I just returned from (just shy of) a week long vacation to northern lower Michigan. This was the second straight year to the same general area, but we did decide to shake it up a bit and fish some different waters. Mainly, that meant the Pere Marquette. We found a nicely secluded forest service campground just a bit downstream of the fly-fishing only section, and secured permits to float the fly-only water for a couple days. But the first day we got there saw torrential downpours a solid percentage of the time. I didn't know the nature of the Pere Marquette in high water (after seeing the basically non-existent effect of two straight days of hard rain, I'm not sure that it's actually something that exists.) So stupidly, we were worried about flash-flooding and decided to play it safe by just wade-fishing near camp. We took good numbers of little wild rainbows out of the riffles on nymphs, before we were nearing the first stages of hypothermia and had to get out for a break. The temperature was in the low-50s, and the while the water temperature was a bit warmer, it wasn't much. We hadn't brought waders.....when we went up last year, it was quite warm, and our waders had sat in camp the entire time, so we thought them an unnecessary burden. That came back to bite us a little bit. When the weather cleared up briefly we went back out and had little trouble enticing a few more rainbows to bite.
The next day, it was becoming clear to us that the incessant rain really wasn't going to effect the river. It was up, yes, but quite clear enough even for the dry fly. So despite still cold and wet conditions, we floated. We saw plenty of nice trout in the fly only stretch (and one fat, very lost looking king salmon that I didn't even bother to cast to with my 5-weight) but they were not easy to catch, much more difficult than the fish further downstream. Still, it was incredibly beautiful stretch, starting as a relatively small creek but doubling in size when a large tributary came in a couple miles downstream. It's a stretch that basically demands getting out to fish. Trying to cast from a canoe or kayak is awfully frustrating, as we learned.
The next day, we spent several hours wading near camp, enjoying the much, much easier fishing it offered, particularly if you weren't wedded to dry fly fishing. Then we moved camp to a spot right along Lake Michigan, also in Manistee National Forest.
We took a break from trout the next day to fish a large warm-water fishery in Hamlin Lake. Hamlin is a normal north-woods lake in most of its acreage, but we decided to try the swampy upper portions for the sake of some adventure. Dozens of channels cut through the cattails,with some surprisingly deep, though weedy water. Pike ruled the roost, but it was largemouth bass that we caught. They were not overly large, but the White Pines along the edges of the wetland and the sheer solitude that comes with this kind of place made it well worth it.
Then we hit up a little river that even the locals didn't seem to think too much of. I have a soft spot for creeks and rivers that no one else seems to like, the ones that don't usually have special regulations or warrant articles in national magazines. This stream definitely fit the bill. It was of a size that you could float it, but it was better suited to wade-fishing. While the surrounding country was mostly bucolic farm-land, aspen and maple lined the river itself. We found a bridge crossing in the river's designated blue-ribbon stretch. We found warm-water fish in the slower pools, but brookies (and a couple of browns) were rising to a hatch of little mayflies in the riffles. They were surprisingly choosy, but a #20 para Adams yielded it's share of takes. Anything larger was, for the most part, rejected soundly. But I like tough fish, especially wild ones, so I couldn't have asked fore a better time. Finally the hatch stopped just before dark. I tried small nymphs with but to no avail. It was catching them on the rise or nothing here.
I have plenty of pictures to post, and I plan to do that shortly....by the end of today or perhaps tomorrow.
"I don't know what fly fishing teaches us, but I think it's something we need to know."-John Gierach
http://fishingintheozarks.blogspot.com/