Michigan Memories

I just got back from a week's vacation in Michigan, and I managed to do pretty much everything that I wanted to do. My time was consumed with visiting both sets of families, camping, going to weddings, and, yes, a decent amount of fishing. It was a vacation to create memories and bring old ones to mind. Since this is a fishing blog, I will focus on the fishing memories I managed to create.

I hopped off the plane in Detroit at around 12:30 am. 8 hours later I was fishing the Huron River near Ann Arbor with a good friend of mine. We definitely didn't kill it, but we managed a few small ones. Surprisingly, the woolly bugger I started with produced less than the Chernobyl Ant I eventually tied on. I was happy to land a few fish on the Chernobyl Ant as I had tied it specifically in preparation for fishing in Michigan (adding one more pattern to my slowly increasing repertoire). The Huron River is known for its healthy insect populations, and the bass were actually rising fairly regularly. I believe they were going after damselflies, as there were abundant damselflies just above the surface, and the bass were sometimes flying completely out of the water. Next year I will be armed with this.

I certainly criss-crossed the state on this vacation, and on the way from Muskegon to Harrisville my wife graciously allowed me to stop briefly at the White River near Hesperia, MI. One hour of fishing brought me my first couple trout of the year, two small brown trout taken on a Parachute Adams fly.

This was just a primer for the real trout fishing I managed to do the next two days while camping in the northeastern part of the mitten. I sampled a couple truly fantastic small trout streams and was greatly rewarded. The first day I fished a picture perfect brook trout stream. The trout were easy to find - they literally inhabited every single spot you might think would hold a trout. I was using a black, rubber-legged fly in the general shape of a Stimulator, and they hit it on any drift that didn't drag. I had plenty of action and brought several brook trout to hand. After a year without trout fishing, I was in heaven.

The second day was even more spectacular. Amidst some national forest land with no human actvity in sight, I found a beautiful trout stream awaiting. This 15 ft wide stream contained rainbows (plus one lonely brook trout) that struck my flies with reckless abandon. I quickly lost count of how many I brought to hand. The stream was my ideal image of a Michigan trout stream. Small, clear, surrounded by cedar trees, and full of trout. After catching several on my preferred black Stimulator, the stream opened up into a beautiful meadow, and I switched to a grasshopper fly. This was my favorite part of the stream, not to mention the most productive. My favorite memory from the day came upon reaching the head of the meadow. I had decided that this was the last spot I would fish before heading back to camp. My first cast brought a small rainbow shooting out of the water, and the resulting fight brought the "big one" out of hiding, chasing the small one around in the confusion. After releasing the small one and giving the spot a brief rest, I made a few more casts. A cast to the far seam brought the "big one" to the surface and I landed a handsome 9 incher.

After roughly a 2 year absence from fishing in Michigan, I made a serious comeback. There is something about trout fishing - especially in small streams - that really gets me. Landing even a small trout can rival the excitement of landing a good sized redfish. But I suppose it is the diversity that really does it for me. If I fished in Michigan all year, a redfish would really be something. Regardless, it was a great trip, and I am already dreaming about future trips to trout country.

Southern Trout

This weekend I made the trip to northern Georgia and had the chance to chase trout for a day.  A friend and I have been preparing for this trip for a while.  Being new to fly fishing, he practiced casting on the lawn and on a local pond to get ready, and it paid off.

First trout - pretty happy

In the morning, we fished on the Toccoa river near McCaysville, GA for stocked rainbow trout.  The fish were holding seemingly everywhere in the river, and we were pleasantly surprised to find them taking flies off the surface.  We both caught several trout on Elk Hair Caddis flies.  None of them were huge, but they were big enough to make each fight enjoyable. 

A River Runs Through It

After lunch, we drove around the back roads trying to find a smaller stream with some wild trout.  Being from Michigan, stocker trout are somewhat of an anomaly to me, and I craved slightly less gullible trout with fully formed fins.  We eventually found a very scenic stream that looked like perfect trout habitat.

We didn't find any trout, but we found lots of wild fish.  In fact, we could barely keep them off the hook.  They hit dries and nymphs alike.  I did some research upon returning home and found that we were catching Warpaint Shiners.  They are actually very colorful and pretty fish.  Most were tiny like the one below, but one of them was pushing 7 inches, a real monster.

After taking a break to watch Germany vs. Portugal, I headed out solo for an evening session.  I briefly stopped at another small stream with warpaint shiners before heading to a new spot on the Toccoa.  I managed a couple more trout on a beadhead nymph before pulling out this surprise, a beautifully colored green sunfish.

It was a great weekend in Georgia, and I only wished for more time.  Its a long drive from Mississippi, especially for just a weekend trip.  Next time, I'll have to stay longer.

Colorado 'Bows: Day 2

The next day we drove up to the Yampa River with the groom's uncle, who lives and fly fishes in the area.  This time we took the whole bachelor party, several of which had never fly fished before.  I certainly wasn't disappointed with the scenery this time.  The section of the Yampa we visited is a nice looking tailwater stream set in a beautiful, meadow-like valley with rocky outcroppings.  I must admit, I didn't take any pictures.  Fortunately, there's the internet, so you don't have to rely on my poor description.

The Yampa River (I stole this picture off the internets)

Unfortunately, the river and its beauty are quite popular.  On top of that, there is only about a half mile stretch between the dam and a vertical cliff up against one side of the river that prevents most people from heading downstream.  So I think you can figure out the result. Actually, if you look closely at the above picture, you can see several anglers lining the right bank of the river.

The fishing...  The weather had warmed some, and I was dreaming of large rainbows taking dries, but after watching the river for a while and talking to another angler, I picked out an available section of river with a deep hole and reluctantly went back to the chuck and duck method.  After numerous drifts, I managed to bring a rainbow in its lower teens to hand - smaller than the ones from the day before, but more colorful and much more spirited.  The fish jumped several times and tried to take me down a small rapid, which probably would've ended the fight in his favor.

I moved on to where the rest of the bachelor party were landing trout after trout in a gravelly section where multiple large trout were visible.  This was the perfect place for the beginning fly fishermen in our group to get some steady action, and at least one one of them has since taken up fly fishing as a hobby.  After watching them for a while, a friend and I found a large hole behind a boulder.  From high up on the bank, you could see huge trout swimming around that you could not see from where you would need to cast.  So I stood up on the bank and directed my friend as he stood in the river casting into the hole.  On about the third drift I watched a huge fish slowly tip up to grab something out of the current and immediately my buddy's 3 weight was doubled over.  The fish took off into the main current, came up and just wallowed on the surface, too big to jump.  It was all over in about 3 seconds as the fish somehow managed to throw the hook.  It was the one of the biggest trout I've ever seen - it looked more like a salmon.

After numerous unsuccessful drifts through the same hole, I moved on to a rapidy (is that a word?) section strewn with small boulders where I could see some medium sized fish hanging out.  I stood on one of the boulders and drifted a cool looking nymph with a plastic bubble that I got from the groom's uncle past visible fish for several minutes and eventually got a hit.  The fish took off downstream with the fast current, and I had to jump off the boulder and chase after him.  There was no way I was going to pull him back upstream without breaking the tippet.  It was the most exciting fight of my life, dodging and climbing bushes and rocks while trying to keep the line tight.  Eventually I brought to hand a rainbow in its mid-teens with a bright red belly and fins.  It was the most colorful rainbow I have ever seen.  Once again, I wish I had taken a picture.

This is not the fly I used, but it has the same plastic bubble.  Apparently real nymphs sometimes have air bubbles attached to them

Overall, it was a great day of fishing.  A great weekend of fishing.  The fishing was good, but the surroundings left something to be desired.  It definitely made me want to come back to Colorado, but when I do, I think I will try to find more wild places to fish.

The groom with a Yampa River rainbow.  Nice bandana!

Sorry about the long post with only a few pictures.  I'll try to do better the with the picture to word ratio in the future.

Colorado 'Bows: Day 1

Well I'm finally back writing a blog post again.  Or as a kind friend pointed out, its really just a journal entry if no one reads it.  I'm going to blame my absence on Tropical Storm Lee, catastrophic knee failure, and alien abduction.  In other words, I haven't been fishing much recently.  Fortunately, I finally got my hands on the pictures from my trip to Colorado back in May so I'm going to write about what I can remember from that.

My buddy (who just got married a few weeks ago) wanted to include some fly fishing in his bachelor party, so he decided to make everyone fly out to Colorado (oh darn!).  We stayed at his uncle's condo in Frisco.  Frisco is a very cool town that is pretty much surrounded by mountains.  This was the view from the condo.

People in Colorado are spoiled...

Oh yeah, and Colorado is cold in May.  It was kind of a shocker coming from Mississippi.  Anyways... the fishing.  The three big fly fishers in the group decided to get a guide for one of the days.  I generally don't like getting a guide - its kind of like cheating - but it was probably the only way we were realistically going to get into some fish coming into an unfamiliar area without doing a whole lot of research.  The fishing was very different from most of the trout fishing I've done.  I'm used to standing in the middle of a small stream, casting a dry fly or nymph upstream towards a likely looking spot.  If I don't get a strike after a few drifts, I move on.  I almost never cast to visible fish.  Here, I was usually standing on the bank, and I was chucking multiple fly rigs with split shot and strike indicator (you can't really cast that).  Often times fish were visible, and I could get as close as 10 ft from them.  Finally, I would drift through the same spot what felt like a hundred times before moving on, and the fish often hit after numerous drifts.  I think this is because these fish will not move very far for their food, so the drift needs to be absolutely perfect, with the fly hitting the trout on the nose.  I'm not a huge fan of this kind of fishing, but I'm okay with it every once in while if I can catch fish like this:

A nice bow from the Blue River in Colorado

It probably wasn't an amazing day by Western standards, but I managed to catch three rainbows in their upper teens (the biggest was 19"), which I've certainly never done in Michigan.  It was great day on the water, and the scenery was nice, but to be honest I was expecting more.  We fished a little too close to Frisco and the surrounding roads for my taste.  

A nice, but not spectacular, view of the Blue River