There's Bugs and Then There's Bugs

Crooked Lake on my way to work

At times I believe my whole life revolves around water. It's hard for it not to when you live in the Great Lakes State, but my life in particular seems to have been drawn inexorably to that happy medium. I live within sight of a river. I drive past several lakes each day including Lake Michigan and cross several trout streams on my way to and fro. Fly fishing for me simply involves keeping my gear in the car, or deciding that I hate television and the internet, pulling the plug on every electronic device that I own, and running out the door with a fistful of flies and a wind-knotted leader. If I forgot something, the stream is only 5 minutes from home- a very irritating 5 minutes if I have to run back for said forgotten item. The curses of living in Trout Country. God forbid I drove an hour to some other favorite spot, because then I'll have to make it to a local gas station to pick up some flies. Yes, it's that easy. Last fall I was well on my way to fishing the Black River for brook trout when I realized I had forgotten my flies.

Forgetting flies for me is kind of like forgetting to wear pants. I have at least 8 fly boxes, and there is a lot of overlap in their contents. This means that any given fly box, if it just so happens to be in my car, probably has something that will work, and Northern Michigan brook trout are not all that finicky. There are flies at this very moment decorating almost every flat surface (including the floor) of my car, flies that would very much suffice for brook trout. But on this particular September day in question I searched my car thoroughly and discovered that I indeed had no flies in my car that would interest a brook trout. I was tempted to try that musky fly hanging from my visor.

the best fly box ever. Says Tom Hazelton

After cursing my lack of a good check list (for crying out loud!), I made my way to Pat and Gary's in Indian River, home of the 99 cent fly. All of you local tyers and purists will curse me, but Sri Lankan kids need to eat too. Lollipops don't buy themselves, and neither does rice. I bought several stimulators and a couple of hoppers. I caught fish too- not a lot, but enough to make me melancholy in the realization that another summer was over, and that these pretty fish would be hidden from me until the next spring.

But I digress. A LOT. I was talking about my relationship with water. You see, I work in construction, a painter by trade. I live near what could be called the Gold Coast of Michigan- an area with a proud tradition of vacation homes that started almost 200 years ago. We have the Lake Michigan coastline and then we have Lake Charlevoix (voted second most beautiful lake in America after Lake Tahoe in USA Today, but who trusts their readers?) and Walloon Lake (bastion of Old Money and Hemingway himself). There's also the lesser known but very beautiful Burt and Mullet Lakes; monster lakes at 18,000 acres apiece, with beautiful homes, warm surface waters, and deep dark secrets. They are not trout lakes, but the browns that swim there will scare you.

I have been working on Walloon Lake as of late. It is a moderately sized lake at 4270 acres, but it is deep. It is a designated trout lake and it is alive with huge smallmouth. The funny part of this is that apart from a few locals no one fishes it. Sure, the cottagers come out and dunk some worms, some may even troll some Cow Bells for rainbows. I've fished it for smelt through the ice. But no one seriously fishes it. It gets a pretty good Hex hatch as well.

Hexagenia limbata from Burt Lake

The funny thing about Hexagenia is that they are more of a lake mayfly than a river mayfly. They are a cool-, not cold-, water mayfly. They love the big mucky-bottomed lakes we have here in Michigan. The hatches on Lake St. Clair near Detroit are so gravid that they cause traffic fatalities; people literally skittering to their deaths on bugs. The stench is horrific. The bugs that is. Hexagenia only live in trout streams on the margins- in those mucky, grassy banks at the lower ends of the rivers, and the upper end of a brown trouts' heat tolerance. The Au Sable river is a freak of nature being that most of its length can thus be described.

So Walloon Lake gets a pretty good Hex hatch, and the house I'm working on has been covered with flies for three weeks now. It makes for some good pictures. I have always noted some natural diversity between Hex flies- size, color, tail length, but this week I noticed that all of the flies were looking the same- a little slimmer, a little browner, and with tails that were outrageously long, almost 2 1/2 times their body length. When I finally spotted a bona fide Hex next to them I knew I was on to something.

check out the tails on this guy

According to Hatches II by Al Caucci there are 18 Hexagenia species, though his book only lists 3 as significant to fly anglers. I wonder what that extra-fat Hex fly was that I witnessed hatching up in the Cascades 5 years ago.

This fly is Hexagenia atracaudata.

It's good to know your bugs. And it's good to live in Trout Country.

from left: atracaudata and limbata side by side

Monday Morning Coffee- Hex Edition

Tying Big Ugly with some morning coffee

Uuuuuurrrrgggghhhh!!! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. . . is it Monday already? How many have I missed? I know, I've missed a bunch, but hey-

It's Hex season! 

So let's have some much needed coffee.

You might be getting tired of  hearing about the Hex hatch if you don't live here, and you might really be tired of hearing about it if you live here and haven't been able to fish it.

Me, I made the decision I wasn't going to miss it, and thus have lost something like a weeks sleep chasing the big bugs and bigger fish every night. I've had some fantastic floats with my friends Chris Reister and Jon Odykirk on the Au Sable, and some good walk-in trips on other rivers with other friends. I've managed to land 4 fish in the 18-19" range and several smaller fish, but the big one still eludes me. Several fish in the 20" range have been landed by the guys I'm fishing with so we've had some fantastic fishing. I want to thank Chris and Jon for inviting me along and letting me experience the fishing that the Au Sable is justifiably famous for. My thanks to Alex Cerveniak, Ethan Winchester, Tom Hazelton, and Zach Ginop for sharing the river and their knowledge and making each outing that much more fun and interesting. The hatch is winding down on the Au Sable now, but the rivers where I live are just getting going, so it could be an interesting week.

Alex waiting on the hatch

I did have one golden opportunity. I was fishing locally with Zach Ginop the other night. We've been getting sparse and brief Hex hatches right after it goes dark. No blanket spinner falls, but just enough to bring the big fish out to investigate. Two big fish had begun feeding above us and we were trying to make our way up to them when a small fish fed twenty feet above us. I jokingly laid a cast out but instead of the small fish a big head smacked the surface. As soon as I set the hook it took off upstream with half my line.

a good Hex fish

To give you some perspective I was using my 8 weight rod that I use for steelhead and salmon, and 6 feet of straight 12 pound line for a leader. I land big fish on this rod and reel all the time. This fish took half my fly line before I knew what was happening. Still I'm thinking "Hey, it's a big brown, how much damage can it do?" I knew I needed to turn this fish and reeled down hard, putting as much pressure as I knew my leader could take, but it didn't work. Instead the fish took off on an even faster run, taking the rest of my fly line and some of the backing as well.

I turned and looked at Zach and said "I guess we're going to have to go after this one."

I started moving, but this fish went nuts one more time and the leader failed at the perfection loop. Keep in mind that this all happened in the space of 15 seconds or less, that I thought I was casting to a dink, and that even big browns will typically stay in the area you hooked them and you'll just have to duke it out with them.

Zach waiting on the hatch

I did learn some valuable lessons- always be ready for anything. That monster brown could come at any time. A fish like this, even if it was a super-hot fish, had to weigh between 10 and 15 pounds. My biggest brown ever was 28" and about 9 pounds and this rig handled him quite nicely. Next time my line takes off like that you can be sure I'll be following at a dead run. It's time to start landing those fish instead of telling tales of the "one that got away".

Lesson two- don't use straight line for a leader. I went out and bought some 20 and 17 pound mono and hand tied some custom Hex/mousing leaders. If the perfection loop is the weak spot in your leader, in a 20 pound butt section it should still be strong enough not to fail, and with blood knots joining the other sections this set-up should be bullet proof.

a nice solo fish, if not the big fish of the night

One of the highlights of fishing the Au Sable this last week was finally getting to stop into the famous Gate's Au Sable Lodge. Imagine my surprise and delight to walk in and see two friendly familiar faces- Joyce Kelley and Alan Haxton. They both volunteer at the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo each spring and regularly read this blog. We had a nice conversation, comparing notes and sharing fish stories. (My tip- if there's no bugs and no fish rising switch to a mouse. That's how I got my 18" brown the night before.) They were good enough to introduce me to proprietor Josh Greenberg who helped me solve the riddle that involves fish hitting emergers and not our flies in the evening. My thanks to Josh.

I love this one. It says so little. . .

Josh posts regular fishing reports that are not only informative, but very creatively written and entertaining to read, so make sure you check them out on a regular basis, especially before you make your pilgrimage to the Au Sable.

What can you look forward to here at FR?

Stickers!! That's right, I've succumbed to peer pressure and will very shortly have FR stickers for you to paper your car, boat, computer or any other flattish surface that pleases you. Shirts are also in the offing. I should have the stickers within the next couple weeks and I'll probably give away a small pile of them to mark the occasion. If you're a blogger or other entity with stickers I'd be happy to do an exchange.

I also am working on my review of the Sage Pike rod and line. If you are thinking of getting this rig- don't hesitate, it works as advertised, but I'll get the review up soon.

I'm working on a couple of creative pieces, but I may see if I can get them published or put one up on MidCurrent. I'm also pecking slowly away at my book, but now I'm just hoping to be finished in the fall. It will have a lot of material from this blog, edited and re-written of course, but I'm also writing some new content so it has some original material.

Well, I've gone on long enough with my tales of woe and success, people, places, big bugs and big fish. I'll try to run a July 4 fishing forecast on Tuesday so you know what to expect.

Let's get after it.

Season of the Hex

It's late June, and in Northern Michigan that can mean only one thing- the Hex are upon us. Tonight I will have fished 7 of the last 8 nights. On Sunday night I got off the river so late that I could only drive home, take a shower, make some coffee and go to work. Needless to say it was a terrible day.

The fishing has been fantastic.

A great Hex fish caught by Odie.

The Hex hatch is an annual event anticipated by Michigan anglers for good reason- it's a big bug that attracts big fish. Fish over twenty inches are common. Lifetime fish are caught at this time of year. Fish that would never rise to lesser flies move out into shallow water and feed with abandon. It is the steroidal essence of fly fishing.

Alex Cerveniak with his best trout on a fly- ever.

There is some alchemy to this hatch. They don't just show up on time and tap their watches. They generally start after June 15, though you'll see some early bugs on the lakes. They also start on the local lakes about ten days before they do on the river, so if they started on Crooked Lake June tenth it should be good on the river on the 20th. If there's a chill in the air don't go. You need calm, warm, humid evenings. If a dry front blows through and drops the humidity, don't go. Ideally? 82 degrees by day and humid, with storms building in from the west, but still, calm winds. Dark of the moon is best.

Hex generally do not hatch or spinner fall until dusk. If you've picked the right evening look out- as soon as the light fades big bugs will flit in and out of your consciousness, and the air will thrum to the sound of a thousand wings. Fish will come out of the woodwork, fish you never knew existed in your river, fish that will give you nightmares. The fish of your dreams.

We've been dealing with the Super Moon here during our Hex hatch which has made fishing tough. I have not once witnessed that all out melee of every fish in the river making the water boil, but the fish that have been feeding are epic, the biggest in the river. The flip side is that the fish are super selective, and if you park your drift boat too close or make a bad cast and line them you'll put them down instantly.

The hatch this year has been epic, and yet so far the fish are good but not exceptional. I've caught four fish in the 18 inch range but none over 20". Last year I only fished the Hex hatch once, but my one fish was 24.5 inches.

my big fish from last year.

We're having a normal year this year, meaning that everyone thinks the hatch is late. Historically the hatch should just be starting. As a kid I fished the Hex all the way into August. It was a solid July hatch. That seemed to end after the record drought of 1988. I think we lost some biodiversity then. Regardless, the Hex hatch is a great time of year, your one chance to catch a giant brown trout on a bonafide dry fly.

I'm headed out to catch mine.

Weekend Forecast

Is it true? It’s June? Shoot, the dry fly season, just begun, is half over, can you believe it? Not if you count tricos of course- they’re too small. I’m hearing reports of drakes already which leads me to. . .

The Fly Fishing Report

drake fish

I’m hearing reports of Drakes already. But seriously here’s the report, good for all of Northern Michigan north of M-72. The water is still high but dropping slowly and the rivers are in prime condition. The rains  have finally tapered off a bit and we've entered into some nice spring-like weather. We had a heavy snow pack and a late spring which turned wet, and thus the rivers are all still high. This is excellent news for the rivers and fish, tougher news for the fisherman, who will find wading marginal.  Cold fronts continue to blow through on a regular basis but look for conditions, hatches and the bite to build and improve. Sulfurs, BWO’s, mahoganies, and Iso’s are still the ticket. I’m hearing reports of drakes already, and had some good drake action on Tuesday.

Could it be? First Hex of the season.

I went mushrooming last weekend which leads me to. . .

The Mushroom Report

The morel mushrooms are nearly done. It has been another tough season, if better than last year by a long shot. I’m nearing the 20 pound mark for my spring take, well off my average, but still enough ‘shrooms to put a smile on my face and make my palate do pirouettes. I cooked some morel chowder  and I must say it was mighty fine. If you’re coming north to pick just know that the blacks are done, the whites have peaked, and only the grays are left. Look for them now if in fact you know where to find them. I’d be willing to bet that the Duck Lake Fire burn area in the UP is producing  a bumper crop right now.

What Else Is Hot

Bluegills are starting to look up. Look for brightly colored emergent weeds and throw white foam spiders, large caddis or brown drakes. The bass bite is HOT, especially for smallmouth. Crayfish and baitfish patterns are de rigueur, but this is the time for top water, so make the most of it. Pike action is tapering off, though I’m hearing rumors of musky, which will be good for a few more weeks. Want a bonafide tip? Fish the sand flats at White Goose Bay on Burt Lake for big walleyes, browns and steelhead. Use an electric motor or a flats boat and push-pole and sneak up on them fish. Send me pics and a thank you. A bottle of Gentleman Jack would do just as well.

don't forget about these guys

Bug Report

Come prepared!! For some reason the ticks are epic this year. Having spent a life in the outdoors I've removed a total of 2 ticks from my clothing until this year. This year I've removed 20 and had to remove two from my skin. Double ICK. Bring DEET spray and use it, try to leave waders and outer layers outside and do a thorough check once a day.

The mosquitoes are nearing biblical proportions this year due to all high water we have had. I sprayed down the other night and had them trying to bite me inside my nostrils! My solution is to wear a raincoat and spray my hat and remaining exposed skin. What's good for mosquitoes is also good for trout, so don't let the bugs discourage you, just be warned and take the necessary steps.

Home Waters

We all have our home waters. It's that place where we grew up in the context of fishing, and eventually fly fishing. They could be the great waters like the Au Sable, the Madison, or the Beaverkill, or it could be a local pond, some random creek, or some fantastic unsung system that birthed your love of the outdoors and love of all things wild.

I have home waters. They are the Maple and Sturgeon rivers in Northern Michigan.

My grandfather retired from GM and moved to northern Michigan. A local land owner wanted someone to keep poachers out of his back forty and made them an offer they couldn't refuse, with exclusive access to over a mile of the Maple river.

I learned to fly fish there.

My father bought a homestead east of Wolverine Michigan when the road got widened and the power poles and party line went in. It was a four mile bike ride to the Sturgeon river.

I learned to spinner fish there.

The idea of home waters is so much deeper than my experience. We all have that notion of the waters we call "home". It is innate, natural, and deep. It is a profound sense of place and context. We know those lies, those fish, these flies, and the nuances of weather, water level and insects.

So my home waters are the Maple and Sturgeon rivers. Both are tributaries to Burt Lake, home to the Sturgeon River strain of brown trout. These fish are special, and should be named Burt Lake strain brown trout, as they range throughout all the streams in this system. They are equally at home in lakes or rivers, bounce in and out of both, and are more like steelhead than browns in that they jump repeatedly and have more endurance than most browns. They regularly reach 10 to 15 pounds, and will break your spirit.

Sturgeon River brown

In case you're going to come here and fish for these fish- these are mean, narrow, choked, fast, unpredictable mean bitches of streams. Hatches are spotty, access is spottier, and catches are lean. Good luck with the hex hatch, it already happened or won't happen at all.


But let me get to my point. I love my home waters, but what do I know about them? I have often claimed that there are over 300 miles of trout stream within an hour of where I live. Is this true? When I look at Michigan's coloring book map of trout streams I see that there is a lot of water I've overlooked.

Here's what I'm proposing. I live in Emmet County. It is the far north-western-most county in lower Michigan. According to Michigan's Coloring Book 'o' Trout Streams there are 21 different trout streams. I want to find out what my home waters are all about.

 I'm going to fish them all.

Mind you that this won't be easy. Some of the streams are marginal at best. Some can only be accessed by kayak. I'll have to seek scarce permission to fish some. Most I will have to fish from culverts. There are only two fishable rivers- the Bear and the Maple. The rest are creeks. I do not plan to fish every branch of every stream, but to treat streams as systems. The Maple is a system. I won't fish the East Branch, West Branch and Main stream to count, plus all its creeks. Once I've fished the Maple at any point it's done. Minnehaha and Silver Creeks are a system. There are seven creeks that feed Crooked River, but since Crooked isn't a trout stream I'll have to fish them all separately. Some creeks dump directly into Lake Michigan, and I'm especially excited to see what fish I can pull from them.

The end result is that I want to get know my home waters, truly, honestly bull-headedly, and the only way I know how- as a Northern Michigan boy who is used to breaking brush, swatting bugs, enduring the sun and catching fish. I want to crash 5 Mile creek and catch some 'bows; I want to fish Wycamp creek and understand what it is like to stand there as a native, spear in hand, and land some non-native steelhead. I want to catch a Coaster in the Straits.

In short, I want to fish my home water.

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.

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.