One Dead Trout, One Live Trout

Tom saw it before I did. It was laying near the bank in about two feet of water, it's gleaming silver side looking like the deck of a skateboard. It had a red cheek patch, and our first thought was that it was a steelhead, but then we saw the spots- definitely a brown. The red spot turned out to be a chunk of missing flesh. It looked fairly fresh so we used our paddles to bring it to the surface, losing it in the murk several times, waiting for it to clear so we could see it again, but this fish was so gosh darn HUGE that we had to measure it.

It was 28 inches long.

no fish were harmed in the making of this picture

Considering that the bank just down stream is mowed and has a chair and prop sticks set by a bait fisherman (and that we found a couple of other staked rods elsewhere) it's likely this fish took a hook deep and didn't survive it. I doubt the locals are releasing fish like that. We fought rain storms and cold nights and floated downstream in a canoe on the blackest of nights, arriving at camp just before dawn, having waited out yet another rainstorm under a providentially placed bridge at 4 in the morning.

But that fish, even in death, made our weekend. We'll be going back soon.



The next weekend found me fighting the weather with another friend, Chris Reister. Friday night was bitterly cold. We were mousing on the Au Sable. We never rolled a fish.

The next day we decided to do something different. We went and floated the fly water on the Manistee River, our reasons being that it get's less traffic and a better hopper bite than the Au Sable.

After I missed a couple fish Chris kicked me back to the sticks. He hit a deep pocket perfectly with one of my own orange Chernobyl hoppers and the water exploded and his fish immediately took him to the woodshed.  Due to Chris' nerves of steel, and some expert, expert boat handling we managed to land this fish.

Chris with a hopper fish

17" is a great daytime fish in Michigan. I'll take it any day.

The Angler's Year- December

"Winter Storm to Intensify as it Heads Northeast!"

this time last year

So goes the headline.  Good for them I say.  Let them have a rah rah start to the season.  I live in a snow zone, and at this writing (Dec. 2011) we are curiously lacking in snow.  Mind you, snow has been leaking steadily from the sky for two days, as if someone forgot to shut the clouds off, and it's slowly drizzling down while still failing to cover anything.  Normally, we'd have at least a foot by now if not two, so I'm not complaining.  I'm looking around my yard to make sure nothing is out that I don't want buried til spring, checking the bed of my truck to be sure I don't lose any tools (or gear) to the ice and snow.

I try to be upbeat about the fishing opportunities found each month, they are to be had.  But when December comes, there's no pretending anymore.  The cold is here, and it wants to eat your heart.  There are no good days anymore, just the encroaching cold and darkness, short days, the icy grip of the longest season.  December is as bad as it gets.  Here in Michigan, a lot of streams are closed until the end of April, the fish have gone dormant anyways, and the weather is typically horrid- cold, windy, lots of snow.  By the end of the month the ice fishermen will be out in force, which doesn't bode well for the fly fishing prospects.

I am, of course, a fear mongering hypocrite.  After all, I've fished six of the last eight days, and caught a couple of small (baby) steelhead, and a bunch of decent trout.  All on egg patterns while fishing for steelhead.  If you ask me, the first two weeks of December seem to be just as good as the November fishing, but it depends on how cold it gets, how fast.   This year, it has been unseasonably warm.  I may yet catch my chrome siren.

oh sweet siren, how I love thee...

I've had my chances and haven't done my part.  I've hooked up on at least three good steelhead so far this month, and each has come unpinned in the first couple of head shakes.  I lost five in one day last December.  Or to be more accurate, five in two hours.  I'm feeling a little snake bit on the fall steelies.   Why do I tend to hook up on spring fish and not fall fish?  I'm fishing the same patterns.  I think I'm doing the same things.  Or am I?

Perhaps, perhaps I'm sabotaging myself, as sub-consciously I surrender to this most amorphous of seasons, like being devoured by a jellyfish,  its tentacles drawing me deeper into catatonic lethargy.  It would be very easy to just hibernate right now.  To sleep, just sleep, and dream of warmer, happier times.  I remember things- green scents, the whine of mosquitoes.  I remember warm sand on my feet.  I remember rising trout, and tailing carp.  I remember wearing a t-shirt outside, all day.  I remember clear blue skies, with those high, comma shaped clouds, like Nike swooshes visiting from another realm.  When was that?  Oh well, sleep is good.

remember these days?

All that is gone, and until then we have to survive.  And we will, we always do.  Most of you are so caught up in the holiday season, that fishing is an afterthought anyways.  When we get a break, we'll read our favorite magazines, books, and blogs.  This is the time of year we start to get serious about fly tying.  My tying desk is a mess right now, with too many materials packed into too little space.  I'll have to do something about that.  Maybe after I get some more fishing in.  I'm going to make it a point to watch as many videos online as possible, learn some new techniques, new patterns, broaden my tying horizons.

There's a couple of warmer days coming up, so hopefully I'll get back out there.  My favorite steelhead river freezes up so solid that the locals ice fish for them.  The other rivers develop extensive shelf ice, making the fishing challenging to impossible.  When that happens, I'll sit down at my vise, and start plotting for the time when the rivers flow free, the mayflies hatch, and the trout look up.

a fate I can live with

I had thought of including a winter to-do list here, but I don't think I can do any better than Alex Cerveniak.  In addition to his own blog, he now  is running jaysoutdoornews.com.  This post has an exhaustive rundown of what you need to do before next season.