground party. I don’t know what time we crashed out but a thunderstorm rolled in that night that literally shook the ground with shock waves. Feral and I had an old cabin tent and that fell down on top of us. When we crawled out in the morning trees were down and the young couple camping next to us were gone – but left their tent there. I suspect the violent storm was a bit much for them and they found a motel. A smart decision in retrospect.

Another night, Feral and I camped at site two on Big Leverentz, which is on a hill and somewhat remote from the other campsites. The whole campground appeared empty. We had some electric guitars and battery powered amps and got a little loud. Suddenly we saw a lantern wobbling down the road to our site. Three young guys, around high school age, came into camp and said they heard us jamming and could they listen? They did more than listen, one said he was a guitarist so we handed him a guitar and he cranked out some Creedence and various other jams and that turned out to be pretty interesting night also.

Posted in Trout Camp and tagged , , ,
13 Oct 2013

Pigeon River Brown Trout

Feral and I usually close out the trout season in the Pigeon River State Game Area mainly because there are two exceptional trout streams for brown trout, the Sturgeon and the Pigeon. We count on the weather turning nasty at the end of September but this year we had cold weather and low, clear streams. For big browns in the fall – it helps to have rivers at almost flood stage which triggers the spawn and movement of large brown trout into the upper stretches of the rivers. So we didn’t get our wish, but still caught a couple nice fish over twenty inches. Our cohort, Natch, upstaged us this year with a trip to the Sturgeon where he took even larger fish. No video, but a recount of his story with photos will be posted later on Fichigan.

Posted in Trout Advice, Trout Camp and tagged , , | Leave a comment
05 Oct 2013
2 Comments

Dog Lake Flooding

Panorama of Pickeral Lake

It had been thirty years since Feral, his buddy Jeff and I fished the remote flooding up in the Pigeon River State game area. In my mind at least it started taking on mythical proportions as northern pike water. On that fateful day decades ago we pulled in too many pike to count including some twenty inchers that had obviously been attacked by much larger pike, with teeth gouge marks surrounding their bodies. Feral cleaned up that day with a yellow in-line rooster tail spinner and that meant every third cast he was pulling in the small but abundant pike. We didn’t latch on to one of the monsters prowling the dark water…but there was no doubt they were in there. Fast-forward to this fall on annual trout camp closer, this time with kayaks and the means to get back into that remote water.

Natch drove. He has a pickup truck designed to haul big things and 3 kayaks in the back was no problem. We stopped at the ranger station to pick up a map – just in case – which was lucky because the road into the flooding was unmarked. Still, we needed a GPS. The road was overgrown and unused. That may have been a good clue. The road, or opening,  was just wide enough to get the truck through if the side mirrors were tucked in. The further we went, the tighter it got – so I’ll thank Natch for keeping his cool which is hard to do driving a new truck through a virtual canopy of claw-like branches and blowdowns. There was no turning around once we started: Feral speculated the 3 kayaks sticking up over the rear gate would be like the prongs of a treble hook, so even backing out was out of the question.
Luther and Feral ready for Dog Lake
At the end of the trail we found a clearing and what used to be a channel out into the flooding. 30 years put the flooding another 50 yards out from the landing. 50 yards of floating bog: grass and roots that sunk down with every step – like walking on a carpet laying over a swimming pool. We had to drag the kayaks over the bog and couldn’t help but wonder who would break through and disappear first. We leaned on the kayaks for stability and dragged them over the clumps of floating grass.
Luther making the mucky trek to water at Dog Lake
Everything in the above photo is floating on water. No telling how deep.
Luther and Feral on Dog Lake
Natch launched last and took this photo as he paddled out into the flooding. (All photos by Natch) Somehow everything looked bigger than I remembered. Maybe it was the vantage point of a kayak versus a rowboat – sitting closer to water level.

The wind picked up right away and the temperature nose-dived. Fortunately we were bundled up good with lots of layers so we planned it right. When the sun went behind the clouds it felt like the temp dropped ten degrees in a matter of seconds.

I started working the upwind portion of the flooding, in part to avoid wind drift, but could only make a couple casts with a 3/8 ounce white spinner bait and then I was too far from shore. So it was cast, paddle, cast, and I worked myself into a comfortable but fishless rhythm. Natch and Feral did their own exploring and soon we were scattered around the flooding, beyond yelling distance. I expected both of them were hauling in fish so I experimented with lures including a pop-r around some lily pads figuring if there was bass around – that is a pretty good draw. Still, cast after cast – nothing.
Luther paddling on Dog Lake
After an hour I headed to a centrally located island where I saw Natch fishing earlier. We were all thinking the same thing: converge there and see how everyone is doing. First consensus – not so good. The pike were missing.
Big catch on Dog Lake by Natch
This fish, caught by Natch, confirmed our worst fears: Piranha had eaten all of the pike in Dog Lake Flooding. I expect the pike put up a good battle but it may have come down to attitude. Piranha are vicious. Here, Natch employs the Vulcan Nerve Pinch which subdues all manner of carbon based life forms. We could have switched fishing tactics but not one of us remembered to bring along the rules and regs so the we didn’t know about legal limits or even whether piranha are in season.  So we called it a day and headed back to the floating bog mass.
Natch waiting on Luther and Feral coming off Dog Lake
I’m happy to report we all made it back to solid ground.  We were up for the challenge but I guess you can’t “go back.” 30 years is a long time. I’m going to ask Feral to make a sign for the trailhead:  Dog Lake Flooding – Enter at Your Own Risk.  A skull and crossbones would do nicely.

Posted in Survival and tagged ,
28 Sep 2013
2 Comments

Pigeon River Country Closer

Feral works a bend on the upper Sturgeon

Feral works a bend on the upper Sturgeon

The trout season came and went and I was fortunate enough to have several memorable camping/fishing trips this year with buddies that really bring something to the table – not the least a desire for adventure. For our trout season closer, Feral and I were joined by Natch first and Keith later up at Pickerel Lake which is centrally located in the Pigeon River State Game Area.

Natch is a trout camp regular having put up with Feral and I for something like a dozen years – so this year we told him he has graduated to “Honorary Member 2” not the least because he outfished Feral. I have asked Natch to write a first hand account of his trip to the Sturgeon River on the day we set up camp where he will hopefully mention those anglers whom he admires so much and have provided so much inspiration. It would be embarrassing, but not out of the question, for me to have to edit that kind of information in to his post. As a teaser, here’s a picture of the smallest of three fish, a twenty incher, he caught on a single pass at the river.

Natch's smaller brown trout

Natch’s smaller brown trout

The thing about Natch and Feral is they are both game for adventure and this year it was put to a test. I won’t go into a lot of detail here – look for a post later about Dog Lake Flooding, a pike haven of some repute. If the trip in to the flooding doesn’t destroy your truck, and you don’t fall through the floating bog mass, and the whitewater and freezing rain don’t exhaust your stamina, you might catch a… OK, I have said too much already. I’ll do a post with photos.

We also took the kayaks out on Pickerel Lake which was fun but not to productive. We caught a handful of bass and a couple perch but we had to work for those.

Luther and Feral at the boat landing

Luther and Feral at the boat landing

Natch on Pickeral with Feral in the distance

Natch on Pickerel with Feral in the distance

Natch pulled out Sunday night and then it was up to me and Feral to prove we could still catch a trout and fortunately The Pigeon River, recently decimated by a silt fish kill by the Song of the Morning dam, still holds trout if you know where to look and when to fish. In the fall, large brown trout move upstream into the decimated area and you might believe the fish kill never happened. Feral and I took a couple big trout – but we were amazed that Feral also caught two brook trout about 10 inches. I don’t know what that means but it could be the brook trout were hardier than the browns when the dam was opened.

Trout camp would not be trout camp if we didn’t play some guitar and knock down some beers over a campfire. Keith, another adventurer, came up Monday for one night – which is a good four hours drive both directions for one night of camping. Somebody conk me in the head with my guitar as I didn’t get a campfire photo of Keith playing. Keith is good enough to sit in with any world-class band and add killer lead guitar and he wasn’t about to pass on the chance to play with “Rock Bottom and the Out of Tuners” which is a name unfairly placed on Feral and I by jealous contemporaries who may not realize we own an electronic tuner.

We played some of our standards, like Buenos Tardes Amigo by Ween, but Keith really cooked when I started jamming the old JJ Cale song “Call me the Breeze.” Keith has some blues rock mojo and that took over. He played my old Les Paul Studio through a battery powered Roland Street Cube and rocked the campground. The other highlight was listening to him play my Martin acoustic including doing some of his own jams. A cold beer, an acoustic guitar played by a master, a warm fire… no further explanation needed.

Feral lights a fire with extra virgin cooking oil.

Feral lights a fire with extra virgin cooking oil.

Feral and Keith, morning coffee

Feral and Keith, morning coffee

I woke up a little before them, poured a coffee, and went down to the lake and took a few photos. Another reason why camping gets in your blood. I heard an elk bugle out past the lake through the fog.

Morning coffee, Pickeral Lake

Morning coffee, Pickerel Lake

So look for some more posts on the fall camping trip to Pigeon River State Game Area: Dog Lake Flooding; Natch’s account of 3 monster browns out of the Sturgeon, and some video Feral and I took on the Pigeon with big browns.

Posted in Fishing Stories, Trout Camp and tagged , , , ,
11 Sep 2013

Ghost Anglers

I was sitting on the edge of my bed strumming an unplugged electric guitar when my deceased Uncle Boyce walked in. He was wearing waders. I debated whether I should point out he had passed away and decided not to say anything. Instead I got off the bed and went to him and he was very tall which made me realize I must be size of a child since he was not a tall man. I asked, “how was the fishing” and he said, “not good.” As I looked at his face it started to vanish. I woke up right away and lay there wondering how Boyce could just pop into a dream from nowhere.

Boyce was my mother’s older brother. Most of my memories of him are from early childhood when our family moved in with my grandparents to get away from my father. What I most remember about Boyce is his warmth as a person. He was always happy to see us and when he was around everything was more special. He was a high school teacher which must have been the perfect job for him – surrounded by young minds that would appreciate his warmth and energy.

Boyce and grandpa were fishing buddies and would camp together. More so than I probably realized. I have told this story a couple times but not on the website. Feral’s boy, Jake, named after grandpa, and I fished a stretch together on the Sturgeon River up by Vanderbilt and after we got back to the car we found an older guy just hanging out there. He was in waders so we got to talking about fishing and he mentioned he was a teacher in Montague. Boyce, who had passed away a few years before that, taught in Whitehall, which is the neighboring town, so I asked if he knew Boyce.

The question almost startled him. He took a deep breath and said, “Boyce was my best friend.” I told him Boyce was my uncle and he started reminiscing, telling us about how he and Boyce would camp with Jake (Grandpa) and after a few beers Jake would pull out an old bait casting rod and tie a rubber ball to the line. Jake would cast/pitch the ball to Boyce and his tipsy buddies who would be at the plate with a bat. If you can imagine this.. Jake, who did trick casting demonstrations on Michigan Outdoors TV show in the 60’s, would pitch the ball using an underhand flip cast, his specialty, and would control the ball as it moved toward the batter. He had a variety of casts including a diabolical curve ball, a fast ball that would slow way down as it reached the plate, you get the idea. It was hard to hit a Jake Lucas pitch. When you did connect Jake would stop the fly ball by thumbing the level wind spool, reel in the ball, then cast and hit you as you ran toward first base. So if he didn’t strike you out, he tagged you on the way to first.

So that was an eye-opener for me, not the “casting rod” baseball, I knew about that because Grandpa played that with us kids in the backyard. The eye-opener was uncle Boyce getting tipsy on beer with his buddies. It had never occurred to me that my respectable uncle had a fun adult life with regular buddies. Until that moment I always had the same vision of him as a kind, happy family man. A dedicated, fun teacher.  I would give anything for a time machine to go back and have a beer with that group. And watch grandpa cast that ball.

Uncle Boyce with brown trout

Boyce Lucas with a nice brown trout

Somehow I lost his name, but I’ll thank whomever I met up by the Sturgeon for readjusting my point of view because now I can’t help but smile when I think of Boyce… hanging out with some fishing buddies and knocking down a couple cold beers. Doesn’t hurt that Grandpa is in the picture. Those two would be fun at any trout camp.

Boyce, no more dream visits though, please, that was too spooky.

Posted in Trout Camp | Leave a comment
16 Aug 2013

Newago State Park

Roger's Pond, Feral in the 70's

Roger’s Pond, Feral in the 80’s

Feral and I had been wanting to get back on the Muskegon River ever since he sold his place on Rogers Pond, a backwater to Roger’s Dam, the furthest upstream dam on the Muskegon. The pond gave up huge smallmouth, northern pike, giant catfish and we saw one or two tiger muskie that were surreal. This was a long time back. We looked like hippies, our kids were toddlers, and the economy was not even a topic of conversation. Okay, a very long time ago.

Last weekend we decided to do something about it and did an overnighter at Newago State Park which sits on the banks of Hardy Pond which is the impoundment/ backwater of Hardy Dam. The impoundment forms a lake with over 50 miles of shoreline so we put a few miles on my old Nissan bass boat. An old timer at the campground told us to fish the channels if we were after bass and pike and so that was our program – we raced upstream and pulled in several of the many channels carved into the rocky hillside.

But first, more about the camping. The park has 96 rustic campsites (at $12 per night) and darned if it wasn’t almost full. I pulled in Saturday morning to get a site and it was a little confusing. There is a ranger station at the entrance ( unusual for a rustic campground) but it was closed. A sign said check the posted list of reserved sites and don’t set up camp on one of those sites, with another qualifier that said most reserved sites will have a placard with an “R” on them to indicate reserved. I drove though the loops and found a site and checked to see if it was on the reserved list – and it was open so I set up. I went back to pay and the rangers were still not there. And there didn’t seem to be a way to pay, which was important since I needed to leave in order to pick up Feral. After some looking I found campsite envelopes in an unmarked green box, and then saw there was a hidden slot for paying right above the envelopes. Here, a sign might help?

The sites are not quite so remote as the online hype which seemed to indicate a small forest between each site. We were surrounded by people. Everyone was nice so it wasn’t a problem. In fact, it was very peaceful – enough folks around to feel like you are in a community, and no one so loud as to be a obnoxious.

But we were there for the fishing. We needed to get our bearings and figure out some patterns and Saturday was mostly dedicated to just that – figuring out the where and how. We caught some largemouth off blowdowns and had some pike hits in the weed beds and did just well enough keep us focused. The chance for a huge pike, muskie, walleye or bass was always in the back of our minds – big water means big fish. We finally knocked off about eight o’clock and had some late dinner, a cold beer, and played some acoustic guitar.

On Sunday morning we broke camp first thing so we didn’t have to worry about check-out time. The fishing was spectacular. We hit some upstream channels, and by channels I mean standing or slow water in bays that are carved out of the rocky hillside. Largemouth were congregated near any blowdowns or submerged timber. The pike would come out of nowhere and slam our spinnerbaits. We didn’t catch any monsters but we caught a lot of fish, including small and largemouth bass, pike, and some chunky rock bass.

Most fishermen that fish Hardy Pond are after the walleye – so we had zero competition. While they were out fishing the main river we went from overhanging tree to overhanging tree pulling out bass after bass. What a great time!

Posted in Fishing Stories and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
31 Jul 2013
2 Comments

Summer Trout

100_1106

Lake County had a downpour last Friday and I was concerned about driving up to fish with Feral Saturday morning because the rivers up there flood so quickly. I didn’t have to worry. The downpour brought the rivers and streams back up to normal shallow depth which is to say – not so good for trout fishing. The water was clear. You couldn’t tell it rained. I don’t know what the streams looked like before the rain but I suspect we could have picked trout like mushrooms.

We fished a stretch of the Pine River and Feral caught the “summer trout” pictured above but that wasn’t enough to convince us to stick it out for long. Normally deep (and treacherous) holes were wadable – up to a point. I crossed the stream in a deep spot and could literally feel cold water pour in my waders around mid-navel.  Good to know. I’ll have to dip them in the goop tank or buy new before fall when we do our “closer” up in Pigeon River country. Leaky waders in warm weather is one thing, in the fall it’s a curse.

The one (other) surprise Saturday was someone (Trout Unlimited?) added some log structure intermittently throughout the river. It didn’t help our fishing but I suspect when the rivers rise the new cover will hold fish. I appreciate their efforts even though the Pine does a pretty good job on it’s own of carving out new fish holding spots.

As a trout stream, the Pine is one of Michigan’s best naturally reproducing streams so tampering with it seems risky. I don’t know enough about stream biology to know if the work done to add fishing structure might not affect spawning areas but hope those who attempt to improve it fully understand they are tampering with mother nature. Most likely they are hoping to catch more “Summer Trout.” I can appreciate that.

Posted in Fishing Stories and tagged ,

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