Monday Morning Coffee- September 16 2013

Aaaaauuuuuppppphhhhhhhhffffffttttttt!!! Yaw-AWN stretch scratch repeat- What day is this? Feels like I slept all summer. Monday you say? Must be time for coffee. When was the last time I did MMC anyway?

Sheesh. Oh well. Come on. Sit down. Let me pour you a cup. Is that better? Good.

Well, what can I say? It was a glorious and fiendishly busy summer. I worked overtime, worked on the side, fished every chance I got and in general enjoyed myself.

I also took up running.

Why you ask? I don't know why, other than that I've been looking for a good way to exercise and realized that for the price of a pair of shoes I could go right out my door and have a really vigorous workout in 30 minutes or less. I've run in several 5k and a 10k runs and I'm going to run my first half marathon this fall as my long runs are already over 13 miles.

But you don't care about that.Why? Because this is a fly fishing blog and your number one question, the one thing on your mind is "How about the fishing?"

The fishing is fabulous.

hex fish

I've always said the fishing in Michigan could hold its own with any other place in the world, but this summer has emphasized that point. It's not just the variety of opportunities, species and water types, it's the sheer numbers of big fish. I fished the Hex hatch a lot this year, especially on the Au Sable. There were multiple big fish feeding on every stretch of river. I landed 6-7 fish in the 18-19" range, but not any over 20"- the ones I'm after. That came last Monday night when I landed a 24" brown while mousing. Yes, September is a great time for mousing.

mouse fish

Likewise with the flats fishing. Big fish everywhere, though the bite was exceptionally tough this year. Bad timing on my part. I still managed some decent bass and one pig of a carp that was 22-24 pounds. But that's pretty much over with now.

carp fish

September is one of the best months for fishing here period, the fall equivalent of May. The browns and brook trout are feeding heavily to bulk up before spawning in November, and the streamer bite has begun, while mousing at night and terrestrial bugs are still hot.

The salmon runs are in full swing and reports are that the runs are heavy and the fish are huge. I caught my first king last night, an 18 pound brute that smashed my fly then took off up river and disappeared around the bend. He ran more than 200 feet upstream and when I caught up with him there he turned and ran at least 700 feet downstream through two holes and two sets of rapids. I fell twice and bruised both my knees on the rocks. It was perhaps my toughest salmon fight ever. You don't fish for salmon because they're beautiful or require finesse; you fish for salmon because it's a brawl, a knock-down, drag-out fight, and a real test of your gear and fish handling skills. One bad knot, one misplaced step or one mistake with your line and it's over. Salmon fishing is an athletic activity rather than a relaxing pastime.

king fish

Personally I don't care for salmon all that much. I'd rather catch browns or brook trout. My personal goals for the fall are to target some bass and pike on poppers, then get in on the streamer action. I would also like to swing some streamers for kings and cohos later in the month. I'm buried in work right now so we'll see what I can squeeze in.

I have a rod review in the works and just got back from a fantastic kayaking trip at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near Munising which I'll have to share. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve so stay tuned. For now the coffee is gone and it's time to get to work.

no fish

Let's get after it.

Some Thoughts on Colorado on a Sunday Morning

I'm sitting here comfortably sipping my coffee this morning while reading some headlines and surfing my social media.

The Colorado flooding seems to dominate both. This seems to be unfolding a bit like hurricane Katrina- first some reports here and there of flooding, then dramatic pictures and video, then the realization that the region is still in the grips of a full-scale catastrophe and not just a passing flood.

And I have to stop myself from wondering how this will affect the fishing. It's just not important right now.

I think of my (online) friends Erin Block and Jay Zimmerman. By all reports their home up in Coal Creek is cut off from the outside world. They still apparently have power and internet, but last I heard the roads are impassible. I guess I'll do a little worrying for them and wonder aloud what will happen if the roads are gone and they have to leave in order to not be isolated there. This worry may be a little premature, but it's already reality for many communities there in the mountains. Some have been simply washed away along with the roads in and out. Their recovery will be measured in years, not days or weeks.

I've been discussing several controversies lately in the fly world with my friends- issues over secret spots, methods and conservation issues. Fly fishing is a fantasy land of little fiefdoms, fan clubs, cliques, sects, gear nerds, high priests and devotees. It's the perfect escape from issues like genocide, war, terrorism, famine, starvation, natural disaster, political repression and upheaval. Nothing soothes all that away like the sound of running water and the smell of watercress, while deciding which fly to tie on.

But when one of the world premiere fly fishing destinations, and one of the most beautiful places on the planet, is hit by such devastation, my thoughts are not on the fish and fishing. There will be time for that later- much later. For now my concern is for my friends whose lives are being rearranged. It's for the lives lost, the others who are still awaiting rescue, their homes and livelihoods destroyed, and I think of the years it will take to rebuild and recover, with the knowledge that some things will never be the same.

It also reminds me that there is a disaster every day somewhere in the world. Wars that don't seem to end, famines, other natural disasters, human stupidity that causes endless and needless suffering, and when I think of this I'm no longer inclined to debate whether Tenkara is really fly fishing or whether catching steelhead on the swing is the only "pure" way to fish for them.

To my friends in Colorado- stay safe and I wish you the best. In the face of disaster I don't know what else to say.

That Gratuitous "Fish That Got Away" Story

my friend Zach awaiting the Hex hatch

There's always that one fish that haunts you.

It was the end of June well into the Hex season, one of those warm, humid, and calm June evenings that scream "Hex!". I called up my friend Zach Ginop to see if he was ready to go. We met on the river an hour later.

We waded up to our chosen spot. As the sun dipped below the horizon the fish began to feed, and we even hooked up briefly on a couple decent fish, but after awhile we just stood there, watching the glowing dusk and the fireflies, waiting for darkness.

As soon as it was dark we could see Hexes stirring, flying up the river forty feet above. We stood there, listening to the river come alive. Two rather large fish started feeding well above us; we nodded to each other and began moving upstream.

We had barely started when a small fish fed 25 feet above us.

"Hold on Zach, let me feed him some Hex" I said.

He stepped out of the way and I made my cast. There was a loud "Gulp" and I set the hook. There was no hesitation or head shaking- the fish took off immediately taking half my fly line with it. I looked at Zach and said "This is a big one", while reeling down as hard as I could, holding my rod sideways and perpendicular to the fish, trying to turn its head. It responded immediately, and despite my efforts to palm my reel it took off even faster, knocking my knuckles in the process and peeling off the rest of my fly line plus a generous measure of backing with it. I looked at Zach and said "I think we're going to have go after this one", laughing in the dark.

We have big fish where I live. Most guys fish the Hex hatch with a 5 or 6 weight rod; I use an 8 weight coupled with a Ross CLA reel and 12 pound tippet. When I'm fishing kings or steelhead I'm ready to start chasing the fish the moment I hook up. Most browns however will only make short runs and are content to duke it out in the hole you found them in. Their number one trick is to crochet themselves into a log jam and bust you off, not make a run for it. My mistake, my thought process was "It's a brown, what could it possibly do?"

I found out. As soon as Zach and I started upstream, laboring against the waist deep current, the fish took off again and broke me off. I stood there breathless and reeled in 150 feet of line and backing.

That fish made our summer.

this photo tells a tale. Smaller fish caught on a mouse pattern. Notice the Hex on the water.

My friend and local guide Zach Ginop is one of the fishiest guys I know. You can book trips with him in Northern Michigan by contacting Boyne Outfitters.

The Life of Bloggers

You may have noticed I'm a little backed up in my posting. Busy busy. Nonetheless, it has been a fantastic summer of fishing and I'm going to try to leak these posts out to let you know how the summer went. JT/FR

no beers were harmed in the making of this post

Shucks!
 Not as in "aw shucks", but as in the shed exoskeleton of hatching mayflies. The mayfly in question being Hexagenia limbata. Several emerged in the mid-morning sun as if to add punctuation to this point, and later, a lone female was laying her eggs on the oily surface.

This wasn't a great sign. Brook trout are pretty aggressive and love to feed mid-day, but fishing on the cusp of  a Hex emergence. . . well, it certainly puts Hex on your fishing. I normally wouldn't have minded. This is my favorite river in Michigan and perhaps the best brook trout river in the state. But I was under a bit of pressure, as I had with me Cameron Mortenson of The Fiberglass Manifesto and Christian Horgren of Fine Tackle- he's a glass rod builder of course, and from Sweden no less.

how the sausage gets made

I won't bore you with how hard we worked or how slow the fishing was. I caught the big fish of the day, all of 8 inches. We caught numerous small fish, and we rolled fish everywhere I said we should with a couple minor exceptions. Cameron is like an old friend to me now, and one of the great mentors to this blog, and Christian reminded me of all my European friends- friendly, competent, more worldly than most Americans, but not in a bad way.

Christian with a scrappy brook trout on the line

In the end it was a great day. The fish were small but gorgeous; we laughed, shared a couple beers, took pictures and did what bloggers do. Cameron took product photos (he was testing the Redington Butter Stick for a review) and I did my best to put them on fish. I do have my pride. This piece of river regularly gives up 12" to 16" brook trout for me but none were in evidence this day. In the end all we had were gorgeous fish, great friendship, and great scenery.

And thus is the life of bloggers.

Cameron and Christian racing to catch a plane- Up North style

Keep up with all that is cool in fly fishing at The Fiberglass Manifesto and be sure and check out Christian's beautiful glass rods at his Fine Tackle blog.

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.

Mon. . . er Tuesday Morning Coffee- July 9 2013

Auuuuhuuurgghhhuuughh! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. Is it Monday already? It's TUESDAY you say?? Has the holiday weekend really come and gone? Yes?

Must be time for coffee then. Let me pour you a cup. What? You need cream and sugar? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! Oh, kidding. What kind of host would I be? Let me put some Folgers on for you while I sip my French press brew.

Well, I got to enjoy a nice long 4 day holiday weekend with no side work and nothing to do but tidy up my house and go fishing. Guess what didn't get done? I did catch some fish though.  And I may have installed some blinds on my windows. The domestication continues.

I've decided to take up running. My girlfriend suggested we run the Boyne City Independence Day Run which is 2 miles. I did a couple practice runs in the days ahead, and finished the race without a break or walking, so I was pretty pleased with that. Neither of us felt like staying up for fireworks, so I don't have any great pics of that to share. I've been wanting to find a good way to work out without the tedium of a gym, or calisthenics at home, when it struck me like a gong going off in my head- for the price of some shoes, shorts and a couple of shirts I can just leave my front stoop and exercise til I puke. Too early for that? Sorry. Anyhow, I intend to keep running. No big plans; I just like the egalitarianist feel of going out my door and being able to go anywhere. And get fit along the way. Maybe.

not bad for my first run. 7 out of 21

But I did do some fishing, starting on Friday. I met good friend and Isle Royale trip alumnus Chris Reister for some flats fishing in the Straits. I hate to say that the fishing was very slow and tedious, but it still was fantastic. We landed a dozen bass and two carp, both our personal best. Chris is a fantastic guy to spend a day on the water, a real salt-of-the-earth type, and a fine fisherman too. We had a great time.

what a pig. Big fish too

Chris with his fish. The hats are necessary to combat the deer flies.

The next day I went out in the morning for brook trout. It took me awhile to figure out what they wanted. What they wanted was a Royal Coachman style stimulator complete with rubber legs. Once I got this worked out I caught nice fish consistently. I lost several good fish including a 10", 11" and 12" at my waders only to discover my fly was barbless. It must be time to get a net again. I don't know why, but  a net always feels like I'm cheating now, like I haven't put in the work to properly land a fish. It feels like a shortcut. I may have to get over that. Keep in mind that I don't even net my steelhead, and that my biggest brown ever (28" and 9 lbs.) was landed by hand. This could turn into another piece of writing. "To Net or Not to Net?" Hmmmmmm.....

decent brookie from the weekend

Traffic was incredible up here this weekend, a good sign that the economy has recovered for at least the time being. It makes commuting and getting around town an arduous chore, but it sure beats those bad years. Make sure you come up if you can and enjoy a little of the Up North experience, whatever that means to you.

Chris with a decent bass from Saturday

What's hot? Well, the Hex hatch is peaking right now on the Tip of the Mitt streams and should taper off rapidly. The good terrestrial bite I experienced this weekend means that hopper fishing will be good now. Carp fishing in my area will be red hot for several weeks yet. Mousing should be started in earnest, and don't tell anyone, but I got into a brief Trico spinner fall the other morning. Basically just throw your gear in the car and come north- You can't go wrong.

Michigan Fly Fishing Festival- Boyne Outfitters will be hosting the Michigan Fly Fishing Festival July 20, 21 at Boyne Mountain in Boyne Falls MI. If you're going to be up that weekend make sure you swing by. Besides the usual big players I see that Becca Schlaff Fine Art, Willow Classic Reels, Great Lakes Fly Fishing, Alder Creek Rods, and Boyne Bamboo among others. They'll have live music and BBQ, casting clinics and competitions, and even a single fly contest on their trout pond. I'll be there when I'm not on a run at the Bear River Crawl, so be sure and stop by and check out all that is good. I'm going to do a post on this in the next couple of days as I think it's going to be a good event.

Well, it's getting late, the coffee is almost done, and it's TUESDAY for crying out loud- Let's get after it!!

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