Best laid plans are often amiss. Six people were invited, but it was just Natch and I up at Pickerel Lake. A shout out to Brandon, an avid fichigan reader for 8 years, who stopped by and had some kind words to say about the blog. Thanks, Brandon!
Natch and I fished the main rivers, the Sturgeon and Pigeon. Water was low and clear. The sun was out. Natch caught a brookie on the Pidgeon, and I took a nice brown on the Sturgeon off Fontinalis Road. I had some spinning reel trouble that cut that outing short. Closed-face trigger spin reels are getting scarce, due I guess, to the better reliability of standard spinning reels. That is bad news for those of us who grew up with Shakespeare 1810 reels, looking for a good substitute.
Bottom line: Not much to show for 3 serious days of fishing! But that is just part of trout camp.
One evening, we decided to try an elk viewing area, something we hadn’t done before. There is one located north off Sturgeon Valley Road near where the Pigeon River crosses. We pulled in, parked, and sat on a grassy knoll at the south end of a huge field. We weren’t really convinced we’d see something but it was great sitting there. It reminded me of bow hunting in my younger days. Suddenly, four bull elk walked out at the far end of the field. We both worked our phone cameras trying to get a good shot. Natch finally moved close using two trees in the field as cover. He took the video.
One afternoon, sitting on a bench at the boat landing/beach at Pickerel Lake, some horseback riders stopped to give their mounts a drink in the lake. A family with kids gathered to see the horses. That was fun to see too.
Even though the fishing was tough, the weather was perfect for camping, hanging out, and keeping busy. I lost 3 pounds. That was a good surprise. Natch and I hit our favorite streams and stretches, had a good laugh here and there, and left on a good note. October Camp… hoping that works out a little better.
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.
The Pigeon River State Game Area in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan is home to some great trout streams and also some nice lakes including Pickerel Lake which has a campground and boat launch (unpaved for row boats and canoes). There’s a sandy swimming area but it’s not a beach proper where the sand extends beyond the lake. Most people lay out blankets on a grassy area near the boat launch and swim there.
The lake has a variety of fish species including rainbow trout, bass, perch and bluegill. A couple of us trout fishermen stopped at the boat launch one night and talked with a guy who pulled up in his row boat. He showed us his catch and he had a respectable number of decent bluegills and a few trout.
The next evening, as a social endeavor, we decided to try fishing the lake from the shore which allowed us to gab while experimenting to see what might work for the trout. A pair of Loons was working the lake and having much better luck than ourselves – so we waded out from the boat launch and tossed our crawlers out past the drop off. We stripped out line and went back to shore and set up some forked sticks and waited. It didn’t seem like we had the right program until we got ready to leave and found three fish on our various lines including a bass, a perch, and a rainbow. By then it was dark but we learned a lesson – hold onto the line and feel for the strike.
Working the shoreline at Pickerel Lake
A year later we tried it again. This time we worked the shoreline by the campground and caught a respectable number of bass, bluegill, and a few trout. Here again it was more of a social engagement, lots of jabs, a cold beer, and a chance to fish a different way than the more serious solo trout fishing we do on the trout streams. The lake produces fish easily. Use crawlers or worms with or without a bobber. Someday I’d like to take a boat out on the lake and explore, fish the drop-offs, and cast for bass.
The DNR made some improvements to the campground a year ago in hopes of luring more campers. If you are thinking about checking out the Pigeon River area it is a nice spot to camp for fifteen dollars a night. There’s a ranger station further up Sturgeon Valley Road (turn left on Twin Lakes Road after you cross the Pigeon River) that provides free maps of the two tracks and hiking trails. Driving around in the morning or evening you can see deer and elk. I’ve seen some postcard bull elk just driving around.
Pickerel Lake is centrally located to some of the best trout streams in the state including the Pigeon and the Sturgeon. Fishing the lake in the evening is a nice change of pace from wading and casting streams.
Fichigan 