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.

One Good Fish

I'm not much into trip reports, but why let Facebook get all the traffic? So I'm posting today's success here.

It was a gorgeous afternoon, about 40 degrees, which set the snowbanks to melting. With all the fresh run off I knew there would be fish to be found. Now that the sun doesn't set until 8 PM there's plenty of time to drive to a river and get some fishing in. Long story short, I hooked up on this fish in the first five minutes and that was all, but it was a beautiful evening and I had the place to myself. I've gotten blanked a lot lately while fishing and so it was nice to finally get a good fish. Not huge, but a hard fighter, and it lifted my mood immeasurably. JT

Monday Morning Coffee- March 25

Uuuuurrrrrggggghhhhhh. . . . auph! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. Is it Monday already? Durn. Time to put on some coffee I guess.

Well, the story this last week was the three day storm and lake effect blow we had that dumped 20 more inches of snow and made life feel like an episode from Ice Road Truckers. This winter has been tenaciously hanging on, and all I can do is repeat what I've said before about it being good for the rivers, orchards and morels. We usually have some snow left at this time, but this year we pretty much have 100% of our snow pack going into April, which should make for a pretty interesting spring run-off.

The good news is that the steelhead are in the rivers if you're willing to make some tracks in the snow. The run is still building, but so is pressure, and the next week could be the best fishing of the year, but the opportunity to have the river to yourself is pretty much gone. Spring fever and warming temperatures are starting to drive fishermen outdoors, and the failing ice will be driving them off of the lakes soon. I got out yesterday with my friend Tom Menas again. I got blanked on an early hook-up, and Tom hooked up on a decent fish a little while later. There were a lot of tracks in the snow, and I think the elbows are just going to get sharper over the next few weeks.

Tom with a good fish

What else? I've been working on improving my tying lately. I cranked out a bunch of conehead Madonnas last week in order to work on my deer hair spinning and proportion techniques. They're a very effective streamer that is super simple to tie, meaning that I can repeatedly spin and shave hair. I'm not there yet, but better. Zach Ginop showed me how to hold my razor in place and rotate the vise. It gives a much more consistent shave than I can do by hand. I still can't get the collars uniform, and some of the heads are monstrous, but the fun thing about tying for myself is I know they don't have to be perfect to catch fish. It's a brown trout's mission in life to eat all the freaks and deformed and crippled fish, so I figure my bad tying only ups my odds of success. I pity guys like Mike Schmidt, Dave Hosler and Matt Erny who can tie such perfect baitfish imitations and have them be consistent tie after tie. Brown trout look at those perfect flies and pass instinctively on such healthy and fit specimens. When they see my odd colored, big-headed lurching critters spinning through the water like a propeller blade they not only know that it's an easy meal, but that it's their job to do the right thing and put it out of its misery- The Law of the Jungle. It's for this very reason that I have no intention of improving my tying too rapidly.

Matt Erny's Grizzly Archer

Dave Hosler's Chewee

my unshaven Madonna. So accurate.

What's to look forward to this week? Rumor has it that Brandon Robinson (OneBugIsFake) will be making his way north for a little fishing and kayak sledding on the weekend. Whether this leads to fish or to the intensive care unit remains to be seen.

Well, I'm almost finished with my coffee and it's time to go to work. Have a great week!

Let's get after it.

March Madness

As we all know, Punxsutawney Phil has turned out to be a terrible, filthy fraud whose grifting has been fully exposed by the continued snow and cold. Good riddance to bad rubbish I say. We've had a total of 3 warmish days this month, and the rest has been cold hard winter with no real break in sight until the very end of the month. While March is statistically the second snowiest month of the year here, normally by this time we're starting to see some balmier temps and receding snow banks. Instead we've experienced single digit lows, 20 degree highs, and are currently in the midst of a 3 day blow that piled a 3 foot drift in my driveway yesterday.

The general mood here verges on venomous.

Now, I always hate the general griping that goes on about the weather here. It's the local sport. In February I was hearing people complain about how sick they were of winter- February! But at this point I'm starting to sympathize. We should have at least had maple syrup weather by now. You know, frosty nights but with warming sunny days in the forties that makes the sap run like mad. It makes the steelhead run like mad also.

Instead of complaining myself, I wish to share some fish porn and a little preview of what's to come. Buck up little camper.

Tom Menas mit hen

I fished with friends Tom Menas and Zach Ginop Sunday and we came up with this fish. It was a bitterly cold day, and the bluebird skies had shut down the bite. We got this one at dusk. There are fish to be had if you are willing to put in the work.

Here's a little spring preview to warm you up. This will all be here before you know it. The good news is that this extended cold will make for excellent spring fishing and morel hunting, and it should help stave off the drought we experienced last year.

Cheers!