Strmanglr, an embarrassment of riches! Yes, we MI anglers are spoiled by the endless opportunities. Heck, I've been here 7 1/2 years now and I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface! What I have done is found some favorite, productive spots, and have learned their hatches and rhythms over several years so now its more a matter of how big they are versus figuring out how to get them to hit my flies. I'd minimize the drive time to maximize fishing time, but you are always welcome over here on the "Sunrise Side". Just bring your 7' 3-weight if you plan on hitting the Pine or anything of similar size, you'd be miserable with an 8 1/2' 5-weight out there. Good luck and tight lines and some hatches thrown in to boot!
Louis, I heard the veerys calling the whole time I was learning how to fly fish waaaay back in the mid-80s at the U of M Bio Station, on the Maple River. That twirling, descending trill will always delight my ear, and bring back memories of irises and nodding trilliums blooming along the banks. And the white-throated sparrow is truly a bird of the North Country - I remember hearing them as a kid on fishing trips up to Drummond Island, never around Troy or the other suburbs...and Drummond Island itself is a place that holds a certain mysticism from those childhood experiences, all the way up to the Mackinac Bridge and over, east until you run out of land and then take the ferry across. Seemed like the End of the Earth to me, after all to the east was Lake Huron! Look it up online if you haven't heard about it, it does indeed have many attractions, including fishing, geology, rare plant habitat, Silurian fossils, a bay full of islands, an inland waterway paddle into the interior of the island...check it out. Need to go back there myself, last time was 1990.
Mike, what are you getting on the Rifle, and what are you getting them on? I may be heading out there tomorrow evening to beat the aluminum/polyethylene hatches, probably Selkirk for a more "open" experience than last night on the Pine...
Tight lines to you all, and more to come from me!
Jonathon
No matter how big the one you just caught is, there's always a bigger one out there somewhere...