[mitch aka 2 fish]

just ask anyone I've pissed on.

finally coming to terms with your affliction?

geez... you'd think I pissed on you.


I don't see that sean so much any more.

[Ruddy Duck]

"Opening Day" isn't so much as a fishing concept down here, but it certainly relates to hunting. Back in the days when I chased birds, the anticipation about killed me. Good to see you are making the most of your free time while you still have it.

[LA Fly Guy]

Fine work Gerrit, fine work.

[-G-]

Next trip would be with Bear, and a new fishing friend- Rich.

Rich is someone we’ve ran into countless amounts of times on the river. At least half a dozen times a year now I run into him and it’s always a refreshing encounter. If he’s hiking in or floating he usually throws me one of his 30 pbr’s and we catch up. He works in outdoor-ED, and takes a group of his high schoolers out west every year to fly fish. Long story short, every time I run into him we end up talking about camping/ overnight floats so we decided to finally make it happen.

When we met him at the campsite we were all standing around my boat when he looked in the cooler. “Any room in there?”

I said “should be plenty, I brought 12 beers for tonight, Saturday and Sunday, and bear has the same number of diet cokes in there... how many did you bring?”

“48”

“Oh, well maybe there’s not enough room then”

He cracked one and we set up camp, and sat around the fire catching up the rest of the night.





For breakfast? Pour over and breakfast burritos.





“I sure hope we catch a fish, I tell all my students a story every Monday that starts with eating breakfast burritos and the adventures there after. This would be a great one to tell them about” Rich said as he cracked his second PBR.

The first day fishing was the first true warm day of the season. High of 75, blue bird, no wind. I even felt obligated to pull out the sunscreen. Despite this not being favorable for streamer fishing, we still fished hard and Rich drank as many pbr’s as he would any other day. He lost a big fish in the morning, and I saw this one eat by the boat when the sun was the highest.



We finished, bear and rich spotted cars, and Nuya joined me in a celebration beer after tidying up the shoe.



For supper, we would have chilli relleños.


And PBR.

The stars would come out.

And we would sleep the only kind of sleep you get from fishing in the sun all day underneath them.




Day 2 we went further up river. It was somehow even more sunny, more blue bird, and more hot. Hendrickson’s and stoneflies were out, but the fish are fat, and lazy in this swollen river this time of year and have no need to concern themselves with tiny bugs.

The wind picked up, and a few clouds started to show. A few hours later, bear caught one of the prettiest trout I’ve seen.




We said our farewells to Rich, and he drove back home. Bear and I still had one day worth of fishing so went back to camp and made some of Twavs gabagoul.




Over the weekend, Nolan graduated with a masters in fine art. And if you keep up with anything I’ve written on here you’ll understand why I sent him this.



The next day bear and I would fish even further up river. Finally, we would have the entire day with spitting rain, and overcast skies. Perfect for streamer fishing.

In our 8 hour float of nonstop casting we saw 3 fish.

These two:




And bear had one refuse his fly that made him make noises I’ve never heard bear make after seeing a trout.


The long weekend was over, and it was time to go home to our families. Bears off to Sweden for most of the month, and Rich is back with his students—hopefully telling a new story that starts with breakfast burritos.

[Kfoxwyo]

This made coffee better-thx.

[stillsteamin]

Fuckin travis says bear fishes for trout wearing work boots because he thinks he's people.

I say, it proves he's not.

[-G-]

Fuckin travis says bear fishes for trout wearing work boots because he thinks he's people.

I say, it proves he's not.

Can take a northern bear out of the north but he’s still a bear.

Or something like that

[Glista]

Great reportage my man. Love spring! There is never enough of it.

[foureyedgeek]

Looking forward to seeing where your free time takes you. Thanks for sharing!

[FredA]

This stuff is great G. Keep it up.

[-G-]

The next trip would be with Dan.

Since leaving Michigan for California a few years back, we don’t get out fishing as much but we still usually find a week in spring to do something we both love- streamer fish.


We planned on doing two 2-3 night over night floats on two of our favorite rivers in northern Michigan.

When we first put the boat in, everything looked to be perfect. It was humid, overcast, and there were Hendrickson duns floating down the river.



And trout eating them.




The low skies also screamed streamer fishing, so we did that while the rower kept an eye out for bigger fish rising. And the fish also seemed to be on the streamer.


So much so, that one jumped completely out of the water to chase my fly as I skimmed it over some wood.

Nothing makes me happier than trout chasing streamers like so, except for what we saw next.

In a slack water lie, behind an alder with small green budding leaves we saw a head, dorsal, and tail fin riseform. The only type of rise-form that a large trout makes, in a tucked away lie where only a large trout would be.

We anchored and watched.

Head. Dorsal. Tail.

Followed by a ring that followed the slow current downstream and slowly dispersed when it met the main current.

I cast the fly just upstream from the alder, and let it float by.

Too short.

I did it again, tucking it closer to the alder.

Still too short.

The only way would be to land the fly behind the alder in the slack current, a foot above where the trout was rising. An almost futile plan.

I lowered my rod tip to my right during my forward cast landing the fly behind the alder, and immediately started to frantically toss more line downstream as this angle took away the advantages of a reach cast. I probably fed 15 feet of line into the mainstream for my fly to move that one 1 foot in the trout eddy. But when it got there..

Head. Dorsal. Tail.

I lifted, and felt the all of the trouts weight. The slow head shake. And then suddenly nothing.

It never rose again. But that was ok, because it was getting late. And we were hungry.






Geeked up about the fishing our very first afternoon, we started our first full day overdosed on enthusiasm and coffee buzzes.



But the sun got very high. And the trout stopped chasing. And everyone in the boat got sleepy.





That evening no bugs came out, and no fish rose. So we set up camp early.



The next day proved to be the same. High sun and slow fishing.

We were exhausting ourselves by streamer fishing for so many hours in high sun. So we did the only thing we knew to do when the suns high, and the fishing’s slow.

We got drunk.






That night some bugs came, and the river was beautiful.







The next day the skies were low, and a front was pushing in.

Which meant one thing- streamers.


In the morning we moved a few big fish. But they just wouldn’t commit. After 3 days of slow fishing we started to question ourselves, the fly, and the water we were fishing.

We fished through a section of expensive houses and near the end there’s an old wood cabin that’s a bit weathered in all the right ways, and significantly more blue collar than the rest. The only way to explain it is that it’s the epitome of a northern Michigan cabin. Those that have been know what this means. The old man was out front and after exchanging a few pleasantries I said

“I just wanted to say how beautiful your cabin is”

“Oh, why thank you. It’s a perfect day to open it this spring.”

After a short pause he softly added

“I love it up here”

Which he said half to himself, and half to us.

After realizing he unintentionally ended the conversation he added once more-

“You guys have a great day”

I looked around, and saw the common grackles teal heads expanding like something from Jurassic park with every call. There was an osprey calling overhead, a river sparrow in a cedar tree singing away, and a Hendrickson fluttering down river.

I thought to myself how I love it up here too. I thought how I’d rather be no where in the entire world than this stretch of river this time of year.

A few hours later we caught this.




And a few hours after that we caught this.



So we did the only thing we know to do after catching two beautiful trout.

And that’s get a little drunk again.




A few more hours later we caught this when the spinners fell.


We rowed out, ordered a greasy bar burger we craved all week. And slept in the next day until 10am before driving home.

I thought to myself driving, how much I love it up here.

[LA Fly Guy]

Doin' it right - Gerrit, you are definitely doin' it right.