Memorial weekend

Well, it was originally planned this weekend that I would be stuck working, but Friday, they informed me that I could have saturday off. So obviously I rushed home, packed my gear and was up in Mesick around 11pm. Hung out for a little while, went to bed with my love. got up around 5:30 and headed down below Hodenpyl, fished for a couple hours, only managed to roll one medium size brown, and caught a handful of small brownie plants.

Saturday evening I fished the Betsie at an undisclosed location (hint: somewheres in Benzie county) Anyways caught a whole bunch of small rainbow plants, including one double catch on a hennie and a hare's ear. the topper of the evening was when I rounded a bend, and seen two monsters laying on the gravel bed ahead of me, first couple drifts didn't accomplish anything, but then I threw a prince nymph underneath my hennie, and WHAM! he was on, for about 30 seconds atleast, shot accross the gravel bed, and downstream into a log jam, wrapped me right up and broke me off. oh well, he probably would've been released anyways, I'd guess he went 24"-28" so it would've definately been a nice catch.

Didn't really have time to mess with the camera, but I did snap a couple of the manistee that I'll post later on. Not really sure when I'll be able to get back out again, but I'll be sure to post about it. Until then, good luck!

Upper Huron river...

Well, I wanted to get out and fish the other day, Andy was supposed to go, but decided not to due to the extreme wind we were dealing with all day. So I was gonna go it alone and give it a shot, but Mikey asked if he could go, having never fly fished before, I grabbed the backup rod and took him out in front of the house, and showed him the basics really quick, told him to keep practicing while I grabbed all the gear. We headed up there, and were there by 6pm. We got in the river and I had Mikey continue working on his casting while teaching him how to read the river and where to cast. I missed a couple rises to my hennie. I then threw a Hare's ear about a foot and a half below the hennie, which seems to be my "goto" anymore. once I did that I ended up landing two little gills and one beautifully colored 12 or so inch rainbow.

Mikey officially caught the smallest fish I've ever seen anyone catch, an emerald shiner about 2 inches long decided he wanted a size 24 bwo for dinner, it was funny to say the least. So like Mikey said, he can only go up from that little guy. He said he had a great time and wants to do it again, I was kinda nervous knowing how his leg still bothers him and what not, but he did great. I enjoyed taking someone new into the water and teaching him everything from the ground up, before the other day, he had never cast a fly.
The water was up from the recent rainfall, but still crystal clear up there. So there are still some fish in the area leftover from stocker fest, I hope to get back up there soon and hit it a little more. Fishing that stretch of the Huron feels like you're upnorth on a smaller trib of the AuSable or some other blue ribbon trout water, but it's not, there aren't as many fish in there, and you can here wayyy too much traffic nearby.
The bugs were definately poppin when we were there... bwo's, hennies, march browns, hare's ear nymphs... all good producers right now. Just get out there and wet a line! good luck! tight lines!

Report from Tippy...

I was able to get upnorth on my last weekend like I said I was going to. I was up in Mesick making sure the truck would be ready for last saturdays race. Well, there wasn't too much work needing to be done to it, so ofcourse I took it upon myself to go wet a line. i went to Tippy dam wednesday night, fished from about 5pm until dark. There were definately still alot of fish in the system, if we had half as good a steely run on the Huron as they do on the Manistee, we'd be alright. Anyways, seen alot of fish on the redds still. Only landed one out of the three that I hooked into, bout a 7lb male, put up one hell of a nice fight, caught him under a double fly setup, he had that Hare's ear burried right in the corner of his mouth. An older fellow fishing near me landed him for me. Unfortunately the fish managed to release himself sooner than I had planned by growing a set of legs while I was fumbling for the camera, so no pics to be had of that one, sorry. The other three hookups I had, one broke me off, and the other just let go, all three on different flies however. Along with the three steely hookups, I probably caught 20 or so dink browns and rainbows, it seemed everytime I would let my line straighten out below me, I had one on. Kind of annyoing, yet fun at the same time. I went back Thursday morning before having to head home, and didn't have any action other than seeing more fish in the area where I had fished the night before, and the 6 or so foot long sturgeon that swam about 5 yards in front of me making his or her way upstream to do their thing. pretty cool thing to see, having never seen one before.

Hope to get back up sometime soon, but who knows how finances are going to be.
good luck out there, tight lines!

Last weekend's run...

Well, my weekends aren't what everyone else's weekends are anymore, mine consist of wednesdays and thursdays. I'm still definately not used to it, but I took advantage of it last week to shoot up for my own "opener" although a few days later than everyone else's, it was still a great one. no enough time as always, but I just could not get the flyrod out of my hand, I had to fish, and throw flies at that. The whole time was spent chasin trout with my father, who says he sucks at this whole fly fishing thing, but he really enjoys it. I want for him to get better at it, as it would be something that I introduced him into, and primarily taught him how to do, it would mean a lot to me since the old codger has taught me so much in life. I did manage to restore his old lami-glass rod he wanted done, new guides, tip-top, hook keeper, guide wraps, everything, bleached the cork so that it all looks like a brand new rod. hopefully he's happy with it, and manages some fish with it.

We mainly fished at Alcona dam area, mostly because it's close, and more often than not, we can pull fish out of there. I was able to try my new Reddington 4wt out finally, I had been dying to use it, and man does that thing fish nice, spooled it up with some double taper floating line, and I can roll some of the tightest loops with that thing. Caught a handful of small rainbows the first night and next morning right below Alcona, the first night was a little harder to catch fish amidst the massive midge hatch that I was standing in the middle of. later the next morning we tried near 4001, where we had no luck what so ever. Then ended up in Mio, top of the trophy water right below the boat launch, bwo's got a couple rises, but Bob Linsenman himself recomended a setup to me that as he said "would knock the livin dicks right off them buggers" so I ran a bead head hare's ear nymph about a foot underneath my Hendrickson spinner, a setup that I've used before, and had considered erlier in the day, but lacked confidence in the choice. anyways, he was right, I managed a few rises on the hennie, but when i didn't have a hit there, it was shooting underneath the surface with a trout affixed to the hare's ear.

I never managed anything of real size, but did score a couple rainbows in the keeper range, and rolled something big over below Alcona that appeared to be a large brown, but it broke me before I knew it. That night we ended back up alcona, hennies were all that produced for me and it was only a few at that. I had to get up and be back home early friday morning or I would've stayed longer. Was able to see grampa while I was up there, which made the both of us feel good, I'm so glad to see he's doing better, looking at hime now, you wouldn't be able to tell that he was the guy none of us were really sure whether or not was gonna make it. He jsut needs to get his strength back, he's back to his old self as far as I can see, but still got a ways to go.

Yeah, say what you want, I though the flowers looked cool growing how and where they were. I'm heading up the westside of the state in the am(should be in bed now) to work on the bogger before this weekends race, but while i'm up there, I plan on squeezing in a little time on the river, either belowe tippy chasing browns or chromers, or belowe hodenpyl going after browns and bows. Either way, as long as my rod is getting wet, i'm a happy fella.

tight lines!

hendricksons, bwo's, midges, hare's ears are all producing right now, and march browns should start in some spots any day!