Memorial Day Fly Fishing Forecast

Memorial Day is hard upon us and I know a lot of you will be headed to Northern Michigan this weekend and will at some point  limber up your fly rod and cast it about. Personally I'll be fishing the Au Sable river on Sunday with Isle Royale Coaster Tour alumni Chris Reister and Brett Watson. I'll toss you all a bone here and give you the local local.

The Weather

We've had a cold and late spring here, with snow in the forecast and on the ground until the beginning of May. Because of this the rivers are still high and stained, and there's even a few steelhead lingering in the rivers. Numbers were pretty steady, but they've tapered off a lot in the last week.

Here's the 5 day forecast for the weekend.

With frost advisories in effect for Friday and Saturday mornings you can expect a slow start to the weekend with gradually improving conditions.

The other weather story is all the rain we got this week. The rivers were already high and we got 3-4 inches of rain this week. All of the rivers are outside their banks right now. For instance, here is the latest graph (as of this posting) of the Sturgeon River.

I can tell you that at that level the Sturgeon is flowing through the fields. It is flowing at two and a half times its normal rate. All of the rivers north of M-72 are blown out, so don't plan on wading much.

The Strategy

Here are my recommendations for the weekend.

If you have access to a drift boat and one of Michigan's classic trout streams- the Au Sable, Pere Marquette or Manistee- use it. The water is high everywhere. Word on the street is that the Hendrickson hatch is on. Bring some Adams, BWO's and those pale flies and you'll have your bases covered. Alternatively consider doing a streamer float, as the water levels, clarity and temperature are ideal right now, and you have a real shot at a two foot long brown.

now is the time

If you're coming further North and want to fish the Sturgeon, Pigeon, Maple, Black, or Jordan, just know that all these rivers are out of their banks, cold, and the fishing will be tough. They've been getting good Hendrickson hatches, a few BWO's and a few caddis. If you asked me I'd say fish streamers, especially white. Temps are perfect and the fish are aggressive. River conditions WILL BE TOUGH. If you're hell-bent for trout try finding smaller creeks and fishing for brook trout.

brook trout are your friend

The Alternate Strategy

If you want to avoid crowds and don't want to fight the tough river conditions, consider fishing the lakes. The trout lakes should be fishable, and the warm water species are on fire right now. Pike, smallmouth and largemouth bass and bluegills are all on the prowl, up shallow, and will readily take a fly. Strap a canoe, kayak or float tube on your car and hit some stillwater. The smallmouth are cruising the shallows and very aggressive right now. The "chain" of lakes including Elk, Clam, Bellaire, Torch, Intermediate, Six Mile, Charlevoix and Walloon all have large populations of smallmouth and little pressure (add to this Grand Traverse Bay). Four to five pound fish are common, and 20-30 fish days are normal. They also have healthy populations of pike and muskie if those are your game. Lake Bellaire gave up the world record muskie last fall. Fish the smaller no-name lakes (they're all named, but you know what I mean) to get into some big bluegills. Use a 3 weight rod and white foam and rubber legged spiders. When a 12 inch bluegill tows your kayak in a circle your smile will visible from space.

You bet my kayak spun

lots of these available

pike are aggressive and in shallow water now. Get some.

Whatever you do, come North and enjoy yourself this weekend. Don't let high water or cold mornings prevent you from getting out the and finding some fish. Be creative, try something different, have some fun.

Alright. I'm going fishing.

Tongass Why

My social media and email erupted today with news of the latest OBN/TU blogger tour. 3 emails for goodness sake, just in case I missed it on Facebook, Twitter, and G+. The rules to enter are that one would have to write about why the Tongass is important, what TU is doing blah blah blah.

The problem with this is that I know nothing about the Tongass except that it is the biggest national forest in the system. Other than that it is a blank page to me. And I'm a little confused, as I thought that Bristol Bay was the last great salmon fishery that we all need to be saving. Frankly I'm already weary of that story. Add to this the fact that I have no freaking clue what Trout Unlimited is doing there to preserve things, and I guess I have nothing to say, no starting point, no place of reference.

What is TU doing in the Tongass? Anything? I live in Michigan, birthplace of Trout Unlimited, and our chapter can't get its members to show up for a Tie-One-On (I mean you Miller Van Winkle chapter). How did TU get enough members in Southeast Alaska to rub together to get anything done at all? Or am I underestimating Alaska? Is my corner of the earth that much more remote, or just that much more feral?

Isn't this why I would write a winning essay? To go and see the Tongass, see what Trout Unlimited is accomplishing; to see what loggers, miners, commercial fisheries and others are up to, to see what the heck is going on, make some sense of the scene, to see if in fact there is anything worth saving at all?

Perhaps there's nothing to save. It could be that southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest are so far-flung, so difficult to access, so misbegotten, fog-drenched, moss-draped, ferry-fed and underdeveloped that none of us have anything to worry about? It could be that all the calculations have been made and everyone decided it's too far, too wet, too expansive, too expensive, too many customs hassles, too many bears, or there's cheaper lumber close to good highways. After all, the eastern forests have regenerated while no one was looking. Michigan, for instance, is experiencing its third cutting, and we're still covered in forest. There's nearly continuous forest from Minnesota all the way to the Atlantic coast. Why isn't that in danger?

I'm sure there's great fishing there. After all, I've never read about it, therefore it must be good, no- great, no- fantastic in fact.

I'll boil this down. I don't know what is at stake, or what we're saving or why we should care at all. And this is why I would like to go. I'd like to know why it is more important than saving the Sturgeon or Pigeon rivers. I'd like to know why my local TU chapter sucks. I'd like to see if a currently intact riparian system can be saved or needs saving.

And finally, I'd like to just go and fish, be left alone with my thoughts, then tell the world why that's worth preserving, and convince them to DO that.

That's all.

This is my submission to the Trout Unlimited 2013 Blogger Tour sponsored byFishpond, Tenkara USA and RIO, and hosted by the Outdoor Blogger Network.

Monday Morning Coffee- Smelt Run Edition

Yawawwwwnnn, stretch, scratch repeat. After ten hours of much needed sleep I'd say I'm ready to face another Monday, hope you are too.

I didn't do MMC last week because nothing notable had happened. The winter weather has continued right up until last Friday (we had snow Thursday), and the fishing has continued to stink. Friday it warmed a bit, but Saturday it got close to 70 degrees. Suddenly everything was sunshine, birdsong, flowers and love. It is finally spring.

And I had to work Saturday.

You would think this would be the end of my weekend, but no, I called Alex Cerveniak and Ethan Winchester to see if they would like to go on a little adventure. I wrapped up work at around 5 and went home and packed my camping and fishing gear. Alex and Ethan picked me up at around 9 and we headed north after the required stop for gas, jerky, donuts, coffee, trail mix, and gas station subs. We were going smelt dipping.

For those of you who have never heard of this- rainbow smelt (osmerous mordax) are an invasive species introduced to the Great Lakes from the West Coast. When they were introduced here their numbers exploded until they began to crowd out native species. Their spring spawning runs clogged every river and stream, often to the point of actually raising the water level, and after a few years this over-population led to the spread of a fungus that caused them to die off en-masse, fouling the beaches with tons of rotting fish, hundreds of miles of stinking unusable shoreline.

Smelt are actually quite tasty, so Michigan put its faltering commercial fishery to work to help contain the smelt, and worked to promote smelt dipping among outdoors people. It quickly became a popular springtime activity, one of the first fun things you could do here once the snow melted and the weather broke. All you needed was a dip net and a bucket to put them in. Because smelt typically run at night people built bonfires on the shore while they waited for the run to start and to warm themselves between stints spent standing in the icy water. Whole families would turn out for this- moms, kids, grandparents and a whole lot of people who don't normally fish. Some people barbecue or cook hot dogs, and some people clean and cook their catch right there ala fresca. A lot of alcohol gets consumed, and there's often the faint smell of weed on the air if the law enforcement presence is sparse. Communities hosted smelt festivals with competitions for largest smelt caught, pot-luck dinners and so on. Smelt Queens were crowned. In the late 80's the runs began to falter, and in most places they are just a lingering memory. There's still smelt in the lakes, but the DNR has told me that most of those spawn on offshore reefs instead of running the rivers. There's now a two gallon limit on smelt.

Two years ago I heard that some smelt were being taken at Carp river just across the Mackinaw bridge. I went and dipped my limit before 11 pm a couple nights. Last years crazy warm weather messed up the run timing and most people missed it, though some locals in the know got fish. This last week I heard a couple of rumors about fish being taken, and with the burgeoning spring weather I knew that Saturday would be prime, and a good excuse to relive some good memories.

We got there around 11. There's a giant parking lot at the mouth of the Carp built back in the heyday of the smelt runs. I expected people to be there. If you think I'm giving away your secret smelt dipping spot think again- the secret is out. There were over 200 vehicles there and well over 500 people. A small city had sprang up overnight. Campfires lined the riverbanks, generators hummed, and everywhere people in waders carrying dip nets. There was so much smoke from the campfires that it hung like fog over the river. The murmur of the river was drowned by the constant swish of hundreds of nets through water, raucous laughter, Roman candles going off with a whistle and bang, and the myriad sounds of happy people who have converged on a river to observe a rite of spring, a great impromptu party on the banks.

Alex and Ethan just stood on the shore by a fire while I dipped. It was slow going, and I only got about a gallon of fish. We called it a night around 3 a.m. and drove to a backwoods campsite I know about. The road was covered in snow still, and just before we reached the site the car bottomed out, hopelessly stuck. We piled out of the car and howled at the moon, wild men in a wild place. We were immediately answered by a pack of coyotes on the banks of the river not 200 yards distant. We howled them down.

As for the rest- how we packed our gear in, cooked our smelt, dug our car out with sticks, picked ticks, and otherwise put the "grrrrrhhhggghh" in "Michigan Man" I'll never tell, but suffice it to say that it was a perfect, perfect weekend.

Grrrrhhhgghh.

Trout Opener

Yes, the opening day of trout season in Michigan is once again upon us, and several of my friends want to know where I'm going, what flies I'll be using, and whether I'll be able to sleep the night before. Here are the answers.

I'm not going.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the general trout season is open (the last Saturday in April as per Michigan tradition), and I relish the idea of being able to fish anywhere I want starting this Saturday. But I really don't care about the trout opener.

I wasn't always this way, and when I was a kid I used to lose sleep fretting over whether I had cleaned and oiled my spin-cast reel properly, if my line was in good shape, if my worms were frisky, and if my alarm was properly set. I'd wake up at 4 a.m. , give up on sleep, quietly make toast, then ride my bike the five miles to the river in the frosty dawn. Then I would catch nothing.

I have maintained that tradition up until now- not the losing sleep part or the toast, but the not catching. The trout opener for me has always been absurdly bad- frosty mornings, cold water, hordes of bait- and hardware-chucking locals tossing absurdly weighted offerings into the river with a sound like they've lobbed in a used toilet.

Several years back I fished the opener on my favorite brook trout waters. I was spinner fishing back then. It had been a cold April, and frost and ice were everywhere. I was fishing some prime water, and hit it hard for over an hour before I noticed something- redworms were everywhere on the river bottom. They were drifting singly, or in small mats, or in large balls rolling gently downstream, but there was nowhere you could look in the current and not see worms. I caught one fish that day. Really, why would any fish chase down my spinner when they could lie on the bottom, scratch their bellies and belch after that great conveyor belt buffet? For the next several years I accepted my friend Steve's invitations to fish walleye, which season also happens to open the same day. Not that we did much better.

Another factor affecting my opening day attitude is the fact that a lot of Michigan water stays open year round, and I've become a year-round angler, especially for steelhead. The opener just isn't that special anymore. When you consider that I've been able to enjoy some prime water to myself all winter you can see that it is really hard for me to rub elbows with every Tom-Dick-and-Jackass on what is always a so-so day.

This year could be different- we have experienced record cold this spring, with weather in April that is more like March. Snow is still in the forecast. What's different is that the rivers could be chock full of steelhead for the opener, and this could be very exciting for a lot of anglers.

Me? I'm working a side job Saturday, then fishing Sunday for pike with Alex Cerveniak. I just got the new Sage pike rod in the mail to test, and with the late spring the pike should be up shallow trying to get some sun. I tied some big flies with Schultzy a few weeks back that need to be tested, and I can't wait to flex this thing and try to hook up on some toothy critters. Don't worry, all my other rods will be in the back seat. It has been FAR too cold to worry about dry fly fishing yet, but I'll probably sneak in some steelhead fishing as well. Next week we have some 70 degree weather on tap which should blow the doors off. Tuesday evening I may have to sneak out and see if maybe, just maybe, there's a few Hendricksons coming off.

After all, I love the trout opener, if perhaps a little indirectly.

Monday Morning Coffee- Mid-Winter in April Edition

Aaauuppgghh!! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. Let's have some coffee.

Unfortunately I have bad news to share. Apparentlly spring has suffered some godawful accident and died, slowly, deliberately, and by Gollum's own hands. Winter has been forced to step up, step in, and keep the show on the road. You know what I mean. We must have weather, right? It isn't right for it to ask us what it has in its nasty pocketses.

So nothing has changed much here, especially the frickin' weather, and it's getting old. Tom Hazelton came and fished with me all weekend and we caught nothing. Not only that, but there are no beds, no fish, and nothing to share. The woods and skies are full of snow, the wind is cold, and the long days now only remind you how awful winter can be. Sure, the birds are back, but they are just another bitter reminder of what could have been, and when we start finding their dead carcasses on the drifts I'm sure we'll realize how bad life is.

So all I have to share are pictures of Tom.

This is Tom hiking in on the snow. At this point he is still happy and optimistic.

This is Tom fishing a hole. At this point I would say he is still content and satisfied

This is Tom fishing another hole. At this point he's probably a little over it by now.

This is Tom on a completely different river at a moment when snow was not blowing directly down our necks. At this point we are sick of winter.

This is Tom wading to sh.ore after fishing the mouth of the Boyne River. At this point his hands do not smell of fish.

This is Tom so bored he's casting off a dock. At this point we are just wasting time.

We wrapped it up shortly thereafter and called it a weekend. Honestly, I had a great time, we got lots of exercise, I worked on my indie technique and we drank some brews, watched some fly fishing videos, ate some good hearty meals (okay, I was the cook, but hey, I know good food when I eat it) and otherwise were guys for a weekend. The fact that the fishing stank had no bearing on whether we enjoyed our weekend.

At least that is what we will keep telling ourselves.

Things can only improve, so let's get after it.

Oh yeah, there was this jackass.

Monday Morning Coffee- April 8 2013

Auuuggghhhh!!! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. Dang, is it Monday again? Let's have some coffee.

Well, if you can't tell by yesterdays post, the gray and cold continue, and I'm back into a fishless period. We received several inches of snow last week, the nights were cold, and we still have a healthy snow pack on the ground, all of which means that the steady trickle of icy run-off is suppressing the bite in our small northern streams. We should be in the middle of our steelhead run right now and it hasn't really started yet.

This could be good news, we could have a protracted run that lasts into May. That's good depending on how you feel about dry fly fishing. Sometimes I don't like my seasons overlapping that much, it's nice to have time to enjoy them all. If it warms up suddenly the steelhead tend to get the job done in a single week, which can make for some epic fishing if you catch it, or you may be stuck catching suckers if you miss it. Rumor has it that a lot of the Lake Superior tribs aren't even accessible due to the snowpack.

I took a drive yesterday with Alex Cerveniak through the central U.P. yesterday to check on some rivers I had always wondered about. I had heard guys were getting fish at the mouth of Cut River which makes a spectacular slice through the dunes to Lake Michigan. I've only seen this river from the bridge high overhead and had no sense of its scale. When we got to lake level it turned out to be just a tiny creek that didn't look fit for brook trout.

We bypassed Brevort river knowing what a miserable ditch that is and went on to the Millecoquins. Come to find out all of the fishable water is inside the Hiawatha Club. It's a rather large river with a good flow but the only accesses are in the frog water at the mouth and at the outflow of Millecoquins Lake. Any Hiawatha Club members want to say if this river gets decent numbers of fish? I may have to kayak this stretch of river this summer.

Next down the coast is the Milakokia River. We didn't even bother. The open water is very short and flows right through the middle of a limestone quarry. I'm sure the locals catch fish there. I'm happy for them.

mouth of the Cut after a long walk down. Nothing to see here.

Next down the pike was the mighty Manistique River, which is open for steelhead from the dam in the namesake town down to the lake. Unfortunately you can see the lake from the dam, and the fishable stretch is just a couple of hundred yards long. Several guys were there fishing, including a vehicle with Wisconsin plates, but the setting is so industrial, being next to a pulp mill and god knows what else, that Alex and I looked at each other and shrugged, walked back to the car and drove all the way back across the central U.P., crossed the Mackinaw Bridge, and went home.

Despite the lack of fish and fishing it was a good day. I crossed some rivers off my list and had some questions answered. Even on a gray day the UP is always interesting. We saw at least a dozen bald eagles, tons of deer, and crossed several black fly riddled creeks that need to be explored for brook trout later.

Now that I've shared my scouting with you I think you all owe me some gas money. Coffee is over and it's going to be a busy week.

Let's get after it.

Some Days

the only fish I saw

Some days are better than others. This is such a droll statement that it needs no elaboration.

Some days are like today. They simply exist. They are not good or bad. Nothing got done, nothing got fixed, and the only thing you can say for certain is that a lot of oxygen and carbon had a three-way.

Some days you do far more driving than fishing. There's a simple reason for this. You know for a certainty that no fish are willing to come out and play, that the accesses are still mired in deep snow, and that the gray skies and gray snowbanks are telling you it's not time yet.

Some days you need to go for a drive, be with a friend, talk about fishing and nothing else. Your job, your taxes, your bills and your exes do not exist on such days. The only things that do exist are your friend, the road and the hum of your tires on it, and the ceaseless fuzzy scalp of the landscape punctuated by the vastness of Lake Michigan.

Some days you need to get out and explore, and when you reach that X on the map, the spot you were always wondering about, that blue squiggle writhing through the plat lines, and you realize the whole enterprise is worthless, you still have the satisfaction of having seen it, laying your fantasies to rest against the reality, closure in its purest and most simple and easy sense. What is better than knowing that a map does not live up to your expectations and moving on?

Some days you need a rest, your own Sabbath, a break from all the pressures you are under, to burn some gasoline and have the freedom of the road, to have a friend who doesn't mind if you ramble on aimlessly and absentmindedly all day even while he nods off in the passenger seat. If you're used to talking to yourself anyways this is perfectly acceptable.

Some days are like this one, in which I get to leave behind the bile and filth of my life, the pain and regret, the slavery, insouciance, pop culture, greed, ambition, and the myriad things tugging at my sleeve, and truly escape. Today there was no music and very little fishing, and truthfully no fish at all. There was only me and a good friend, some ideas to chase down, tease out, discover that they were only cotton candy, and to leave the fair grounds disheveled, slightly sick, and sure of the idea we will never eat corn dogs again. When we finally hit shore and landed it was sublime, peaceful despite the carnival. We took local routes. We fished local waters. We caught nothing. We drove home with our heads held high.

Some days are like that.