Pleasant Surprise

As I mentioned in my previous post.....summer trout fishing in Michigan can be difficult. Rivers warm into the mid-upper 60's, they get really low and clear, and most of the better fish hide in the wood all day waiting for the cover of darkness. Still, its always worth it to get out and try even if it turns out to be nothing more than a refreshing wet wade session in a river void of other fisherman. My past few outings had been chasing smallmouth and by this weekend I was missing the cool rushing waters holding my favorite fish. Sunday I headed north with Jeff and my dad and got back onto one of my favorite streams in the state...but this time exploring a new section of water none of us had ever fished. I did well on this river last year but high water has kept me away until now...and I forgot how much I had missed it. On a sweltering day with a heat index near 100 this gem was flowing at a crisp 62 degrees. That was all the motivation I needed to hop in and start casting.

The plan was pretty typical for this time of year....seek out the fast broken water and bounce nymphs along the bottom looking for opportunistic fish. Dad started off in a quick chute below me and within the first few casts he found this butter belly brown which clobbered his stonefly.

Letting him go....not a bad way to kick off a summer day!

I am always hesitant to get excited over a fish that early in to the day because many times it seems to be bad omen. Sure enough we all proceeded to fish the next few hours without any action. Thats not a complaint of course...it gave Jeff and I some time to play with our camera's and attempt to capture the beauty of this river.




After a while I switched to a hopper/dropper to see if I could find anything looking up for a big meal. I fished this setup for an hour or so with only one half hearted roll on the hopper. I finally hooked my first fish of the day on the dropper and almost flung him out of the water on the hookset. This baby brown is a good indicator that this stream is quite healthy.

As I released the fish my dad came walking up and said he had hit another solid fish on the stonefly, this time a hard fighting rainbow. He snapped this quick picture with his phone.

Hearing that I switched back to a nymph rig and quickly got a small rainbow and then lost another rainbow that looked to be about 12 inches. All of a sudden, like a switch was flipped, things were starting to pick up. Moving upstream I got this picture of Jeff and dad fishing a gorgeous run.

I walked around them, and after crossing a particularly fast hairy piece of pocket water, came to a perfect looking run that just screamed fish. Sure enough on my third cast I hooked up and this fish felt better than the first two I had landed. A few moments later this gorgeous brown was in the net. This fish has to be one of the prettiest browns I've ever caught with it's lemon yellow belly, big black and orange spots, and the classic dark blue circle behind the eye.

And with that picture my camera battery died for the day. I quickly hooked and lost two more fish at the bottom of the run before moving up to the top which was very fast and choppy. My first dozen drifts went un-touched so I tried high sticking a little more to ensure my flies were getting down to the bottom. The next drift my indicator dove under and I came tight on a heavy fish. At first it felt almost like a belly hooked fish the way the current was pulling my line but then I saw a big brown come up head shaking on the surface. He peeled line downstream in the heavy current and with 5x tippet I gave chase. A few minutes later just as Dad was reaching me I scooped up this beauty! 18 inches of perfection with a small flashback pheasant tail in his lip. Dad took this picture with his phone.

I wish I had had my camera for a few better shots but that will have to do. That's the second brown I've gotten about that size out of this river and I know some much bigger call it home as well. I continued to work that head of the run and took two more fish, a brown and a rainbow. Dad was fishing above me and he lost a decent fish as well. After that we both hiked upstream a ways and tried to find Jeff. We found him in a beautiful fast run and I watched him quickly hook up with three fish, landing two of them. When he was done my Dad and I hopped in too see if some different flies could fool anymore fish.

First cast I lost a small fish, and next drift it got eaten by something heavier. After a great fight in the fast water this 15 inch rainbow was in hand...another victim of the stonefly.

That was the perfect way to end the day and we knew we had a lengthy hike back to the truck. The trail back ran along the ridge overlooking the river and the views were stunning.




We intersected another trail and it took us through this cool looking stand of pines before delivering us back to the truck.

Back at the truck we swilled some cold beer, changed into dry clothes, and started talking about the next trip back to what has to be the best water I've seen in the midwest!