12/13

Not a whole ton to report in the last week. The temps have dropped even more and water temps are hovering in the 33 to 35 degree range. Managed to get out twice in the previous week and given the conditions I think we did ok. Friday evening Jeff and I fished locally for a couple hours before dark. It was a cold one and we had to bust through our first shelf ice of the year just to get in the water.

I decided to swing streamers since I had been indicator fishing alot lately. This turned out to be a poor choice, the cold water plus the fact that it was flowing quite low made swinging tough and I didn't have any interest in my flies. Jeff threw eggs and nymphs and in the second run we fished was able to connect on a gorgeous skip from a deep tailout. This fish was a longtime coming for Jeff who has put in a ton of hours this fall/winter without any love.

And the release...

Jeff was able to hook up with a decent trout in the same tailout but promptly lost it. It was soon dark so we made the hike back downstream to the trucks. Not bad for two hours on a winter evening.
Yesterday was a weird day. Most of west Michigan was in a winter storm warning and we were predicted to get 8-10 inches of snow over night Saturday and all through the day Sunday. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up to 34 degree weather and only about 2 inches of snow on the ground. Jeff and I quickly decided to run to the river and get in a few hours. Right off the bat I was able to hookup a nice brown on a small nuke egg.

The trout fishing continues to impress me this winter, especially on this river which in general is not anything special on the trout front. With the lack of chrome around I am going to explore it with my 4 or 5wt, light tippet, and some smaller bugs one of these days. Anyways, right about the time I released that fish the weather made a wicked turn. It started to snow hard, the wind was howling blowing it sideways, and you could feel the temperature dropping very quickly. We continued down to fish a few more runs but things were tough. Jeff hooked and landed the only other fish of the day, which was once again a quality brown trout.

Finally about 2:30 we decided to head back as we could hardly cast anymore without the line and rod freezing solid. The temp had dropped 15 degrees in about 3 hours and the windchill was in the single digits. Still it was a fun afternoon on the river and those are the opportunities you need to jump on in the winter. Today is frigid with high's in the teens and a stiff wind so it looks like I'll be tying flies for a few days. With any luck the end of the week will warm up a little and we can get in our float trip Thursday.