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3. Finally! Some Daytime Iso Eaters!

Here's a little warm up for Willy. He's heading north and I just got home. Here's a couple Iso Lovers from somewhere on the Manistee.

Caught before 6:00PM! Temps...Low 70's. Overcast. Drizzle, from time-to-time...High water.

Iso's, Large Cream Cahill's, Brown Drake Spinners, some trickling sulphers, and even a couple Gray Drakes...

Heard a Barred Owl and Winter Wren singing in the woods.

Spence

Two gorgeous browns! Understandable ear to ear grins.

Well done boys! Beautiful fishies!

Jonathon

Gorgeous! Love those Iso's -as do the bigger trout, both nymphs and duns.

Look at you two go! Beautiful fish, both! Don't you just love when a plan comes together? In this case, a plan to fish dry flies :) CJ

Well done, Spence!

Soft days... That's when magic happens! If only I could be astream every time that weather pattern is happening...

Spence, we haven't had much eating on top since we got up here. Streamer fishing has been good though. I'll post some pictures later.

Kurt...For sure! Overcast the whole trip down river. The fish were looking up...We thought we were going to get some spinners after dinner, but it just didn't happen. They went back to the trees.

You would like this stretch of river. The river is wide enough where casting problems are limited. There are big trout about. It runs through large stretches of state forest...Some rather dark and old. Pretty sweet.

It's about a half hour from my old stomping grounds as a kid. My grandmothers place is just down the road.

Iso's...These swimmers turn on fish like no other. They move towards shore and swim in front of these large fish and the feeding light is switched on.

Imagine this...Water high, pushing in to the grass along the bank. This creates large areas behind the current seam. The big boys move in to these areas because they don't have to work and they are just inches away from the current edge carrying bugs.

The 19" fish was in an area the size of a pickup. He was slashing to and fro hitting Iso's. At first we thought there were more than one fish there. He would slash at something low in that area and then high...Moving around and totally turned on. I think he may have hit anything that landed in that pool.

The next day we fished the Clam river. A river I haunted as a youngster really close to grandma's...I hiked upstream and my friend down. I found another feeder acting the same as the above fish. A couple slashes, a gentle ring, and more slashes. The only difference was the size of the pool.

I was fishing an old fly, a remembrance fly, for lack of a better word. A fly that I was sworn to secrecy on in the early 90's for one year. The brooks love it and I decided that since I hadn't fished the fly or the river I use to fish it on in some time, I'd tie it on.

I then watched this fish...First thought, Iso's. I tied on a size 14 Purple Haze. :) I held the fly in my hand and waited. The fish slashed about and I instantly popped the fly in to his pool and he took it. I lifted the rod to a very heavy weight and the next second it flew back at me. Damn!

That would of been my biggest fish in that old creek...Probably a Brown, but there are some nice Brooks here as well...If it was a Brook...Wow! That would of been nice.

Great photos and tales.

Beautiful pictures Spence, and the way you give your reports make seem as if we were there with you. Thank you.
Mike.