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.

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.