Find The River

Accomodations...hacked! (& hex trip report)

2011-07-08T07:38:00.002-04:00

Talk about ironies...before my trip I put up a post waxing fondly about tent camping, only to return to my tent one night last week and find my rain fly slashed, the door unzipped, and my gear moved around. Nothing was stolen, curiously, though there wasn't much in there worth taking (unless someone was really, really desperate for clean socks). I have no idea what happened. It wasn't an animal, since I don't think animals open zippers or swivel picnic tables around which is another wierd detail of the "crime scene." There were strange tire tracks leading into my campsite too.

I was kind of freaked, and being the only person in the campground, I didn't really want to spend the night there in case whoever it was came back. So...I decamped (literally) to a motel. An overeaction, maybe, but it seemed reasonable enough standing in the woods at midnight with a freshly ransacked tent.

Part of my reason for camping was to spare expenses...but I ended up paying for 2 nights in a motel...and will be on the hook for a new tent now, too. The rain fly is beyond repair, though the rest of the tent is fine, so long I'm guaranteed to camp in dry weather. Which is not a very safe bet in Michigan.

As for the fishing...Tuesday the 28th was cold (highs 50s), stopped at the South Branch Au Sable in the afternoon and found a decent BWO hatch in progress. Caught a few brook trout, though they were kind of picky. Lots of short strikes. A few cahills popped in the evening, though nothing rose to them. No hex.

Wednesday I fished the Manistee below M72. Isos, cahills, Dorsata stoneflies, and sulfur spinners were on the water before sunset with a little feeding taking place, though I held off casting to avoid spooking any good size fish before the hex came on. My patience went unrewarded, though. Hex showed overhead around 9:20--it was cooling fast, and just a few, sporadic feeders showed. I caught one 15" brown, missed a couple of other strikes, and by 10 of 10, the fun was over.

Thursday I went above M72, saw loads of hex in the air, but none on the water, and no rises. At least while scouting for fishing spots that afternoon I found some ripe blueberries--never seen them that early before. So still a landmark outing of sorts.

Friday afternoon I put the books aside and went up to Deward to see if afternoon clouds would bring on the olives and stir the brookies to feed. I've had some great afternoons there in midsummer with these little bugs, but this wasn't one of them. Just a few bugs out, with just a few trout brought to hand. In the evening I went below 72 again, stayed to 11, never saw a bug.

So the limbata fest was kind of a bust this year. Bring on the Huron river hex (autocadatra) and white fly action with smallmouth!

Accommodations

2011-06-23T08:11:00.001-04:00

On my getaways over the last year or so, I've done some reflecting on where and how I sleep and eat when I'm traveling in pursuit of fish or game.

Twenty years ago, my approach was very basic: A three-man nylon tent, my usual kitchen cooking gear packed into tote bags, a twenty year old sleeping bag, a Coleman white gas stove, and a big plastic jug for water. How far I've come. Now, I have a four man nylon tent, dedicated camp cooking gear that I carry in a plastic tub, a different sleeping bag now almost twenty years old, a Coleman propane stove, and a big plastic jug for water.

The setup I had two decades ago was perfect for a new college graduate barely making 30K a year. It also befitted the poor graduate student I became a few years later, and, including the slight modifications mentioned above, served well for the visiting assistant professor I was shortly thereafter. During the years after my career swerved into the (rutted, roadblocked) academic lane I was aware that other men my age were beginning to earn enough money to guiltlessly book motel or cabin accommodations for their trips, and to eat in taverns, diners, and supper clubs every day they were up. These were the same guys who were driving Explorers and had an aresenal of a dozen or so fly rods, not to mention shirts designed specifically for fly fishing. (Some might have also been the guys with 30k in credit card debt, for all I know.) This didn't particularly bother me, but it did sometimes give the the impression that I was simply treading water in some ways.

These days our circumstances are slightly more comfortable. I have stayed in motels more often over the last few years, and can usually excuse a couple of restaurant meals over the course of a weekend (But I got off the river late! And gee, I can eat those canned goods for lunch at home next week!) But by and large, I still travel as I always have. And I'm in no rush to change that.

When I bunk at a motel, I miss sitting outside in the evening, maybe with a campfire, and lounging over coffee and whatever in the morning listening to the birds and watching chipmunks dashing from site to site. It's pretty tough to find a diner serving food as good, or as healthy, as what I can pull out of a can or boil bag from Trader Joe's, and if I get a notion to grill some burgers, they'll likely be better than any from the local tavern. Going to sleep in a tent with the forest sounds around me beats trying to sleep (emphasis on trying) in a saggy, creaky motel bed. (This is true even when it rains--see my last fishing report in May.)

The motels I stay at do tend to be older and not-so-well kept. Some smell of mold, smoke, dust, or things I can't identify and don't want to try. Some have showers I can barely fit into, with rust stains resembling graffitti tags. I may be plugging my ears against high-volume TV, revelry, or fornication in adjoining rooms. The power might go out or the heater might not start. And a "cheap" motel up north these days runs about $50 a night. I can remember staying at some of these places almost twenty years ago when they were $30 a night and in better repair. They might still be a good deal if they'd been maintained.

My continuing preference for camping solidified on a cast and blast trip to Ogemaw and Oscoda counties on the opening weekend of grouse season last fall. After ending my first day fishing the Au Sable below Mio, I headed toward a state forest campground to set up for the night but had second thoughts when the weather radio predicted overnight thunderstorms. Dark clouds blowing eastward gave this credence. I'd camped plenty in the rain before, but at that moment I thought, "why bother?" and headed to a motel in Mio which had seemed tolerable a few years ago. The price was ten dollars higher now, and the room had most of the shortcomings mentioned above, and more pronouncedly than on my last visit. In the morning I departed for the Rifle River Recreation Area, where I caught a few trout, missed a few grouse, and pitched my tent for the night--which would be a night I savored. Cool but clear, still, and scented with new-fallen leaves and distant campfires. When I lay down in my sleeping bag I felt soothed, almost welcomed. I often do my best sleeping on what some people curse as the "cold, hard ground."

My preference for minimalist camping has been put to the test during the last few days by plans for an upcoming trip. Next week I want to fish the hex hatch in the Grayling area, the river TBD after I get there and have a chance to look things over. Seeing as I have a lot of work on my plate this summer, I plan to make this a "work-play" trip, fishing nights and working during the days. To facilitate this, my initial plan was to get a room a motel I know is clean and comfortable for a few days. Expensive, but not impossibly so, and I would have electricity, wi-fi, a desk, and air conditioning. Not to mention a shower.

But then...I started to scheme how I could camp and still find a congenial work setting. The Grayling Public Library has electricity, wi-fi, desks, and air conditioning. For showers I could jump in the river, like I always do (as a supplement, of course, to washing my face and other presentable areas in camp). And then I over breakfasts I could gaze on the river while coffee steeped in my french press and granola softened to the perfect state of not-quite-mushiness; after fishing I could sip a beer at my campfire underneath the stars, then zip myself into the tent to lay down for the night with only a summer bedroll between me and the earth.

Sometimes, sitting at the picnic table on my state forest campground site, eating chili or or stew out of a tin bowl, I've asked myself if I would still be traveling like a boy scout when I was 60. The answer I have lately is, "God willing, yes."

Huron River, 6/15; Bears in them thar 'burbs!

2011-06-16T07:17:00.005-04:00

Planned a run to Cloud Creek last night but hit a traffic jam on the way out of Ann Arbor that took nearly half an hour to clear. By that time rain was falling too and the radio advised thunderstorms were on the way. So I changed plans and went to the Huron.

I got on the river at Dexter-Huron metropark around 6:30, and I was the only soul around. The light rain would have driven off the picknickers and frisbee players, but I found it soothing. Though the river was on the high side, I could wade safely as long as I stayed within 40 feet of the bank. I saw light cahills and several kinds of caddis in good numbers but nothing was rising. Tried several olive, black, and brown streamers and had four brief hookups, but didn't bring anything to hand. The fish felt like they had some weight to them, too. All the hits came in spots where willow branches extended well over the water. Around 8:00 the rain began falling harder and I headed for the car.

I'm looking forward to many more nights on the Huron, but I am absolutely determined to make a Cloud Creek run, and preferably several, this year.

Oh, and having mentioned Dexter, I should note that confirmed sightings of a black bear have taken place there in the past week. Super cool, in my book. I think there are plenty of places just west of there where bears could find suitable feeding and hiding spots. Of course, some locals are worried, but the possibility of anyone being hurt by the animal (assuming they don't try to feed it by hand) is negligible. Though it is certainly possible some bird feeders and garbage cans might take it hard. The authorities have asked residents to call 9-1-1 if they sight the bear, which seems a bit odd--is it illegal for bears to enter Washtenaw county? So far, no one has talked about relocating it; according to the most recent reports , DNR officials want to put a radio collar on the bear to track its movements. Hopefully those movements won't include a speedy northward ride in the back of a truck.

Drying Up

2011-06-13T19:21:00.005-04:00

Ponds and marshes around much of Michigan are near-overflowing this year--good news for ducks, at least those whose nests didn't wash out. But funds for programs supporting waterfowl and other game habitat are running dry.

From the AP:
The controlling Republican caucus in the House has renewed its attacks on the two most important waterfowl conservation programs. It plans deep if not total cuts to the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, and big hits to the conservation titles in the Farm Bill, including the critical Conservation Reserve Program.... NAWCA saw all of its $47.6 million budget eliminated. Waterfowl managers said it is critical to the survival of waterfowl hunting because it is the major vehicle for protecting the nation’s dwindling base of wetlands. During the past 30 years, it has protected 25 million acres of waterfowl habitat leveraging $800 million in government funds into $2 billion in matches from private partners. The House bill was blocked by the Senate, and after long negotiations with the administration, the compromise that passed included $37.5 million for NAWCA.
Read it all.

So the debt crisis comes, literally, home to roost. On an outdoor bulletin board I frequent this news was met with consternation, even by some members with a conservative political outlook. Only a few responded along the lines of "We all have to share the pain." I'd be more willing to concur with that line of reasoning if wetlands hadn't "felt the pain" of our economic expansions so much. Seriously--habitat loses either way. In good times it's pressured by development. In bad times, it loses funding for protection and management.

I know something has to give somewhere, but cuts like this are especially short sighted. For one thing, as the article noted,

The $5 billion a year the nation spends on various conservation programs puts $14 billion back to the treasury in taxes from people who make their livings in the industries supported by those programs.

Besides, the growing demand for food and mineral resources is going to continue regardless of the recession (unless that proceeds to the point of global economic collapse), which makes the conservation measures we have in place all the more important. In other words, while these cuts may have some merit...we just can't afford them right now.

For me, the key question as we face the debt, or any public concern, isn't "How much do we spend or cut?" but "What kind of country do you want to live in?" Obviously a country spending half its resources paying off its creditors is not one you want to live in. But one without healthy wetlands, forests, and waters has little appeal to me. Neither does one where students go deeply into debt to attain a threadbare higher education.

Of course, other citizens have very different ideas about the sort of country they'd like to inhabit. Conversations on this point will never be simple, but it would be nice to see leaders and encouraging and, yes, leading one instead of reciting tunnel-vision alarums about spending, spending, spending.

Pere Marquette 6/6

2011-06-09T21:02:00.002-04:00

Many northern Michigan trout streams strongly resemble each other, with banks lined chiefly by spruce, pine, cedar, and tamarack. The Pere Marquette, lying toward the southern end of the north, is an exception, with oak and basswood mixed liberally among the evergreens. These hardwoods add a lushness to the PM lacking on other streams. And last monday the river was as lush as it's going to get. When I was there about three weeks ago, leaves were still unfolding, the grass along the river wouldn't have been high enough to mow if it was in my yard. Now, the foliage is on full display and the grass is growing tall--the woods seem not just green but illuminated in green. From here it's all downhill--leaves will become bug-chewed and a few will whither long before autumn; the grass will sag under its late summer weight and begin to dry out. But on Monday the woods were supple and vivid, and I was especially grateful to be among them.

I reflect on the trees since I don't have too much to say about the fishing. In the afternoon I caught a 12" brown on a nymph and a 15" rainbow on a large stonefly. Near sunset the gray drakes came out en masse, but disappeared before 10 PM without falling. Back at the car I saw the temperature was still near 80, and it stayed there during my long drive home. As hot as it was, I wouldn't be surprised if the bugs delayed their mating dance/death spiral until dawn. But waiting them out was not an option that night. Maybe they were spreading over the river once again when I climbed into my bed around 4.

Muskegon River, 6/4-5

2011-06-08T21:36:00.003-04:00

One item on my angling to-do list for a few years has been to hit the gray drake hatch on the Muskegon or Pere Marquette. On the Mo it's said to bring out some of the larger holdover fish, and of course on the PM it may be the major "big fish" hatch after the hex. Plus, I've needed to redeem myself after squandering the one good gray drake hatch I ever hit (as related in my last posting ...). With some warm days predicted over the weekend, I thought it was a good time to try.

Got on the Muskegon at Pine st. Saturday evening around 7:30. I could see the sporadic rises to caddis, mostly by planter dinks, that you always see there and did catch a few juniors on a tan soft hackle. A little after 8 I saw more consistent, quiet rises, mostly on the edges of current lines on the edges of riffles or behind large rocks. Some very nice fish were porpoising. My soft hackle got ignored, as did versions of the tan and olive caddis that were fluttering about. The only other bugs around in any quantity were black dancer caddis (Mystocides sepulchralis), flies I see on other trout streams later in the season that, in my observation, don't draw much attention from trout. Saturday night they were covering my legs and, as I found when I stooped and scanned the surface at eye level, were swarming the river. I put on the smallest black caddis I had, a #18 dry (intended to mimic the larger, lighter Chimarra aterrima that hatch in May), and drew a couple of short strikes with it. The trout continued to feed until well after dark but I couldn't connect. Gray drake spinners did appear high overhead around 9:00, but didn't fall. After leaving the water saw that from the knees down my waders were covered with what looked like green pustules--caddis eggs.

After scoping out a few other river sections Sunday morning, I drove to Parsley's Sports in Newaygo to look for a proper imitation of the little bugs. My hopes weren't high, but I did find a couple of what looked like aterrima emergers in a size 20 and bought two. Now all I needed was an encore of the hatch.

Which is what I got, sort of. Those soft rises along the current lines showed again just after 8, though in the volume of the night before. Twice I saw the larger fish porpoising. On the second or third drift with the little emerger I got a solid take from a bait-size planter--nothing it brag about, but an improvement on the previous night. I eventually took four fish in the double digits (the best 14") along with more planters. The rises had more or less ceased by 9, and my wader legs were only lightly pimpled with eggs when I left the river. Not a hallmark night, but a satisfying one for having figured out the hatch and been able to match it, even if it was a bit of a no-brainer in this case. I am looking forward to trying my new acquisitions later this summer when black dancers are out on the smaller streams I fish. Maybe the trout have more interest in them than I've assumed.

Next: Pere Marquette on 6/6

Day of Remembrance

2011-05-31T09:51:00.008-04:00

Yesterday Americans remembered the sacrifices of men and women who died in the service of their country. Probably like most Americans, I didn't reflect too long on that sacrifice--Memorial day is for me as for so many a day to relax or catch up on household. I spent a lot of time in my garden over the weekend. But I was very moved by a reflection posted by Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo about the importance about our connection to the dead, especially to deaths of service members. Thoughts about this came to me again last night when my wife and I went to a brewpub to unwind after the long weekend. A young couple sat down next to us at the bar, the man very lean with a close haircut. My guess that he was a soldier was confirmed when I overheard him saying "IED" or "unit" a couple of times in his conversation with the woman. He could have been one of my students who have been or are overseas in the service. The list of them is growing long. I'm grateful to those who have returned, and I pray for those still there.

May 31st is a different kind of day of remembrance for me. Though explaining this on the heels of the previous paragraph might seem to trivialize what we remembered yesterday, I have wanted to talk about it on the blog for a long time, and this is the day to do it. Plus, I can think of a few veterans who would appreciate the story regardless.

What I have to relate is really just a simple, routine fishermen's tale. But it's one that haunts me. Today marks the anniversary of one of the best--and worst--evenings of fishing I've ever had. If I could choose to relive one fishing event in my life, it would probably be a gray drake spinnerfall that happened twilight on May 31st, 1996, on a small western Michigan creek.

At the time, I'd just finished my first year of PhD study at Michigan State. I was taking a French class to meet a language requirement, but other than that I was doing a lot of reading, writing, and fishing. One day I made plans to head to the west side of the state once I'd finished my class in East Lansing and explore a few creeks named in a trout stream guidebook. By 2 PM I was bridge hopping, driving from one small stream to another to scout out conditions, but I was mostly unimpressed. The creeks were generally too small for fly fishing (claims of my guidebook notwithstanding) or too warm and devoid of cover. A little after four, having driven much farther from home than I'd planned to, I went to look at one more stream, and this one turned out to be a beauty. It was clear with a steady current and plenty of fallen logs for trout to hide among. Tall maples and oaks spread across much of the stream, but left enough space for short overhand or sidearm casts. And almost as soon as I walked to the bank, I saw two rises just downstream.

On went the waders, out came the rod. I couldn't raise the feeder I'd seen, so I tied on an adams and began working upstream. Nothing hit, but I hadn't been fishing long when I saw a steady stream of nymphs drifting by just below the surface. A hatch had to be starting, I thought, and it wasn't long before I saw rings dappling the quiet surface of a long bend pool. No insects were visible on the air or the water, so I wasn't sure what fly to use. When I did see a fly, I couldn't believe my eyes--a slate gray dun around size 14. It looked for all the world like a Hendrickson, but hennies should have been done here long ago. I put a hendrickson dun on anyway, and the game was on. I took three or four browns on it in nearly as many casts, then my fly went ignored though trout kept feeding. The nymphs were still drifting underwater, though; would the fish prefer an emerger? I tied on a hendrickson emerger, walked the bank upstream to get above the trout then swung my fly through the field of rises. First cast, fish on. I caught a couple more before the emerger lost favor, so I went back dowstream, fished the dun, and was back in business. I continued that pattern for a while until the feeding trailed off. I think in the course of that hatch I caught about 15 trout, all from the same bend. I kept a few, since the creek, according to my guide, was primarily a stocker fishery.

After eating the supper I'd packed I returned to the water and fished an assortment of nymphs and attractors, but didn't hook up. Maybe the trout were saving room for the manna about to fall from the sky--large, black spinners that began to cluster over the stream around nine. These flies were unfamiliar to me so I pulled out the mayfly field guide I carried in my vest and compared its pictures to the flies overhead. Gray drakes, I concluded. It was the right time of the season, and nothing else likely to be around then resembled them.

But the absence of gray drakes from my fly box overshadowing the satisfaction of identifying an unfamiliar bug. I'd never fished some place and time where grays were expected, so I'd never bought any. With some brown drake spinners and some brushy hendrickson spinners I figured I could make do, but I was wrong. Spectacularly.

The next half hour brought the first blanket spinnerfall I'd ever seen, and the heaviest concentration of feeding fish I have seen to this day. I started fishing maybe thirty yards below the bend where I'd caught fish earlier and worked to the top of it, rises showing literally bank to bank the entire way. I beat the water with my substitute flies and drew only a couple of short strikes. Going ignored by a handful of selectively rising trout is disappointing; getting the cold shoulder from scores of utterly ravenous fish is shattering, especially when you know exactly what the problem is but can't fix it.

Probably every fly fisherman has a story like that to tell. I could tell of other nights that unfolded similarly. This one stands out in part because of the sheer number of rising fish, but also because I encountered it relatively early in my fly fishing career. I was beginning just my third season with the long rod, and I think this experience impressed on me the intensity of satisfactions it could bring. I drove home frustrated, but also exhilarated by the desire to seek out more such occasions and to succeed where I had failed that night. The idea that failure is only preparation for future success may be true in many instances, but perhaps most so when it comes to fishing. Nothing stokes my determination like a good skunking, and this was the best I ever had.

I remember it every May 31st. And not infrequently the rest of the year.

Serving Two Masters

2011-05-25T18:00:00.004-04:00

Yet another rainy day. Today it's really sheeting down too. Heavy rainfall is possible through Saturday. We had light rain on and off all of last week, and now that seems like a drought by comparison. I shouldn't complain much, considering the weather other parts of the country are having, but four or five days of sun would feel heavenly.

It would also bring closer the day when I can actually fish my local streams. The Huron is currently running more than four times the upper limit for safe wading (3290 cfs, as I write, opposed to 700). I want to go to Cloud Creek at least once this season, but I doubt it's been wadable at any point since the opener.

Maybe today's rain is especially depressing in contrast to the beautiful weather we enjoyed yesterday and the outing it inspired. By midafternoon the clouds were gone and the temperature went well into the 70s, this after predictions for clouds and low 60s. I absolutely had to get outdoors, and fishing was out, but it would be a fine night to scout out some duck hunting locales, so by 6:30 I was on the road to a nearby state park.

I couldn't have picked a better night to be in the woods. It was warm with only the lightest of winds, yet mosquitoes were sparse. Mayapples, wild geraniums, and anemones were in bloom, strewing patches of color across the dun carpeting of last year's leaves on the forest floor. In the dropping sun the trunks of trees facing a small lake glowed tangerine, then faded to a dull rose. A few sandhill cranes bugled and lone robins let out a few notes here and there, but otherwise it was very quiet.

The scouting went well. I found new approaches to one of the lakes I hunted last fall that will allow me to hunt it from different angles and in more wind directions. I hiked in to a pond I'd seen but not hunted last year and found it took fifteen minutes--I'm assuming that will translate to thirty in the dark. And at points, strangely enough, I found myself wishing that fall was here. Summer has barely begun!

Yet an instant later, while standing along the lake, it occurred to me that if I'd gotten an earlier start I could have brought my pontoon and drifted the edges of the lilly pads casting poppers for bass. At the very least I might have waded the shallows and perhaps located some bluegill beds. With duck season almost five months away, I suppose scouting isn't imperative.

Or I could have spent an hour scouting and an hour fishing.

Nothing complicates a simple pleasure like another one.

Ebb and Flow

2011-05-23T08:18:00.005-04:00

I used to say that my "seasonal migrations" in pursuit of different fishing opportunities--to Baldwin in the spring for steelhead, Grayling for the opener, any number of locales for one hatch or another--gave a kind of continuity to my life. This may no longer be true, at least to the degree it was, and I've been thinking lately about why this is and what it means. Sometimes I've wondered if my passion for angling is flickering out.

I don't believe that's the case--it's been hard to think of much else for the last few weeks. But my fishing days have become fewer and farther between the last few seasons, and I haven't been able to fish some of the hatches or other events that I typically had. More work and home obligations have been dividing my attention. As both a practice and as an internal presence or force in my life, fishing has taken a back seat to other things.

This has become particularly apparent when I visit some fishing blogs, such as this one, or this one, or any number of those linked at the latter, or peruse the forums at The Drake. At these venues I run across anglers with a dedication I almost can't grasp now, though at an earlier point in time I might have aspired to it. When and how did I lose the spark?

A year or go this concerned me, and fueled a keen antagonism toward most of the things that were keeping me off the river (though not a determination to change this). Now, this is less the case. Fishermen are the last people who need to be told that change is a constant in life. Rivers change, fishing partners come and go, each season's progression of hatches and water conditions goes forward inexorably. Fish blogging becomes less and more interesting to bloggers and readers alike. To remain as obsessed about fishing as I was could have become a form of stagnation. To some the obsession might be an engine for change.

"The way the water goes is how the earth is shaped," says Jim Harrison. As the shape of life changes, for better and worse, anything in you that lives or flows will follow a different course. Sometimes you can and should change this. Sometimes it's best to let it carry you. For now, I'm choosing the latter.

Spots of Time, pt. III--Pere Marquette/Au Sable, 5/11-13

2011-05-20T09:01:00.004-04:00

Those predictions for "numerous thunderstorms" overnight last Thursday were dead-on. As in Baldwin the night before, thunder boomed and lightning flashed long into the night. The rain fell even harder, as if the clouds were dropping lead balls instead of water. But again my tent kept it out and at some point I fell asleep in spite of the ruckus outside. In the morning, the skies were still cloudy, but the rain had stopped, and the radio assured me that little more was expected that day.

The Au Sable mainstream was running dark--not as dark as the PM had been the day before, but still murkier than I'd like. Wading the evening before had been difficult in spots, and it would be worse today. I expected the upper north branch would be clear and easier to wade, so I struck camp and set out for Love lls. Of course, I detoured through Grayling to pick up one of Goodale's fantastic cinnamon rolls tocap off my lunch under the pavillion of the Lovells township park.

I began working down the north branch from the Twin Bridges a little after two. It was cool compared to the previous days--mid 60s, maybe--and overcast. Not many bugs on the wing--a handful of caddis, some stray hendrickson spinners, and every now and then a henny dun on the water. I threw assorted nymphs and emergers and caught some of the dinky brook trout that abound in that stretch.

Toward three o'clock good numbers of caddis and hendricksons took to the air and more hendrickson duns started to drift by. But nothing was rising yet, so I decided to walk back upstream fish a fast run where I had had a few strikes but no firm hookups one more time. I switched to a black gnat wet, which during the caddis hatch sometimes outproduces the emergers I'd been using. I made a cast that swung the fly in front of one of the log trout shelters put up by TU or whoever when I got my first hit. This fish didn't come quickly skittering back to me across the surface like those I'd caught earlier. Maybe it was one of those high single or low double digit brooks that usually don't show until the hatch gets going, was my first thought. But when I pulled I didn't budge it an inch. Then along the line came several hard sharp taps--like a steelhead head shake (not a sensation I associate with the upper north branch). Holy #*&@, what have I hooked, I'm thinking. I found out quickly when, after short charges between several of the shelters, the fish heaved itself up onto the edge of one. It was an orange-bellied brown that at that moment looked longer than my arm.

It was a miracle the fish didn't actually make it over the top of that fish shelter ( I won't complain about the drag on my aging Battenkill anymore). But there was a lot of other wood in that spot and the fish was doing it dangdest to get in it. The current there was fast too. There was no way I'd land the fish on 5X where I stood. So I steered it around the timber and walked it downstream into some quiet shallow water. Once there it didn't take long to get it close to me so I reached for the net, only to have it run hard downstream toward yet another pile of timber. I chased it and once again waltzed it into safe water. There, it just bulldogged me---you know how it goes with big browns where you fight over that last 20 feet of line half a dozen times. In comes the fish, out goes the net, and sayonara trout. But eventually it came in and held long enough for me to scoop it up. I took it to the bank, cursing myself for leaving the camera in the car. At least I had my tape, so I pulled that out and measured the brown. 23 inches. Tied for my second largest stream brown, and certainly the largest caught in the middle of the afternoon on a size 16 fly.

During the fight, the hatch finally commenced and trout were feeding around me as I chased the fish all over the stream. A shame I was busy, since I'll bet some of those feeders would have gone 11", easy. (heh)

That was the only fish of (to indulge in some understatement) respectable size that day. But if you're going to catch only one, that's the kind to catch. It was a magnificent day on the water because of a few moments of tense combat with that big brown. Which was in keeping with the best parts of each day on the trip--the spate of stonefly action Wednesday, the last trout as darkness fell Thursday. Small spots of time when what this angler sought merged precisely with what the rivers offered. Yes, there were other times when I caught fish, and more fish at that, but somehow these added less to the contours of the trip as it remains in my memory. We release most of our memories as surely as we release most of our fish, and I suspect this is partly why it matters little to many fishermen whether they catch many fish or only a few. The mind does not have infinite creel space.

Spots of Time: Pere Marquette/Au Sable 5/11-13, pt. II

2011-05-19T10:05:00.007-04:00

My hopes for the day's fishing sunk when I stopped at the M-37 access to look at the river. It was swollen from the previous night's rain, and I could barely see the bottom in shallow water. There were half a dozen parties waiting to take off in drift boats, and I suspect they had a good day if they were pulling streamers. But the river was too high for safe wading, at least for me. I'm pretty cautious when it comes to that.

With the main stream ruled out, I went to the little south branch of the PM which I'd never fished before. It does look like a miniature version of the PM fly water. Last week that resemblance extended to nearly flowing out of its banks. But since it was smaller and presumable shallower water, I decided to try it for half an hour to see if I could hang something on a streamer. The water was negotiable, but I got no strikes. Back at the parking lot I made a quick call up to Gates' lodge to inquire about water conditions on the Au Sable. Excellent, they said: just a little stain, but very wadable. So I went back to camp, packed up the tent quickly (i.e., threw it in the back of the car without folding it or wiping it down) and hit the road for Grayling.

Once there I wasn't certain about my next move. Weather radio predicted rain by early evening and overnight, but predictions for the amount of rain and time of its onset varied by the half hour. Should I pitch the tent before hitting the river or just get a motel room to ride out the rain in comfort? Or should I just plan to head home when the rain hit and come back when the weather improved? I punted and went straight to the river.

When I waded in at an access in the upper end of the flies-only Holy Water stretch, a heavy black caddis hatch was underway, with a smattering of rises visible. Caught a couple of very small fish at the access, then worked downstream, casting to active risers and fishing blind to some prime looking spots. Despite the plethora of bugs, the fish were tough customers. I made many nice, skittering presentations over active fish but got ignored more than not, and drew more short strikes than solid takes. Even the short strikes were exciting though, since I was fishing directly across the current from me for the most part and could see the trout gliding to the surface like long, bronzed bubbles to engulf--or burst beneath--my fly. Hendrickson duns were drifting by occasionally and many of those got eaten, but fish that looked at my parachute version refused at the last minute, save for one 9" rainbow. I did end up taking 4 or 5 browns that were 8-10" on caddis dries, and 4 lovely 10-12" brooks on an emerger. Interesting that the different species preferred flies at different stages of emergence. Around five a light rain fell for about 10 minutes, even though the sun remained out. It actually felt good, since the temperature was well above 70.

The sun returned strongly once the rain passed, and weather radio now predicted storms should hold off until late that night. I felt encouraged enough to pitch my tent. Once it was up I broke out the cooking gear and started my supper, but I no sooner began heating water for soup when it began to rain hard--again, with sun visible in the distance. The rain stopped, then started again and continued. Screw it, I thought, I'm headed into Grayling. Once at the edge of town the rain stopped, naturally enough. But I was there, so I shelled out for a burger at Spike's.

For the evening's fishing I went to another favorite access, where caddis once again were present in heavy numbers. I skittered a dry pattern near cover along the banks and took three fair size browns. There were also some risers I couldn't get to strike. A bit after 8 hendrickson spinners begtan gathering overhead--lots of them. I clipped off the caddis (which had gone ignored for half an hour anyway), tied on a spinner, then put the hook through the holder ring the just above the rod handle to keep it at the ready, and dry, while waiting for the bugs to fall. But when I reeled up to keep the line taut, the dacron loop on the end of the line that I use to connect the leader slipped off. Unless I could fix this soon, I'd be helplessly watching the trout rise to spinners blanketing the water.

The only obvious fix was to tie a loop in the end of the fly line, but that would sacrifice a good 6 " or so of the line tip, hardly ruining the line, but something I'd rather not do at all. But it occurred to me that I had another rod in my car. A 6 wt., it was heavier than I like to use for dry flies on the Au Sable, but it was the only option. And it turned out to be an excellent option because shortly after I began wading back to the access the sky suddenly clouded over. Rain began falling and when I reached the access I could hear thunder rolling from every direction. A bolt of lightning split the sky just to the north.

In the parking lot another fisherman was rigging up, but stopped his preparations and took shelter under the open rear hatch of his SUV. I took cover likewise, but uncased the 6 wt. and began hunting for a leader for it, hoping the storm would pass. But it continued, and after 5 minutes the other angler announced he was going to "get out of Mother Nature's way," packed up, and drove off. I retreated to the driver's seat of my car and shut the doors. The rain and the thunder weren't relenting and after a few more minutes I concluded I should follow Mr. SUV's example. I started the car and backed out toward the road, but once I got clear of the trees, I saw a large patch of clear sky to the west. It should reach me soon, I thought, and I might be able to salvage this night yet.

It didn't, but the rain did stop, so I pulled back into my parking space, left the car and trotted to the river as fast as my waders allowed. It had cooled off considerably by then and there were almost no insects over the stream now, but twenty or so yards down stream I made out two rising fish. I caught one on the third or fourth cast over them with a hendrickson spinner, though the remaining fish stopped feeding once I'd landed his buddy. It was nearly dark now, but I could see the ring of another rising fish maybe thirty yards further below. It was feeding hard against what amounted to the vertex of a near-right angle formed by a log jam jutting out from the bank. It took me four or five casts with careful mends to get a good drift into that corner, but as soon as I did the fish took and I shortly had a 12" brown in my net. I could barely see well enough to unhook it. When I reached my car it was near full dark, and the rain was beginning to fall again.

Spots of Time: Pere Marquette/Au Sable 5/11-13, pt. I

2011-05-18T10:17:00.005-04:00

So I did get fishing last week. The trip was a good if rain-soaked one.

Moderate rains had been forecast, so I set my sights on the Pere Marquette to indulge in some of its heralded early season streamer fishing. I always want to fish the PM more anyway. Took a quick, unproductive whack at the water near Green Cottage later in the afternoon on Wednesday, then headed to another stretch I could easily wade access-to-access for the evening. When I first got to the water, I saw a rise on the other side of the stream so I switched my plan from streamers to dries and respooled with a floating line. Tried some versions of the caddis and bwos that were fluttering around with no luck, and nearly regeared for streamers when a black stone fly landed on my hand. Maybe this was a hint, I thought, and it was. On my first cast with the black stone dry I took an 11" brown from under the alders along the opposite bank. During the next hour or so I caught five more, 9-13", and missed at least as many more strikes. I was getting hits in quiet, brushy runs, in fast riffles, in deep bends and behind a steelhead redd.

The stonefly bite shut off a bit after 8, by which time the wind had picked up considerably and taken on a chill. Gray clouds began to dim what was left of twilight. Hendrickson spinners had swarmed over riffles most of the night, but thinned after the weather soured. After one nearby thunderclap I reeled up and began wading as fast as I could to get off the river. Along the way I practically stepped into a pod of rising trout. Enough spinners must have hit the water to draw them out, though hey stopped feeding after I'd blundered into them. I waited to see if they would resume (not the brightest move with more thunder booming and raindrops beginning to sting my hands and neck, but fishermen will do dumb things for a trout), but they didn't. Shortly after I got moving again the rain hit hard though blessedly it stopped when I reached my car. Afterward I headed to Edie's bar for a couple of apres la peche Oberons. The rain held just long enough for me to return to camp, brush my teeth, and zip myself into my sleeping bag. And then it poured. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed almost constantly for an hour before the storm subsided to a heavy drizzle. When I awoke my tent was sodden but, miraculously, hadn't leaked. And the sun was out. Whatever discouragement I'd had the night before steamed away like the raindrops clinging to the grass. I had high hopes for the day's fishing.

Summer is Icumen in*

2011-05-09T08:14:00.004-04:00

One more class to grade and I will once again be free from the classroom for three months. There will be plenty of other academic chores, not to mention house and yard work crying to be done, but somewhere in all this I hope there will be time for fishing, and blogging. Last summer was a wash for fishing. A handful of days up north, and only three or four for bass on the Huron. I've got to change that. Of course I'll have to devote some time to waterfowl scouting.

I was up north last weekend for the Michigan trout opener. Nice hendrickson hatches, few feeders. A few trout on streamers on Monday morning. This Wednesday I'm headed to Baldwin for a couple of days on the Pere Marquette, a river I'm always saying I want to fish more.

I'll tweet reports from the field, and have the writeup sometime next weekend.

*If you were sleeping through English Lit and didn't recognize the title of the post, here's a refresher.

Empowerment

2011-03-16T12:36:00.005-04:00

This situation in Japan seems worse at every turn. Nuclear plant failures have moved to the front of the headlines, with reports of new radiation leaks, explosions, evacuations and other problems emerging hourly. This of course is reviving conversations about the safety of nuclear power in this country, and has given some nuclear proponents fears that their agenda will stall again, just as it was (pardon the expression) gaining steam.

Their agenda may well have been doomed anyway, for reasons other than the disasters in Japan. Which is regrettable, I think.

I am a reluctant supporter of nuclear energy at best, and I think the complications attached to it are enormous, but properly managed, it probably causes less environmental harm (and harm to water systems in particular) than, say, mountaintop removal coal mining or "frakking" for natural gas.

Over at Talking Points Memo the other day, Josh Marshall had an interesting take on the fossil fuel vs. nuclear question. Nuclear power poses some alarming risks, he acknowledged. But--

...the proper and planned use of fossil fuels -- in other words, when everything goes just according to plan -- is creating what appears to be catastrophic damage on a planetary scale. What's more, setting aside global warming, there is a detailed scientific literature showing the number of deaths and chronic illnesses tied to the release of fossil fuel pollution into the air -- lung diseases, asthma, cancer, etc. Again, when all goes just according to plan.

Conceivably, he argues, nuclear may be safer in the long run.

But as in so many other cases, the least harmful course of action (assuming this is one) isn't the cheapest. And this is a cost conscious time--occasionally to the point of foolishness. So we'll likely keep burning the gas.

Some Break

2011-03-14T08:00:00.003-04:00

Just returned from my university's spring break, which this year included no fishing. I spent nearly the entire week catching up on grading, and when I wasn't doing that I was doing my taxes. And I'm still far from done with those. Depreciation, amortization, WTF?

Hoping to get out Friday for a long hike with Kristine (basically a pretext for scouting duck hunting spots). I'm afraid that's the only cure available in the near future for my academically-induced stir crazies.

One sad note, fishingwise, sounded recently. The chair of a committee I sit on evaluating a pilot writing course announced we would meet on the morning of Friday, April 1st--which is the opening of Stockerfest. Sadly, I'm sure he's not joking. Guess I'll be joining the throngs on Saturday the 2nd, but I'll get there before 5, I hopefully will claim a good spot.

Later.

At What Cost?

2011-02-23T11:55:00.002-05:00

It's getting crazy here. Picked up a class for a colleague who's out sick this semester and am scrambling to get together a plan for that (apparently she didn't have one either). Plus some other work stuff has undermined that resolution to blog again, but not smothered it. I've had plenty of blog fodder on the mind.

The major topic in domestic politics lately is federal spending. An important one to be sure, though I'm not entirely down with the consensus view that spending that spending must be reigned in regardless of consequences.

The national debt is a serious problem, but I don't think the preferred tool for reducing it--drastic cuts across the board--is the one that can do the job best. In many cases I'd say it amounts cutting the nation off at the knees. Case in point: reduced funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.

Launched by president Obama in 2009, the Initiative promised 475 million dollars for cleaning up pollution, fighting invasive species, and other measures to improve the health of the lakes. Obama's new budget proposal reduces this to 350 million; the Republican budget plan would slash it to 225 million. Given the economic value of the lakes, this is incredibly short sighted. Why risk fisheries, clean water, tourism, for a small reduction in federal spending?

Of course, one could respond that everyone wants the cuts to fall on someone else. No question about that, but my point is that some of these cuts shouldn't be falling at all, or shouldn't hit as hard as they do. The question that keeps coming to my mind is, Why is weakening environmental protection or education or consumer safety measure acceptable, but imposing a slight tax increase unconscionable? There's no question of whether you're going to pay to address problems, or many of them, that the country and the world face. The choice is whether you want to pay up front or wait until a crisis point hits and pay a much dearer price, both in cash and in terms of overall well being.

With regard to matters like the great lakes, health care, infrastructure and education, to name a few, I'll gladly pay up front. There seems to be a consensus among economists that some kind of revenue increase is necessary, though the political class seems to wave this off, either because they've climbed into office on the mound of anti-tax rhetoric that's calcified on the republic over the last thirty years, or because they fear taking a run at it would shatter their own political fortunes.

Of course, there's plenty of popular resistance to tax increases. Their benefits are uncertain and distant, whereas their costs are clear and immediate. Yet at some point the costs of the cuts under discussion now will be of the second type, and they may be staggering.

Rules are Rules

2011-02-11T08:28:00.003-05:00

Until they're changed.

The big news in Michigan trout fishing of late is the change to inland trout regulations. Several new categories of trout lakes and streams with different rules for each, more miles of gear restricted water (or that are gear restricted part of the year and all-tackle for the rest), more streams open year-round, increased size limits on a lot of kill waters. All this takes effect April 1st.

Until about 10 years ago, the regs were much simpler. Trout season was open from the last Saturday in April until September 30th except for a rivers or parts of rivers that got steelhead and salmon runs, you could fish with any gear you wanted except in flies only stretches on a handful of rivers. The limit was ten trout, then five, but the same on nearly every stream. Now you'll need to keep a copy of the regs in your vest and a lawyer on speed dial, at least if you plan to catch fish on bait and keep them, or fish after October.

A lot of people, or at least ones frequenting internet bulletin boards, are unhappy about the expansion of gear restrictions. Most gear restricted waters are artificials only rather than flies only, but it still irks people that they can't fish with bait wherever they choose. And they have a point. When fly-only waters were established, the rationale behind them was that since trout didn't swallow flies as deeply as they did bait, and since flies don't have multiple hooks as many lures do, released trout would stand a better chance of survival. Makes sense on its face, but recent studies show the difference of hooking mortality between the different methods is slight, and negated by the high natural mortality rate of stream trout.

Even so, the older assumptions seem to be writing the regulations--with the steadfast support of Trout Unlimited and other anglers' groups with membership dominated by fly fishermen. Thus, charges of elitism from garden hackle enthusiasts--possibly justified, seeing as a point some fly fishers offer in support gear restrictions is that on fly only waters, you don't see blue bait containers littering the banks and stuck in log jams.

My take? A resounding...meh. I fish with flies, rarely keep fish. I may do a little more extended season fishing, but not much. I don't see bait restrictions as the great civil rights issue of the 21st century, as some make it out to be, but I also don't see great value in most of the restrictions the new rules impose. I'll just keep fishing while the interest groups bloody one another.

But while I concede that science has pulled the rug out from under fly-only regulations, I would miss them if they went away, largely for sentimental reasons. When I first fished fly only waters, I felt like I was crossing a solemn boundary --take off thy boots, for that wherein thou wadeth is holy water. In doing so I sensed I was transforming myself from a guy who sometimes fished with flies into a fly fisherman. With that transformation, I felt, I incurred the responsibility to perfect my technique and so be worthy to fish these waters and stand with the generations of renowned anglers who came before. I took implicitly a pledge to spare every trout I caught, even off of fly waters. And whenever I went back to the hallowed fly only reaches of the Au Sable and Pere Marquette, I felt like I was returning to the keep of the life eternal that sustained the very best of mine--Antaeus to the earth.

Of course, I found out the experience on these waters wasn't as extraordinary as the lore of them would have it, and that even good fishing in large doses isn't enough to save your life. All the same, stepping into, say, the Au Sable at Burton's Landing and seeing the weathered wooden "QUALITY FISHING REGULATIONS IN EFFECT" sign gives me the feeling of returning home-or at least to A home, one of many that I need to feel I have a place on this earth. The symbol of a thing isn't the thing itself, though, and whatever turns regulations might take in the future, by this time I can find where I need to go without the signs.

Not too soon to think of trout season...

2011-02-09T12:43:00.003-05:00

Or blog about it.

Obviously, I've avoided this site for a while. Seriously considered deleting it. But over the last five years or so I've done some writing here I liked and haven't had the energy to archive it anywhere else. And I thought someday I'd begin blogging again.

Actually, that day was just a little while ago. I started another blog on an unrelated subject, and it felt good to write again. It's been a long time since I wrote something that wasn't job related, and even that was perfunctory, brief, inconsequential. Comments on student papers. A portion of a grant app. Nothing one could mistake for serious exposition or reflection. Blogging on my other site made me realize keenly that I couldn't let things go on like that; it showed a light on the stagnation in my life.

So I return to my efforts here.

I've received a number of comments over the last year or so that I've neglected to moderate--sorry. Some were very interesting. Many were spam, and others I assumed were and deleted the notice without reading them. I'll be more diligent about handling those.

As for what's happened since last spring...still teaching at the university, still living with Kristine and Sully in Ann Arbor. Kristine still is in school, not working full time, though she has had steady freelance graphic design work. I am enjoying this winter. We bought snowshoes at Christmas and have been out three times, cross country skied once. It is nice to have more than a few inches of snow that actually sticks around for weeks at a time.

Continued duck hunting last fall. Went at least once a week, got a few birds, even. I think I was more rabid for that than I was for the last season of fishing. I think I spent less than a dozen days trout fishing last year, which may account for the lack of posting. I only fished the Huron three or four times. I spent last summer busy with everything but the outdoors. The saving grace was our community garden plot. Finally we got a sunny spot that would make tomatoes, beans, greens, and everything else we desired grow with abandon. We actually struggled to eat everything we grew, and we gave quite a lot away besides. We'll be back at it this summer, and I'll surely be posting about it.

Of course, trout are filling up my thoughts more and more with April approaching. The Stockerfest opener is on April first, and I don't have to teach that day. Reportage and photos of that f'sho.

Don't be a stranger. If you comment...it wont' be neglected.

Funny Fish Moniker

2010-05-15T07:08:00.000-04:00

Largemouth bass="Ditch Pickles"

I like it.

Cut It, Please

2010-05-13T11:28:00.003-04:00

Was looking over my bills yesterday, including my phone bill, which is one of the few I still get in paper form. I've been meaning to change that situation but always manage to get around to something else first. Apparently, I'm not the only person who dawdles about this: the envelope I opened yesterday promised me that should I "go paperless" I would not only spare trees in the future, but would have a tree planted in my name.

This is a well-established form of persuasion. Taken at face value it sounds unimpeachable, but I do wonder exactly where and in what circumstances the trees are planted. If they established along a crumbling riverbank to halt erosion, great. If they are added to the ranks of lumber plantation, not so good. Too, forests are not the only habitat in need of restoration. What about grasslands, which face the double threat of development and, if not maintained by cutting or fire, forestation. Where should the creatures that depend on that habitat go?

Perhaps companies or nonprofits that sponsor "plant a tree incentives" ought to offer a choice to have a tree cut on behalf of the customer or donor. They could not only cut trees to preserve grasslands, but offer to cut exotic, invasive tree or shrub species. They could cut overgrown forests that have animal populations in decline (which ought to appeal to hunters) or cut sterile pine plantations and sell the wood at a loss (for which of course they could claim a charitable deduction). To simplify the process, they might just present "native prairie restoration" as the feelgood bonus for accepting the offer at hand.

But reforestation is the embodiment of conservation in the public mind, the most iconic form of greening the land. This is not a bad thing, but there are deeper shades of green. Is there room for those within our routine household transactions? With only a little imagination, the answer could be, yes.

Busy Work Ahead

2010-05-08T09:47:00.003-04:00

With summer coming nigh, fishing is on my brain. How much of it I get to do is in doubt.

Lots of projects on my plate--teaching two courses, revising courses for next fall, helping design a curriculum for a new minor in sustainability studies, and a new writing project whose nature remains vague. I want to write about literature of Ohio's Maumee valley (wherein I happen to teach). There is precious little of it, but I think it deserves some notice. That there is any would come as a shock to many people.

There is much work on the house to be done too. We're considering a move to the Toledo area next year, so we need to get this ready to sale. Given the market, we need to make this dwell nothing short of swoon-worthy.

All the same I will be scrounging out some water time. I plan a few days the week after next somewhere or other. I'll let the spirit move me in a suitable direction when the time comes. I plan to head north at least a couple times a month. And with a relatively dry spring (until now) the Huron should be fishable early this summer.

What this means is blog fodder. Daily writing is unlikely, but I will be on at least once a week. This is not of great consequence to many people but I'm feeling the need more now--this site has become a nagging itch. I hope I am inspired to continue writing, if only because writing inspires me in whatever I write about.

Hey, it's Me

2010-04-10T13:02:00.002-04:00

So I'm back after what felt like a very long winter. Coming out from blog hibernation.

Since I was here last, things have been pretty routine. No excuse for not posting except laziness. This is of interest to few people, I know, but I still regret not keeping up with the blog. I've been more acutely aware lately of needing a creative outlet.

I did get out fishing on April 1st, at Stockerfest. My best venture there yet, landing 7 trout in a couple hours. Thought about going back today but not in the mood to head out there before dawn to beat the crowds. I slept till 7 as in investment in well being. Maybe next Friday.

Beautiful if cool weather this weekend. Sadly, I'll be mowing the lawn for the first time this year--fallout from those two weeks of summerlike weather we enjoyed for a couple weeks prior to Easter.

Happy spring, everyone. Come back often.

Sully

2010-01-15T10:26:00.007-05:00

Friday catblogging is SO 2004...but since we've gotten a new kitty, I think it's fitting today.

Meet Sully:

We got him before new years. Some friends of one of our nieces had seen him wandering her neighborhood and took him in, but couldn't keep him. We had planned to take a longer break from pets after losing Pavlov, but with this guy on the verge of being sent to Animal Control, we couldn't resist. He spent most of his first week hiding in the basement and has warmed to us slowly. Given that now he has no problem jumping into our bed at 3 am and begging for food (sorry dude, no dice), I'd say he's settled in.

He's not a cuddly cat like Pavlov, but he is very playful. It'll be fun having him.

Green Burn?

2010-01-11T13:43:00.002-05:00

An article from the Michigan Messenger today examines plans for biomass power generation plants afoot in northwestern Michigan. In spite of the economic development that might come along with these plants, residents of the affected areas aren't altogether keen on this venture into sustainable power:

Mancelona is facing severe economic stress. The auto parts manufacturer that was the town’s major employer closed last year. Yet, despite the community’s pressing need for jobs, at a public hearing on the company’s air permit application last month, locals focused on potential environmental problems associated with the plant.

The town is also the site of an immense plume of groundwater contamination, and locals raised concerns that plant operations could spread groundwater contamination into the air and that emissions and truck traffic associated with the proposed plant could further degrade the area.

“I’ve seen too many lies in here,” area resident Stuart A. Rogers Sr. said during the hearing, “ … these plants don’t produce 30 jobs.”

In Traverse City, officials have suspended the proposed biomass plant to evaluate other energy options.

It's a complicated issue, touching on air pollution, deforestation, broader patterns of land use and, of course, economic recovery.

My suggestion: Open the plant in southern Michigan and fuel it with exotics like buckthorn, honeysuckle, and multiflora. Cut down some of the overgrown forests in so-called game areas and improve hunting opportunities.

This unlikely and probably unrealistic. But it would address an ecological problem. People are worried that there isn't enough forest to sustain the proposed plants up north. Down here, we may not have as much forest, but we have too much of the wrong kinds of forest. At least in this hunter's view.

Going In , Going Out

2010-01-07T15:45:00.004-05:00

I have wanted to begin writing here again. But at the same time I've been studiously avoiding it. There are various excuses, though the root cause is that I simply am not up to the introspection that usually comes with writing, even in its mundane forms. (Why this is I'm not clear on myself.) That explains partly why my posts last summer and fall tended toward tightly factual accounts of fishing or hunting trips.

Keeping up on the surface of things has been an effective short term survival strategy. But I am more and more conscious feeling hobbled, spiritually and mentally, and I fear too I could acquire a permanent internal limp.

Relax. That's as far as I'll take the navel gazing today. I don't know if I'll venture into any of these matters here later, though writing about anything, if I'm at my best, often forces some attention on my inner life, even if I never address it directly.

To update you on the really important matters...

I did have a nice grouse hunt over break, seeing two and shooting one. Didn't end up with any ducks in my bag after three more trips, but found some promising spots for next season and have plans for lots of scouting between now and then. Stockerfest on the Huron river is less than three months away now, and the trout opener less than four.

I probably find more grounds for optimism in the outdoor life than in anything else. Many people claim to have been saved from despair by nature. I wonder if this is simply because it holds out so many possibilities for what do do next?

The First Hunt

2009-10-24T08:33:00.002-04:00

I'll jump right to the point and say I didn't shoot anything yesterday. Not that the day was fruitless. I found places I won't bother going again and a few places I definitely will.

Drove to a small lake at local game area, arriving just short of 8. I'd wanted be there well before that, but I always underestimate the time it takes to drive to that area--near Picnkney, actually. The lake was beautiful, ducks or not, even in the steady rain and the wind that sheared yellow leaves from the oak and polar trees in clouds. No houses stood along its sides--just reeds, shrubs, tall trees, and shallow, mucky backwaters. To my untrained eye, it looks like a decent place to set up for waterfowl. I didn't, since there was a truck with Ducks Unlimited stickers parked at the landing. I had no idea where the guy was set up, and I didn't want to stumble around his blind.

Next I made my way west to another small lake on public land, and followed a small creek with a fairly swift current to where it entered the lake. I expect that would be a nice spot for the late season, when lakes begin to ice up. But step into the lake to test its bottom told me that trying to retrieve a duck there would be suicial. I went in to my knee, with no sign of stopping, in half a second. This will be a problem with many southern Michigan lakes. Getting a float tube may be a good idea, provided I can find a spot I can reach w/o walking through half a mile of osier and multiflora.

I tried to take a shortcut to avoid some of the tangle on the way back to my car, which led to the low point of the day. I lost sight of the landmarks I'd seen going in and ended up walking in circles for over an hour. At one point I could see a road intersection across a narrow strip of marsh that was heavily posted. I passed it by a couple of times, not wanting to trespass, but finally I went for it--I would have welcomed being picked up by the sheriff at that point. I was actually very close to my car when I came out of the swamp--a relief, though it made me feel that much more the idiot.

After that I turned back toward Ann Arbor, poking around in a few marshy spots along the way, each of which had that same soft marl bottom. I did jump a couple of wood ducks in a small river, though I wasn't carrying my gun at the time. The river flows near a rental cabin in a state park, and I suspected it might not be open to hunting. I was right, though I walked along it for a ways just to see if any birds were there, and sure enough...

I returned home wet, chilled and very happy. No, happy doesn't cut it--I was deeply conscious of being alive, and of the goodness of that. Not that I don't appreciate life, but sometimes the value of the condition is easier to grasp.

I have a feeling most of my duck trips this fall will be like that, just poking around. But returning home with that feeling will make them worth whatever disappointments they bring.

Just Ducking In...

2009-10-22T21:49:00.004-04:00

It's been a series of day-late dollar-short weeks. So the blog goes on the back burner. But I do miss it, despite being at a loss for what I might say lately.

Anyway a couple of new finds to pass along.

First, Modern Ice Fishing joins the FTR blogroll. It looks like new venture, but it may prove useful to some readers during the approaching cold months.

Also, I've been persuing the tailfeather-kickin' duck blog Shiawassee Kid. The man's in the middle of a long ND waterfowling odyssey. Wish I was there.

Why have you been reading a duck hunting blog, you may ask. As it happens, I'm taking my first duck hunt tomorrow. It will be as much a scouting trip as a hunting trip. I'll cruise a few local wet spots on public land and see what's there to see. I may get the gun out, I may not. But I'm pumped (pardon the phrase--I shoot an 870).

The weather does look ducky.
Here's to feathers in the coat tomorrow.

BREAKING: New Record Brown?

2009-09-09T16:35:00.004-04:00

The Ludington Daily News is reporting that a Grand Rapids angler caught a 41 lb 7 oz. brown trout from the Manistee river this morning. DNR biologists have verified the weight. This would top the current world record by more than a pound. Certification of the record is pending...

Cute Overload

2009-09-09T07:38:00.003-04:00

Cuteness is a quality relative to scale.

The University of Victoria is taking a soft approach to get rid of a warm and fluffy problem — the hundreds of feral bunnies that call the campus home.

School administrators are looking for someone to trap and sterilize about 150 of the rabbits and put them up for adoption as part of pilot program.

The rabbits, which come in a variety of colours, appear to be the pet store variety, not the wilder Peter Cottontail sort. According to university staff, however, the lives of the estimated 1,500 campus rabbits can be dangerous, difficult and short, with cars, dogs and the occasional sadistic student bringing things to an abrupt end.

They are also a nuisance, digging holes in sports fields and gnawing their way through gardens in surrounding neighbourhoods, according to Patty Mack, president of the Mount Tolmie Community Association.

"They are awfully cute, but it has gone to the point where there are just way too many of them," Mack said.

The rest.

And if the foster-bunny plan doesn't work, we are approaching the season of tailgate cookouts...

Diver Down

2009-09-08T17:27:00.002-04:00

Man found lurking in toilet again

By LORNA COLQUHOUN
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
Wednesday, Sep. 2, 2009

Four years ago, Gary Moody explained his presence in the bottom of a pit toilet on the Kancamagus Highway by saying he was retrieving his wife's lost wedding ring. Now Moody -- who dodged jail time in that incident -- is facing three new charges related to incidents at a campground toilet in the White Mountain National Forest.

The rest.

"Again"? And I thought I'd met some odd people in campgrounds...

Happy Labor Day; Au Sable 9/4

2009-09-07T08:45:00.006-04:00

Being free myself from the chains of labor last Friday, and surmising that the day might provide some first-rate fishing, I made a day trip to the Au Sable.

I planned to spend most of the day on the big water below Mio, but I remembered heavy trico hatches on the north branch over a labor day weekend a few years ago, so I went there first. My car thermometer read 41 degrees when I pulled into an access above twin bridges just before 9AM. Tricos did come, around 10:15, but the hatch was very thin. Feeding activity was lighter than when I'd fished the same stretch in July, and the fish that showed were exceptionally spooky. I put down the first two pods of fish I cast to after two or three casts. I approached a third on hands and knees, setting up behind a large sand ridge that ran between a weedy backwater and the run where the fish were rising. It was difficult to get a good drift over the fish, since there wasn't room for a backcast that would load the rod (even my whippy 4 wt) and generate enough forward power straighten the leader. Kneeling and catching the water with the elbow of my rod arm when I cast didn't help with accuracy either. But I did manage a few good drifts and didn't put the fish down with the bad ones. During the twenty or so minutes the hatch lasted, I managed a couple of smaller brook trout and a shiner.

I headed downstream to Mio for the afternoon and evening. Bob Linsenman told me that white fly soft hackles were still the ticket, so I hopped downstream from access to access fishing one in tandem with other nymphs or emergers. The midday action wasn't red hot, not even as good as it had been the Friday before. I took three planter rainbows, lost a few others.

That wasn't the most regrettable part of the afternoon, though. While fishing in front of the Davis rest area, I heard a roaring coming from upstream and I turned around to see two jet skis rounding the bend. They weren't moving fast but they're kicking up a wake that could easily (and possibly did) swamp a canoe and making enough racket to drown out every drunken tuber on the river. After they passed a cloudy ribbon trailed along the river's edge for almost five minutes, erosion from their wake breaking on the bank. Soon they were headed back upstream: more noise, more silt. I hope jet skiing isn't becoming popular on those waters.

Around 4:30 a nice BWO hatch began and fish began feeding avidly. Over the next hour and a half I caught about 10 trout, 10-14" long. When the bwos faded, I went to the McKinley bar for a quick supper and got back on river a bit before 7:30. The white fly hatch began shortly, and using an emerger, I took 8 or 9 trout about like those I'd caught on olives. When they stopped hitting the emerger, I looked down for spinners and saw none.

Last year on a superb night of white flies, I switched to a spinner pattern far too early and missed a lot of trout I should have taken, but didn't switch back because I didn't want to have to re-tie the spinner on in the dark. Last Friday I decided to keep the emerger on until the spinner fall was obviously in progress, but a succession of trout ignored it. When I did see the first spinner, I immediately went to change flies, but I fumbled tieing on the spinner in near darkness (there's a stretch between twilight and full dark where the vest light is of limited help). I only heard about two rises once I was ready to go, and my casts in their direction produced nothing. But having done well earlier, my regrets were mild.

I sometimes feel guilty about these day trips, burning a lot of money and gas for a single day of pleasure. Sometimes I don't even catch much. But this one was worth every penny and every pound of C02.

Au Sable Big Water, 8/27-28

2009-08-31T16:02:00.002-04:00

Got onto the water Thursday and saw numerous risers--took me a while to figure out what they wanted, but once I got the BH soft hackle white fly, I took 7 or 8 rainbows and browns up to 14". Mostly missed the evening white fly emergence, which started earlier than I'd expected--probably on account of the cool weather. In camp that night, the fire was not just about atmospherics.

Friday was slower--managed five trout, including one 15" brown, in the afternoon, all on olive emergers, but rain drove me from the river in the evening.

Camping at the Loop was an unsettling experience, as usual. Details to follow.

Heading out...

2009-08-27T07:37:00.001-04:00

Up to Mio for a few days. Tweets and report to follow.

He Stopped Purring Today

2009-08-22T12:21:00.006-04:00

Apologies to George Jones for the title of this, but it's as apt a phrase as I can think of to sum up the death and life of my cat, Pavlov. He was as affectionate a cat as I've ever seen, and sometimes I thought he spent his entire waking life purring. Not so much over the last week when he rarely left the couch, and a cyst that had grown on his side since last winter began to abscess. But we squeezed one more out of him as we held him in the vet's office this morning before we gave him the shot. About an hour ago we buried him between the pines in our backyard, wrapped up with a small St. Francis icon and a sprig of catnip to make the journey pleasant. He was 19.

I won't give a protracted elegy here, and I won't rehearse the difficulty of making the decision, which we actually went to the vet's this morning not assuming we'd have to make, even though I knew it was a possibility. It was awful to have to decide, but unquestionably the right thing. He'd been declining for months, and had almost nothing left to give. He could hardly walk from the couch to his food bowl without stumbling, though he often made the attempt, as his appetite remained excellent right to the end.

It is a sad day, though given his age and his relatively good health until the last, not a tragic one.

I really couldn't ask for more from a pet, though Pavlov had his faults, among them that he photographed poorly. His gray/black coloration didn't show up well against most backdrops, at least not with the lighting in our house. I had trouble choosing among at least slightly disappointing likenesses of him for this memorial post. Ultimately I chose this one, taken just a couple of weeks ago, when for once he seemed to be lit up well. We took almost thirty pictures of him that day, most of which we snapped just as he was moving. So they're generally blurry, or have a little glare, but this I thought was one of the best, taken on one of the last days he was at his.

Farewell, Pavlov (AKA the Pea, the Peanut). Thanks for 17 fine years.

Paddling East, Fishing West

2009-08-16T21:01:00.004-04:00

Had a nice float with Kristine down the south branch and mainstream of the Au Sable. I won't go deeply into detail. We paddled, we saw eagles, deer, an otter; slept on the ground, woke one morning in fog so thick it felt like drizzle; ate out of cans and bags; I watched in agony Thursday night and Friday morning as rainbows rose to BWOs for hours on end in the waters below Mio.

We took few pictures on this trip--certainly not enough to offer anything like a photonarrative of the trip. Since I had the camera most of the time, the quality may not be what it could have been. But here are a couple of random shots that came out OK.

The Mason Chapel, on the south branch

Our last night's camp, at Meadow Springs

I started missing the trip as soon as we hauled out. I've been online-window-shopping for canoes since we got home.

Quite the mind-wipe it was. I didn't give much thought to work or other routine concerns, except to note a couple of times the fact that I wasn't thinking of them. Returning to reality is much harder than letting it go--I almost began that with "unfortunately," but I'm not sure about that.

After the float was over and the livery hauled us back to our car in Roscommon, we headed up the road to Grayling to recover with a motel room for the night and the obligatory dinner at Spike's. In the morning, I snuck out to fish the Manistee, giving the Au Sable a break because I'd never tried the Big M before in trico season. A fair hatch came off around 9, and I took 5 legal or better browns, plus some dinky ones. Fish were active in a few locations, but completely absent from long stretches of water. Nothing worth opening the champers over, but a pleasant wrap to the trip.

A busy week ahead, with preparations for classes. I may or may not blog

Floating...

2009-08-10T19:47:00.003-04:00

We'll be floating the S. and Main branches of the Au Sable over the next few days. Field reports while there, a writeup when we get home. Hopefully I'll get to toss a line at some point.

Back Up...

2009-08-09T08:20:00.003-04:00

Had to go incognito for a few days...but enough on that. I'm back.

Been having some decent fishing on the Huron as of late. Last Tuesday I tried a new locale below Delhi Metropark, but I arrived there to find most of the choice looking spots already occupied--conditions for the hex/ephoron hatches on the Huron are starting to resemble those of the hex hatch on the Au Sable. I was forced to set up on a wide, flat stretch that ranged from ankle to shin deep and all but resigned myself to a night of catching 4" rock bass. The hex hatch once again was only fair, but a nice emergence of ephorons took place and fish were soon working all over the flat. At first the fish seemed to mostly ignore my flies, but about ten minutes into the hatch they started paying attention in over the next half hour or so I caught 8 smallmouth ranging 11-16.5".

I had a long upstream wade back to the access point (and a further hike to the car), but I didn't mind. The night was pleasant, the river bottom mostly free of obstacles, and the full moon was high. I spooked a couple of large fish along the bank, nearly tripping myself when I spun around to verify that the eruption by my right kneecap wasn't some attacking mad beaver. All kinds of odd fears attach to unrests in the dark.

Wading down, I'd had the impression I was in a wooded, undeveloped stretch of river, but on the return trip in the dark I could see lights, behind a latticing of branches, lining top of the hill overlooking the west bank. Houses. Not a bad spot to live, I thought.

The place where I'd gotten in the river was connected by an impromptu, unmaintained trail, beaten down through the tall grass by fishermen, to the designated trail back to the parking area for the nature preserve. My flashlight starting to fail, I veered off of the rough trail a couple of times, and I when I did make the maintained trail, I took a wrong turn and followed the trail to dead end at the boundary of private property. If worse came to worst, I thought, I could just walk along the property boundary to the hilltop, hoping the homeowners weren't armed and anxious. But I made my way back to the right trail in short order, and my jaundiced flashlight (seriously---I had 3 feet of visibility, max) held out long enough to take me to my car.

Without the missteps, I'd have been back at least 20 minutes earlier. On a night like that, though, I saw the delay as a pleasant extension of the outing.

Huron 7/30

2009-07-31T07:35:00.003-04:00

Back to Delhi park last night from 8-9:30. A fair hex hatch--actually a light one, but still the best I've seen this season--started around 8:30, and while it didn't trigger much feeding (I don't think I actually saw a spinner on the water), I did take three 10-13" smallmouth drifting it over some larger submerged rocks. White flies began just after nine, and I caught two decent rock bass, two more smallmouth around 12" and lost one that must have been huge, probably 18 or better. It made half a dozen runs that took line off the reel. The action was mostly done by 9:30.

While it was a decent night, I think much better ones are coming. Both hatches were on the light side. Unless mayfly populations are declining for some reason, eventually we ought to see them (or at least the ephorons) in blizzard proportions.

Huron 7/26

2009-07-27T08:13:00.002-04:00

I've gone to a couple meetings of the Huron River Fly Fishing Club this summer. It would be nice to meet a few people offline who fish, and I certainly could stand to learn more about fishing the Huron, a hometown treasure that I've to which I've so far devoted only casual attention.

Last Thursday the club met at Delhi Metropark, which I had never seen before. The meeting consisted of a casting clinic followed by some fishing time. The fishing was fine, so I made a plan to return last night. I got on the water about 8:30, got nothing until some light feeding on ephorons began around 9:15. Took one 12" smallmouth on an emeger, a 15" on a dun. The feeding had mostly stopped after I released the second fish, which was just as well since it was just short of 10:00, at which time the park closes. The park police did swing by as I was taking off my waders back at the car.

They're hanging in the basement now, and my wading boots will be in the sun on my porch shortly. If I have my way, though, my gear may never dry fully during the next two or three weeks. Peak season on the Huron is here!

North Branch This Weekend/T+40

2009-07-20T15:48:00.003-04:00

Kristine and I were in the Grayling area over the weekend. Made it out Sunday morning onto a part of the north branch AS I hadn't fished in about ten years. It looked like in the meantime the stretch had received some of those trees airlifted into the river by the Anglers of the Au Sable. Lots more cover, and lots more contour to the bottom than I remembered. Some things hadn't changed, though: my take consisted of a bunch of small brook trout. Tricos came off about 8:45 and I squeezed in just an hour before I had to get back to camp. Still about the best hour of fishing I've had in over a month.

Lots is being said today about the moon landing of forty years ago. Got to see it with my own three-year-old eyes. I remember only snatches of the event, most of which concern what my mother and sisters were doing as we sat around the TV. Primarily, what I remember is eating moon sticks, a candy that passed itself off as "space food."
I've told that to a number of people, though none had ever heard of them, even those much older than I was at the time. I was starting to wonder if I'd invented the memory, until I ran across this. I feel validated.

Lessons from Wolverine

2009-07-12T10:16:00.003-04:00

The post title is an homage to Barry Lopez, though I'm talking about a blog, not a book. Friday I ran across the fine Wolverine Fly Fishing Journal, another Michigan-based blog which includes not only fishing reports but detailed profiles of streams, pages on flies and fishing strategies, as well as assistance with feathering one's retirement nest. Check it out.

Advice to Poachers

2009-07-10T06:44:00.001-04:00

If you're going to violate, don't do it in front of dozens of people with cell phone cameras.

Desparado Dumper

2009-07-09T06:38:00.002-04:00

I always saw enforcement of environmental laws as a rather bureaucratic sort of policing, an affair undertaken in lab coats and grey suits, not in bulletproof vests and ammo belts. Not always.

KEY WEST, Fla. -- The owner of a Utah truck-wash company who told acquaintances he would rather ''go down in a blaze of glory'' than face federal charges of illegally disposing of hazardous chemicals pleaded guilty to seven felony counts Monday.

In a routine Environmental Protection Agency case that turned violent, law enforcement officers shot Larkin Baggett when they attempted to arrest him in Marathon, Fla., in March. The 54-year-old had been on the run from authorities since April 2008 and had been listed as a fugitive on the EPA's Web site.

When officers tried to arrest him, Baggett pointed a semi-automatic rifle with an extra clip of ammo duct-taped to it at one of the agents. He never got off a shot. Officers shot him in the face and buttocks and riddled his travel trailer with bullets. He was hospitalized in critical condition. In his trailer and truck, police found 3,000 rounds of ammunition to go with his eight weapons.

Now, instead of a possible three- to five-year sentence for violating the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act in Utah, Baggett faces up to 90 additional years for stockpiling eight weapons and threatening the officers attempting to arrest him....

Baggett owned Chemical Consultants, a company that mixed 55-gallon drums of truck-wash acid and chemicals for removing lime and rust. When it was pumped out, some of the mixture remained in the drum, according to court records. Baggett instructed his employees to dump the remaining toxic chemicals onto pavement to evaporate or into a nearby sewer drain.

The rest.

A lot of people indulge in petty greed, though few are willing to die for the priveledge.

Manistee/Jordan, 7/5-6

2009-07-08T15:17:00.002-04:00

Temps in the upper 70s augured well for a hex emergence on the stretch of the Manistee where I usually fish them. After I set up camp I wandered down to the river to look things over and saw a hex dun flutter up from the water: another good sign.

So I was in place in my second-choice spot by 8, and had to share it with only one other fisherman. As darkness fell, a modest number of hexes began cruising over the river. Temps had already fallen considerably by then, so no spinner fall took place, but flies emerged off and on for about an hour. The best feeding activity seemed to occur while I was tying on new flies. I ended up with one 13" brown and a few smaller ones, though my upstream neighbor caught a brown measuring 20".

On Monday, I fished the Jordan, in the Jordan valley pathway area, for the afternoon. Absolutely dead until I caught a brook, a brown, and a few tiny rainbows around 4PM.

Air temps only reached about 65 and dropped into the 50s by evening. I hit the river wearing a long sleeve t-shirt under my sweatshirt, and long underwear under my jeans, and I had the kind of fishing you'd expect when that clothing is called for. Saw one dun and one spinner on the water and a handful of bugs in the air.

I can still catch the hex around here in another week or so, fishing smallmouth...

Saturday Quotes, 7/4/09

2009-07-04T12:55:00.010-04:00

Politically, I'm clumsy and full of rages.

--Jim Harrison

I'm there, Jimbo.

By contrast, demonstrating an utter lack of political self-awareness:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources... it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out.

--Sarah Palin, upon resigning Alaska's governorship.

That's a heck of a quit notice.

And one quip in response:

"[Palin] should also lead the nation's mothers to oppose mandating replacement of incandescent light bulbs with the new mercury poison gas bulbs.

--Peter Ferrara, Foxnews.com, in response to Palin's resignation.

Wonder if he supports expanding nuclear power?

The indelible idiocy of our body politic aside, happy 4th.

I'll be engaged in the pursuit of happiness up north for the next two days, trying to get in on the end of the hex hatch and fishing the Jordan river for the first time. Look for tweets under "Field Reports," a full writeup on return.

This Land is Your Land (or WAS, at any rate)

2009-06-29T11:18:00.005-04:00

A subject I've taken up here from time to time is the preservation of public lands. The recent passage of Michigan House Bill 5050 brings the issue once again to the fore.

The bill authorizes the sale of 475 acres of state forest in Iosco county to a golf course developer who already has several courses in the area. The logic behind this, of course, is to attract more upscale tourists and generate (mostly seasonal) jobs in what is admittedly a depressed area. If you've read this blog for a while, you can probably guess what I think of this.

I'll just make a couple of comments. First, I fear the precedent it sets. An evaluation of the property finds it currently hosts "hiking, berry picking, and very light hunting activity by local residents." This could describe many parcels of state land. And since blueberries or after-work hunting will never generate the dollars that golf courses (or amusement parks, or water parks, or Executive Conference Retreats)will, can we expect the state to liquidate more comparable acreage to patch gaps in its budget?

Secondly, this is a blatant transfer of wealth from the public to the private sphere (scarcely a unique event during the last 30 years, and the one redistributive scheme conservatives never protest). Real estate reverse Robin Hood. Yes, the state will be paid "fair market value" for the land, but that doesn't reimburse the loss to those who currently use the land and will in the future. The windfall for the state is a one-time occurrence--the loss to the public will be ongoing.

"Michigan needs to do more to attract high income tourists from out of state. Primitive camping, small town diners, and low-impact recreation won't do that." So say the proponents of this land sale. This gives me the feeling I'm being written out of Michigan's cultural script.

Saturday Quote, 6/27/09

2009-06-27T07:33:00.003-04:00

How glorious it would be to feel the key turn, to be able to enter the culture of things outside us, to understand not only the what of the universe but the why. To read the slow rain of rising trout, or comprehend, really comprehend, the shocking orange of fungus, labial and exquisite, shining on the underside of a rotting log. To grasp the intent and the glory, the slow fire of life behind them.

Mark Slouka, "On the Rich Sin of Meddling"

"...the slow rain of rising trout..." How apt. Of course, I concur with the general notion here.

The Swollen-Shrunken Creek

2009-06-25T06:53:00.004-04:00

Fish always get bigger in memory, they say, and for me it doesn't stop there: streams also grow in size after I've been away from them for a while. There have been occasions when I've gone to streams I haven't fished in years and found them to be about half as large as I remember them. Two years ago while driving back from Traverse City, I stopped at the Middle Branch in Osceola county, a stream I hadn't fished since '93. I remembered it being 20-25 feet wide, with lots of open runs. But that night I found it rarely stretched more than 15 feet across. Alders and protruding branches of oak and aspen pressed in on those "open runs" I remembered. Of course, the last time I'd been there I'd been spin fishing, and hadn't been too concerned about casting room. I'm not saying the Middle Branch couldn't be fly fished up in its troutiest parts, but it would take more strategy than I had energy for that night.

I wanted to get out of the house last night, so I gathered my gear and drove to a favorite spot on the Huron. I expected it would still be high from last week's rains, and it was. Places usually knee-deep in midsummer would have reached to my shoulders. One alternative was to drive home, get my boat, and go to a lake, but thoughts of assembling it in temperatures still close to 90 nixed that.

Another option was to find a small stream, since they recover from rainfall more quickly than large ones, but there are few such streams worth fishing around here. Cloud Creek, one hour away, would be an option in drier times, but having been outfitted as an agricultural drain, it recedes more slowly than streams three times its size. There was, however, a stream near Flint, stocked with brown trout, that I'd done very well at the few times I fished it. I lived in the area during my first year at Michigan State, and had been pleasantly surprised to find this resource so close to home. Unfortunately, I discovered it only about a month before I moved to Lansing. That would have been the summer of '96. Since then I've thought of going back a few times, but wasn't sure the drive would be worth it, especially with good smallmouth fishing close by on the Huron. Last night, I had no reason to stay close, so by a little before 7, I was northward bound.

When I got to the creek, I found the bottom was visible (in spite of the stream still spilling into the woods at points). Encouraging. Unfortunately, a large willow spread completely across the creek just in front of a bridge, covering a run I remember being productive. I knew there was a tree there, but didn't remember it sprawling that way. True, the last time I saw it was 13 years ago, but the heavy limbs out over the water would have been there the last time I was. And most of the creek couldn't have been more than 12 feet across. In my mind I envisioned it at closer to 20.

I remember quartering wet flies in front of the bridge, casting down and across the stream without any particular difficulty, but last night the best I could manage was a short flick that passed my fly below the large willow and above the box elder next to it. I put the fly in the trees about half the time. There is a nice riffle a little ways up from the bridge, and I seem to recall laying dry flies up into its seems with careful overhand casts. I still could--if ideally positioned slightly left of center at the bottom of the riffle. Then, I was good for a cast up to ten feet, with a cast going in the trees from time to time. That might well have been the case thirteen years ago, come to think of it, but that's not the memory that stands out.

I ended up lobbing streamers along some of the timber, getting a quick bump at one point. It didn't take long to cover the fishable water. About twenty yards on either side of the bridge, brush almost completely encloses the stream. That much does fit with my recollections, but I wish it was the part of the memory I'd gotten wrong.

Lifting the Veil of Ivy...

2009-06-24T13:14:00.004-04:00

Another good idea from The Atlantic: Shine a light into the dark recesses of the Ivory Tower.

The conventional wisdom is that you get what you pay for—that the larger the price tag, the better the product. But that’s not true in higher education. Tuition has been skyrocketing for years, with little evidence that education has improved. Universities typically favor research and publishing over teaching. And influential college rankings like the one published by U.S. News & World Report measure mostly wealth and status (alumni giving rates, school reputation, incoming students’ SAT scores); they reveal next to nothing about what students learn....

The Obama administration could be a catalyst for change. The stimulus package includes $30 billion in tuition aid, at a time when colleges are starving for money. That gives the government leverage—it should push for systematic public information on the quality of undergraduate learning, school by school. This would not only serve students; over time, it would improve the quality of our workforce and the prospects for our entire economy.

That stimulus bill certainly stimulated some thought at the Atlantic. We can hope it has the same impact elsewhere.

Taxidermy--Not Just For the Cabin Anymore

2009-06-23T15:56:00.006-04:00

Today I discovered an extremely cool blog called Taxidermy. Check it out, but don't expect to see any of the specimens there gracing the Trophy Mountain at a Cabela's.

Not sure what these kinds of works represent--but definitely not an outdoorsman's ego trip.

Miscellany: Pedagogy, Revolution, and McMansion Removal

2009-06-22T07:26:00.008-04:00

I had tentatively planned to head north tonight to fish the hex hatch, which I understand has started now. But exactly one week from today I begin teaching a class on American nature writing, and I am far behind where I had hoped to be in preparing for it. I'm ready for day one (actually, for weeks 1-4 of 6), but I wanted to have everything in the can by now. Besides developing plans to teach each book, I still have a lot of tweaks to make to the website. It's an online class, actually.

We are reading:

* Selections from William Bradford (Pilgrim leader), William Bartram (18th C. naturalist whose narrative of his journeys across the American south became the first international bestseller by an American writer), and Thoreau

*Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac

*Gary Snyder's Turtle Island

*Terry Tempest Williams's Refuge

*Jim Harrison's novella "The Beige Dolorosa"

I'm looking forward to this. I love to teach this kind of stuff, but get few opportunities.

Over the last week I've been following the developments in Iran closely. If the protesters succeed in forcing new elections or even, dare one hope, toppling the theocracy, it could have a major impact on the political future of people across the Muslim world. Besides, it's hard not to cheer people organizing, acting, and literally putting their lives on the line to throw off tyranny. The level of courage and determination shown by the people in the streets of Tehran, Isfahan, and elsewhere in the country is truly humbling.

The uprising has been a media event in more than one sense. It has dominated news coverage over the last week (though it did take the cable networks a few days to register more than a dim awareness of the events), but it has also highlighted the significance of social media and personal communications technologies. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube have allowed people on the street to report events as they unfold, and to share their passions, triumphs, and terrors directly with readers and viewers around the world. These technologies have also helped the activists to communicate and organize.

Of course, this new media reporting also makes the event a time suck for me, and probably others. With new tweets, blog posts, and youtubes being posted continuously, it's tempting to check in every couple of minutes to see the latest developments. (I'm mainly following this through Andrew Sullivan's always excellent blog as well as the Iranian-American Council blog.) I probably would be further along with my class planning if those rabble-rousers had just sucked up the dodgy election results...

Finally, The Atlantic's Idea of the Day from Saturday was this:

How’s about a stimulus-started plan to buy up the nation’s foreclosed and empty McMansions and hire out-of-work construction workers to deconstruct them? It’s an idea that could keep giving and giving. Aside from the obvious benefits of employment as the deconstruction took place, de-developers could offset costs by selling used housing materials (recycle!) or donating usable building materials to low-income- housing renovation projects (help the poor!).

Read the rest. It sounds freakin' brilliant to me.

De-funding the Future

2009-06-17T07:49:00.006-04:00

This morning, Michigan Radio reported that as part of efforts to balance the state budget, the brain trust that is our state legislature is proposing to cut $210 million in financial aid currently available to college students in Michigan. The merit-based Michigan Promise award, which offers students as much as $4,000, faces total elimination. 96,000 students are expecting this award for the coming academic year.

God knows our budget problems are dire, but this cut is particularly short sighted. What incentive does this give future tech savvy, "creative class" knowledge workers to stay in Michigan after they graduate? Scientists, programmers, engineers, entepreneurs, green architects and builders, educators, and new media professionals (for starters) will be essential to transforming the state's economy, but this proposal tells them they're a liability. The message it sends is "Go share your gifts somewhere else."

They will. Keep it up people--we may yet become Haiti-of-the-lakes.

The governor opposes this, so hopefully she and some like-minded legislators may be able to prevent it. Governor Granholm has been a disappointment in many ways, but I will say that during the current budget crisis, she's been right more often than wrong.

If you're in Michigan...send an email to your state senator telling them this is bull#@*^.

Huron 6/15

2009-06-16T12:35:00.002-04:00

Quick trip to the Huron above Dexter last night, worthy of an even quicker report. 3 rock bass on streamers, no smallmouth. Some golden drakes hatching, but no feeders.

I think I am humbled more often by that stream than by any other.

Manistee/Au Sable 6/10-11

2009-06-13T08:55:00.006-04:00

I can be flighty when I'm fishing--if I'm unsatisfied with the place I'm fishing, I don't have a problem picking up and driving, 20 or 30 miles, even, to someplace where I'm sure the action will better. This isn't unreasonable, and in my experience it's not uncommon among fishermen, either. Sometimes the change of setting does bring a change of fortunes, though you always risk the compounded embarrassment of a multi-site skunking. Regardless of how the move pays off, though, it leaves you with the question what you missed by not staying put. Rivers aren't static--insects emerge and fishes' feeding instincts turn on in response to some slight modulation of light or water temperature. And at this time of the season, bugs and fish tend to be much more active in the evening, almost making a river (from the angler's perspective) an entirely different stream at night than it was early in the day. Yet this week, full awareness of that couldn't persuade me to hold my ground and allow changes to come through time instead of chasing them over distance.

What all that is about:

I drove up to Grayling on Wednesday, planning to camp and fish on the Manistee river for a change--normally I drive east of town to the branches of the Au Sable. The river was in much better shape than I'd expected given Monday's downpour. I went to a spot below M-72 where I occasionally fish the hex hatch, and saw a variety of insects in the air--large and small stoneflies (I really need to learn the stonefly species better), sulfurs, caddis, and a handful of brown drakes and mahoganies. There was unfortunately little surface feeding, even during a 5 minute mahogany emergence when flies drifted for yards before lifting from the water. There were scattered, splashy rises, though I never saw what was getting eaten. The most abundant insect was a small, dark colored stonefly, and green egg sacs were visible on most of these I saw on the wing. I tied on a green-butted black caddis imitation and took a couple of browns (@ 10") and missed a few other strikes.

Not the worst afternoon, but not great. By 4:30 the insects were thinning out--not an encouraging sign. And by that point, visions of a certain spot on the Au Sable where I'd had great evenings after bailing from poor afternoons on the Manistee were coming to mind. I couldn't resist.

When I waded into the Au Sable, the air was filled with sulphurs. A few were dribbling along the surface, though they didn't trigger much feeding, perhaps on account of the high water (the AS looked much further above normal than the Man.) But risers did show here and there, mostly along riffle seams or near brush along the bank. Casting to the feeders and fishing blind to likely spots I picked up maybe half a dozen fair trout and a mess of dinks. The best was this rainbow, @ 12".

A bit after 7 the sulphurs faded and I picked up a couple of brookies twitching a caddis in pockets of slack water between fallen logs along the banks. That's never brought me rapid fire action, but it's a fun way to pass the time between hatches.

At about 9:15 sulphur spinners began drifting by and some risers showed in pools and quieter runs. Again, not as many as I'd usually expect, but certainly enough to get the blood pumping. I ended up taking four brook trout, 9-12", losing a couple of others.

Very unusual not to catch browns during a spinner fall. I've noticed before that I catch more brook trout than browns when fishing hatches on high water. But a fisherman I talked to in the parking lot that night said he caught only browns. Go figure.

Thursday was more or less the same, except that the afternoon on the Manistee was positively dismal, with few flies around and only tiny trout coming to my fly. The early evening sulphur hatch on the Au Sable was even heavier than Wednesday's, though my take was about the same, aside from a couple of brown trout joining the mix. At sunset, a small number of emerging brown drakes joined the flow of sulphur spinners, and I did take one brook trout on a drake, but no others followed its lead. I caught a couple more brooks after switching to the sulphur spinners and caught, yet could not get as much as a short strike afterward. I cast three different versions of the spinner to one very active pod of trout for nearly 20 minutes. Could they have been feeding on something else altogether?

Questions like that keep you coming back. But that still leaves the question of what would have happened on the Manistee. I'm certain that the action must have picked up a least somewhat in the evening. But that very logical conclusion has to compete with memories of the Au Sable saving the day on trips past. All the memories of your life combined weigh less than a midge, but their colors and contours give them a substance that the possibilities of the here and now cannot have, save with considerable intervention by the imagination. Possibilities whisper promises. Memory exerts the pull of gravity.

Trout Ho!

2009-06-09T19:05:00.001-04:00

Heading up to Grayling tomorrow for a couple days. Will tweet some field reports, full writeup by the weekend.

Planter Bed Bunnies

2009-06-09T06:27:00.008-04:00

Yesterday while I was walking a load of scraps out to the compost heap, I looked into our herb garden and saw what I thought was a chipmunk nestled in the oregano. Looked more closely and saw I'd misjudged.

Since I doubt the babies could have climbed into the planter bed on their own, I'm wondering if mama didn't set up housekeeping in the oregano, which has assumed hedge-like proportions. The family could easily hide in it, and perhaps the strong smell of the plants would help cover their scent. If any predator did get them, they would be well seasoned.

In the meantime, I guess I won't be maintaining my basil, parsely, and chives. (The oregano needs no assistance--it's near unkillable). But the privledge of helping to raise something so unbearably cute is a compensation, I suppose.

Overcorrection

2009-06-08T14:26:00.001-04:00

I seem to recall that in the first year I had this blog, I feared I was wasting too much time blogging...

Fighting Comeback/Prayer to Bear?

2009-06-07T16:26:00.005-04:00

It has been a busy summer so far, and one devoid of fishing at that. Between planning a summer class (which deserves some discussion here) and tending some other responsibilities at school (who can say no to more work for more pay these days?), blogging time is limited.

I did run across a few things today I thought were worth publicizing. The Free Press ran a feature today on the ecological restoration of Fighting Island in the Detroit river. For decades it had been a midriver desert, a dump site for soda ash from a now-defunct factory. But in 1990, BASF, which owns the island, began reforesting it...and the rest of the biota followed their lead:

Driving on its few roads is like going on safari, with pheasants scurrying into dense brush and black-crowned night herons flapping their graceful wings and landing on trees. A colony of thousands of ring-necked gulls protects its delicate, tiny eggs on one corner of the island. Marshes have been created out of what used to be rum runners' canals. Trees, tall grasses, reeds and native berry bushes now cover most of the island, planted on a mix of alkali and soil created from bird droppings and composted leaves. Snakes lurk beneath the bushes, a coyote family roams and two bald eagles are nesting at the island's edge.

BASF's initial motivation was purely pragmatic---it wanted to stop the wind from blowing clouds of ash off the piles. Often in environmental matters, outcomes don't stay within the bounds of intentions, and in many instances that's for the worse. It's nice to see an example to the contrary, and to see that the company didn't knock off after accomplishing its initial goal. Continuing the restoration effort over all these years is a fine act of corporate citizenship on the part of BASF.

And now for a drastic shift of subject...just in case my intermittent spiritual ponderings here haven't convinced you to go Episcopalian, maybe Arctolatry is more your speed. "Come, Lord Ursus" actually has kind of a nice ring to it.

Faith in the Seeds

2009-05-26T09:19:00.010-04:00

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

-- 2 Corinthians 5:7

Maintaining the wildflower meadow in my backyard is always an adventure. It develops differently every year, and five years in, I've learned to set expectations for it aside and and watch for what changes come.

I don't think I've ever seen as much change from one season to the next as I have this year. One reason is obvious. I announced in a post last month that I would momentarily begin the annual burn, but when I was getting ready, I found our outdoor spigot running dry. I couldn't get a drop out of it and couldn't diagnose the reason(that would require a plumber later in the week). No hose, no burn. Another maintenance recommendation is to cut the meadow. So I took my hedge sheers to the meadow--as I usually do before a burn--chopped down the standing dead stalks, and let them fall where they would. Thus began an experiment.

One change from previous years I think I can attribute to not burning is that plants have been slower to emerge and develop. By exposing the soil burning allows more sunlight to reach the ground, warming it and prodding plants to sprout or resprout. This year, the ground is covered by the remains of last year's growth, meaning less sun getting to the soil and more obstacles for emerging plants. Plants in the wild fare well enough with these conditions, so I'm not worried.

I have been pleased to see some plants spreading that had not previously. Through last year, my foxgloves yielded only one or two offspring. This year, there must be a dozen or more new ones out. Big leaf and heart shaped asters have moved to ever corner of the garden from a few spots in the sunny center. New trilliums and columbines are sprouting. On the other hand, I'm seeing less fleabane, geum, and black eyed susans. In different years, one or another of these was so abundant I considered culling some. It seems like different plants rise to prominence each year, then step out the spotlight the next.

I'm less happy about the most vigorous species species in the meadow. Creeping charlie and chickweed have plagued the meadow since year 2. I've weeded agressively, especially in years 2 and 3, but they have become more entrenched. Fires do hold them back somewhat, but I didn't burn this year and they are thicker than ever. They form mats across most of the meadow, over a foot thick in some places. I've been reluctant to weed this year since, as my plant source told me last year, tromping around and uprooting plants gives weeds more opporunties to seed. The "good stuff" (in spite of some of it spreading) is thinner than usual this year. Were my native flowers and grasses being snuffed out?

Yesterday I finally took a walk out there to look at matters up close. I didn't uproot any weeds, but I did gather handfulls of charley and chickweed vines. I only had to run my hand across the tops of them to pull out skeins a yard long. As I thinned the mats, I glimpsed young native plants growing underneath--in good shape, if smaller than I would expect at this time of year. Mostly Bergamot, asters, fleabane, and bottlebrush grass. My plants weren't vanquished but simply obscured. Where I saw them, I cleared away enough of the weedy thatch above to give their leaves direct light. Good work, I thought, but as I walked, I could see still more young plants in the trampled weeds marking my path. Some were broken or crushed down into the soil. While I wanted to stay and continue thinning the weeds, doing so risked harming more plants than I could save.

I shouldered the bag I'd been filling with weeds and left the meadow. This was an act of faith. Faith that, as the experts tell me, the natives will eventually push out the interlopers. That those hidden seedlings would eventually push above their weedy canopy. That what they could do on their own, with the assistance only of sunlight and rain, was more than what I could do for them.

I'm not sure this is what Thoreau was talking about when he titled a late book Faith in a Seed. But those words suggest something that, at this moment, seems entirely reasonable.

Fishy Deals

2009-05-23T10:40:00.008-04:00

Desperate times call for desperate measures. From an article in today's New York Times:

Minnesota was looking for a bargain on the tiniest walleye fish, known as frylings, that the state stocks in some of its lakes. Wisconsin needed more of the longer fingerlings for its fishing lakes. So the neighbors have decided to share fish — Wisconsin’s frylings for Minnesota’s fingerlings — along with hundreds of other items: bullets for the police, menus for prisoners, trucks for bridge inspections and sign language interpreters. With governors from opposing political parties and residents who often share only sports rivalries, Minnesota and Wisconsin are being drawn into the unusual alliance by financial circumstance. The sharing, officials in the two states say, could save them $20 million over the next two years.

It would be great for Michigan if some trout-rich state were in desperate need of creek chubs, or lamphreys. Too much to hope for, of course, though we are entering the the interstate recessionary swap meet. We probably, sad to say, won't fare even as well as our neighbors to the west:

In Michigan, where as many as 10 prisons may be closed to save money, officials are in talks with other states to keep some of the facilities open by filling them with out-of-state inmates. Among the possibilities, Michigan workers would continue to run the prisons, but they would essentially be extensions of the other states’ corrections systems.

John D. Cherry, Jr., the lieutenant governor of Michigan, said his state had little choice but to rethink the most basic questions about the role of state government and whether its size and shape still matched Michigan’s economic base....

“We don’t have any easy gimmicks left,” Mr. Cherry said. “It really is a matter of making fundamental decisions about what remains and what goes.”

In the article, Cherry acknowledges that one of the things that may go in Michigan is state oversight of wetlands. Advocates of that move say that federal wetlands regulations are sufficient. Unfortunately, many wetlands don't fall under federal control. Localities can make their own rules for small wetlands parcels, but these previously were required to conform to state standards. That gave the process a uniformity that development interests actually appreciated. The state Homebuilders Association actually supports continued state wetlands oversight.

The recession has inspired some creative responses from some governments and businesses that bring unexpected and widely distributed benefits. Other organizations take, and maybe are forced to take, actions for short term survival that could bring further decline over time. Certain expenditures that didn't reap an immediate return, or that paid immaterial benefits were once still considered wise investments. For individuals, these included things like books and flyrods. For businesses, travel to meet clients, or highly experienced and therefore more expensive workers. For governments, things like wetlands, school and road repairs, and the arts; possibly in consequence of these last, this list might also include the future.

Stay in School...and Get Screwed?

2009-05-21T07:18:00.004-04:00

As I reported last winter, my wife Kristine got laid off from a job she'd been at a long time. She applied, with no success, for what few jobs in her field (graphic design) came up, as well as for many part time, low wage jobs which she hasn't gotten either. In the meantime she's collected unemployment benefits. Not a circumstance we're happy about, but it's kept us solvent.

With no luck finding graphic design jobs, and being ready for a change anyway, Kristine has investigated going back to school to study interior design. In preparation for that, last week she started classes in construction (gotta know how a house is put together if you're gonna fix it up). She's loving it.

But yesterday Kristine was checking in online with the state Unemployment Insurance Agency, as she must every other week, and when asked if she had started classes she said yes. And that ended the transaction--claim denied.

She was directed to call an office for follow up, and the person there explained that by enrolling in school she had made herself unavailable for work. They will send her the paperwork to file an appeal, which will then take six weeks to process. We'll appeal, but I don't think we're likely to win. She was also told that to get benefits restored she would need to state she was willing to drop out of her classes.

Who knows, maybe she'll get a job offer soon and this will be moot. But I'm starting to think winning the lottery is more likely.

So: if she chose to sit in front of the TV, quaffing PBR and letting the future worry about itself, the state would be willing to pay her. Perhaps they'd even extend her benefits into next year. But since she has the ambition to retool and retrain yourself, she's penalized.

As it happens, this issue is now under discussion in the state's halls of power. The Michigan House has passed a bill (HB 4786) calling for using $138,000,000 in federal stimulus money to expand unemployment coverage. The provisions of the bill would allow retraining workers, or workers forced to take part time jobs while seeking a full time positions, to keep at least some of their benefits. The governor is eager to sign the bill. But the state senate--controlled by Republicans--is blocking the measure. The expanded coverage would place an undue burden on business owners over the long term, they say.

Presumably these business owners and their Republican backers are the same ones who set the stage for a long term state fiscal crisis by demanding one tax cut after another in the 90s. Presumably they're the same ones who a month ago were willing to accept $30,000,000 in tax rebates out of Michigan's stimulus funds (via legislation supported by organized labor, btw). Presumably they're the same people who wring their hands over liberals "stirring up class conflict" by suggesting that the middle class is getting left behind.

The Detroit News ran an op-ed on this yesterday, and in the comments, some nitwit was pontificating about how this new legislation would just give people incentive not to work. I'm afraid that incentive is already in place, sponsored by the professional advocates of self-motivation and the work ethic.

That, at the moment, is the view from our recession.

Fatal Attraction (we hope)

2009-05-17T13:46:00.007-04:00

From today's Free Press, possibly some very good news:

Lamphreys are sucking the life out of Michigan's waterways

MSU researchers hope man-made love potion can save fish

Scientists at Michigan State University have developed a man-made copy of a love scent male sea lampreys emit during spawning. Now, they are testing it in 10 Michigan streams.

"It has shown a dramatic impact on the behavior of lamprey," said Mike Siefkes, lamprey control specialist at the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in Ann Arbor.

If the pheromone works, it could be a breakthrough in the battle against lamprey in the Great Lakes.

Read it all

To date there hasn't been a selective control method for lamphreys. If this succeeds, it could put an end to use of sprays that kill insect larva along with those of lamphreys and electrical weirs that impede the spring spawning run of steelhead.

Au Sable, 5/10-13--Highlight Reel

2009-05-15T10:16:00.005-04:00

Being a bit pressed for time, here's the rundown of this week's trip. I am sad to say I took no pictures.

*Stopped at the Rifle river on Sunday and fished for an hour an and a half. No hits--water temp barely 50.

*Went to the Au Sable below Mio. Water temp was a more promising 60˚. "Nothing rising," an angler standing in one of my favorite runs told me as I arrived at the water. Moved a bit upstream from him, and after about ten minutes began to see Hendrickson Duns on the water, and rises soon after. The feeding was never heavy and I took one brown, one rainbow, and one brook trout, besides missing a few others. I'd never caught a brookie in the Trophy Water--didn't think they even existed there. Maybe it moved down from one of the creeks.

* The thermomenter on my alarm clock read 26˚ when I woke up Monday morning. I skipped the dawn streamer outing. I skipped it the next morning too when the temp was 28˚. Wednesday morning the day broke at a balmy 41˚. I hit the south branch and managed a single brook trout.

*Monday afternoon on the south branch: Water temp 58˚. A nice caddis emergence around 4. Not too many fish paid attention. Took a few brook trout

*Tuesday afternoon: floated the big water below Mio. Hendricksons emerged off and on (mostly off) and I got to fish my first ever daytime spinner fall. Ended up with only six trout to hand--all browns, unusual for the Mio stretch. A little disppointing, but my spirits picked up when, after calling Kristine and getting some supper, I went back to the river for one last look and saw both wings and rings on the water. There was a profusion of Hendrickson duns and spinners. It took me a while, and several refusals, to figure out that the fish wanted the duns (they feed on spinners at dusk, right? And Hendricksons shouldn't be emerging that late, should they?). Later it took me a while to figure out their preference had shifted to spinners. Again, I landed six fish. I'm sure I would have caught more if I'd wised up to their meal choices sooner, but there were so many insects on the water my fly was probably lost among them. It was, bar none, the largest insect event on a trout stream I'd ever witnessed. I thought I'd seen "blanket hatches," but I was mistaken. I also thought spinners didn't gather and fall on cool, windy nights. I travelled lighter on the return to camp, unburdened of these assumptions.

*Wednesday afternoon: fished the north branch around Twin Bridges in a punishing wind. Streamers, wets, and nymphs failed to produce. I could count on one hand the number of insects I'd seen by 3PM. Went to the mainstream for one last try. There were some bugs in the air here, and a few small trout rose along the banks or behind sweepers. One took my black caddis emerger. By five the river had gone dead and I set out for Grayling, and home. If I hadn't had a dentist appointment at 8 AM Thursday, I might have cruised over to Mio to see if the evening feed was on again.

Getting Away..

2009-05-08T16:58:00.002-04:00

Been busy for the last two weeks...my head just isn't in the blogosphere now. But I'm heading out fishing--finally--on Sunday for a few days. I'll tweet some reports from the road.

If you're fishing this spring, good luck. If you're not...go.

Opening Day (non) Report

2009-04-26T08:24:00.001-04:00

Things came up--I didn't get out. I'm leaving it at that.

Opener Eve

2009-04-24T07:36:00.004-04:00

I'll be leaving tomorrow morning for the trout opener, which looks like it will be a wet one (streamer fishing should be good). I'll be tweeting updates from camp. Check "Field Reports" early and often!

These lines from WB Yeats's "The Lake Isle Of Innisfree" came to mind this morning, and they seem suited to the occasion:

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Is Earth Day...

2009-04-22T07:18:00.001-04:00

...a Hallmark Holiday for the planet?

Bad Trip, Part 3

2009-04-21T13:08:00.006-04:00

Late June, 1991

What were my options?

I considered sleeping in the car (still that company-leased Cutlass), but dreaded trying to sleep upright, leaning against the door or a headrest that pushed the head forward. I could of course go to a motel in Seney, but having already spent money on one during this trip (and on account of negligence besides), I didn’t think I should again.

Here, I was being penny wise and trout foolish.

Aborting the trip and fleeing home would have been a waste of the money I’d spent driving up. And I didn’t know when or if I’d return that summer. Abandoning the opportunity to fish while I had it would also be a waste.

But abandon it I did. I threw tent and what luggage it contained into my trunk and turned the car around toward Seney, the bridge, and home.

I reassured myself I was making the right decision by imagining how high the river would be after the rains the storm would bring. Wading would put my life in peril, no doubt. And it might have if the rain had fallen, but none fell as I drove toward the bridge, nor did any while I dozed in my car at a pulloff just west of St. Ignace. (That arrangement was every bit as uncomfortable as I’d expected--I slept only in brief snatches and developed severe cramps in my neck and shoulder.) Day broke clearly as I left the Upper Peninsula.

I made the wrong call, but I could easily have unmade it. Since the weather looked fine, I could have bought a cheap tent and driven back to Seney, or gone to somewhere else in the UP, or for that matter the northern LP. That didn’t occur to me as I drove south, though. The bewilderment of the night before apparently scrambled my capacity for rational thought, not to mention my will to fish. I understood only later that, the real threats of the weather notwithstanding, this was a self-inflicted injury, not a loss by an act of God.

One other experience on that trip left a strong but more positive impression: catching fish whose mouths and throats were jammed with insects, in this case, beetles and ants knocked from alders by the afternoon’s punishing winds. Perhaps the most visceral inducement to learn fly fishing imaginable, literally staring me in the face.

Bad Trip, Part 2

2009-04-20T08:49:00.004-04:00

Late June, 1991

The fishing wasn't fabulous, but I did catch half a dozen or so brookies, enough to salve the irritations incurred on the trip up. The next morning, I breakfasted on two trout I caught shortly after leaving my tent at six. For the rest of the day I wandered up and down the Fox mainstream, taking an occasional trout on worms and letting the emptiness of the scrubby woods north of Seney make me full.

Early in the afternoon a strong wind began blowing. It took off my hat a few times, blew some casts back toward me--minor inconveniences. By evening though, it inflicted a minor catastrophe. When I returned to my camp at nightfall I found my tent collapsed and limp. The stakes had fortunately held, keeping it from swirling around the campground like a castoff grocery bag.

I knelt to find the poles the held up the tent at both ends and reset them. But when I picked up the first pole, it was bent at a right angle: the flimsy, hollow steel had snapped at one of the joints. When I tried to straighten it it broke cleanly in two.
The other pole was intact, but useless without its mate.

The first solution to this problem that came to mind was to find a stick that could replace the pole. With my flashlight I searched along the edge of the woods for a long ways both up and down from my tent but found none that were both long and stout enough. I thought next to run a rope between the grommet that would have held the broken pole and a nearby tree, but I didn't have enough spare rope, and unless the bar was selling it, I wouldn't find any store open in Seney where I could buy more.

The wind still howled through the pines. A thunderstorm was coming, the radio said.

Proud Lake Hike, 4/18

2009-04-19T10:50:00.010-04:00

I'm breaking up the story of the bad trip with a story of a good one.

Yesterday Kristine and I hiked at Proud Lake state park. It was the first time I'd been there without fishing for the stockers.

Early spring doesn't get any finer--seventy degrees, sunny, wildflowers just beginning to emerge. As cold as this spring has been, the warmth was more than welcome.

There's not much I can say about the trip that pictures won't say better.

Cowslips were on the verge of blooming. This one was a little ahead of its peers.

These guys were everywhere. My guidebook is MIA, so I can't say exactly what they are.

A couple of rainbows holding just in front of the dam below Moss Lake.

An attempt to photograph a much larger trout. Couldn't pick up the fish, but the reflection of the overhanging dead tree was cool.

Today we have clouds and highs of fifty. Back to our regularly scheduled April.

Bad Trip

2009-04-18T10:28:00.002-04:00

Late June, 1991

"At least I got out, and that's the important thing." This is one of the lines anglers utter to console themselves when they return from the water with a skunk on their line. Or, "A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work."

I tend to agree with these sentiments, but there have been fishing trips I'd have gladly traded for a mediocre day of work, or for confinement in bed with a raging migraine. Especially this one, which came closely on the heels of the trip to the Two Hearted and east branch of the Fox which reawakened the passion for fishing I'd had as a kid. It's a wonder it didn't snuff that renewal in its crib.

Almost since I got home from that trip, I'd been scheming to return to Seney and fish the main branch of the Fox. Being a college publisher's rep and having the summer off, there was little to prevent me from going. Having been raised to shun extravagance, I did have some scruples about "wasting" money and gas to travel a long way for a short stay (for the second time in a few weeks!), but visions of hungry brook trout stifled them. My embrace of the dream of happiness through consumption, as far as it goes, stems far more from fishing than from ads steeped in the promise of sex or status.

In between those trips above the bridge, I had travelled to Manistee to meet my father to fish for walleye and bass, and to work in a little solo trout fishing on the side. Both kinds of fishing went well, but oddly, I remember relatively few details of the trip. The one that counts for this story is that I left my rain jacket in my dad's trailer. I didn't want to spend most of a week in the woods without my rain gear, so on the way back to the UP I would have to detour through Manistee. I would drive up there one evening, stay overnight in the trailer, and continue north the next day.

I should have just bought another jacket.

The trip started to go bad when I was about an hour from Manistee and realized I hadn't packed my key to the trailer. I pulled over and searched my pockets, my luggage, and even my tackle box. Sure enough, no keys. I wasn't going to drive three hours home to get them--I'd just hole up in a cheap motel, call a locksmith in the morning, get my coat and get back on the road. The motel and the locksmith set me back about $60, a fact my frugal mind would use against my angler's heart at a critical point later in the trip.

My second error in the trip was also costly, though in time rather than money. I got the notion to take a scenic route to the bridge, following US 31 along the shore of Lake Michigan. I won't fill in the details; suffice to say that during the height of the tourist season, this is a very bad idea, unless you want to remove any possible risk of a speeding ticket. It took me over three hours to reach the Mackinac bridge, almost as long as it takes driving up I-75 from Detroit.

I didn't make it to Seney until nearly five, though at least my first evening there seemed worth the trip.

Pursuing Perfection

2009-04-17T08:17:00.010-04:00

What does a trout freak do while waiting out the last week before the season opener, tortured by reports of trout slamming streamers and Hendricksons hatching on the Au Sable? Anything he can that has some trouty associations.

That would include obsessively monitoring fishing bulletin boards, sorting flies, cleaning lines; pondering the need for a new line for my 4 wt.; rounding up the parts for my pontoon. There's no telling where this will go over the coming week.

This morning I had some spare time on my hands and decided to practice tying perfection loops. I've struggled with this knot over the years, especially when tying to tie it small, succeeding on maybe one in six or seven tries. While I don't have to tie it often, I'd rather not lose any more fishing time than necessary when I do.

I managed a few decent specimens.

I was especially proud of this small version.

It's not streamlined like the loops on leaders out of the package (or for that matter, like some of the larger ones I tied). I'm sure the knot's jutting to the side weakens it. But it represents progress.

I really need to get back on the water...

Thursday Poem

2009-04-16T11:39:00.003-04:00

April is National Poetry Month. In keeping with this, the chair of my department is emailing department members a poem every day. I liked yesterday's very much, and it goes with this blog's fishy/rivery focus, so here it is.

Stone

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.

-- Charles Simic

Easter Thought

2009-04-13T11:42:00.001-04:00

[T]he Gospels never say anything like, "Jesus is raised, therefore there is a life after death" (not that many first-century Jews doubted that there was); or, "Jesus is raised, therefore we shall go to heaven when we die" (most people believed something like that anyway); or better, "Jesus is raised, therefore we shall be raised at the last."

No: insofar as the event is interpreted in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, it has a very "this-worldly" meaning, relating to what is happening here and now....

It is not, "Jesus is raised, therefore look up into the sky and keep looking because one day you will be going there with him." Many hymns, prayers, and Christian sermons have tried to pull the Easter story in that direction, but the line of thought within the Gospels themselves is, "Jesus is raised, therefore God's new world has begun, and therefore we, you, and everybody else are invited to be not only beneficiaries of that new world but participants in making it happen."

N.T. Wright

Holy Saturday Shopping Trip, Revisited

2009-04-11T16:00:00.003-04:00

Easter Weekend, 1998

Two weeks to the opening of this year's trout season. By now, most years, my impatience to be on the stream takes the form of a pulsing restlessness, taking over my thoughts when it comes, leaving me listless, longing when it goes. Sometimes when it comes, it provokes a spate of neurotic activity, and that can be productive. Yesterday I sorted and repaired my leaders, took care of a bunch of financial matters, graded a ream of papers, all with visions of trout in my head, but all with dispatch. Sad to say, the fishing passion was swamping meditations on the Passion of Our Lord yesterday. One of the spiritual perils of a late Easter.

In 1998, Easter weekend also fell two weeks before the trout opener. That year, on another sunny, mild weekend, that restlessness drove me on a quest across much of west-central Michigan that qualifies as one of my more unique trout trips, albeit one that included no fishing.

With the spring of 98 came my fifth sixth season of fly fishing. Up to that point I'd been fishing with an 8' St. Croix Imperial 5/6 wt. rod, good enough to learn on but a little too heavy, I thought, for dry fly fishing. I decided the time had come to expand my arsenal. Though I was still in school then, my wife and I agreed we could spare about $400 (which at that time would bring you pretty close to the top end of the better makes). So I began shopping. I've never enjoyed shopping for its own sake, not even for sporting goods, but that spring I immersed myself in the pursuit of a new rod, and was in no hurry to surface.

I lived near the M. Chance Orvis shop in Okemos (now Nomad Anglers), and tested nearly every suitable model they sold. At least once. But I didn't want to settle on one without sampling the offerings of other makers, so I decided to do some shopping during a trip we'd planned to the Detroit area to see a singer we knew who was performing on Good Friday night. I went to a shop in Farmington (now defunct, I think) and tried several varieties of Sages. I remember in particular a 7'9" 4 wt. LL model, which remains one of the sweetest rods I've ever cast. But I had doubts about its capacities for big-water situations (which I seek from time to time), and I certainly hadn't sated my curiosity about high end flygear, so I moved on without a purchase.

I wasn't very busy the following Saturday, and I convinced my wife to let me drive over to Grand Rapids to visit other fly shops. At Great Lakes Fly Fishing I cast some Sages and Winstons and left uncertain and agitated. I still liked the Sage LLs, and GLFF offered them in more lengths and weights. But were they better than the Orvis rods I'd casted?

Common sense would have dictated driving home to cast the rod at M. Chance again, but an extravagant idea came over me and pushed common sense into the ditch. There were several fly shops, including an Orvis shop, in Baldwin, only 75 miles north, and on the banks of the Pere Marquette river. It was early afternoon, and nothing demanded I be elsewhere.

I visited two of the shops, cast some rods, but as I drew close to Baldwin, the venture had ceased to be a shopping trip; the river and the woods seized my attention. I walked in to a couple of access points on the PM I hadn't seen before. Some steelheaders were out, but I was more interested in small caddis already fluttering along the water. I hiked along the North Country Trail south of town, pausing to watch fish of some kind rising in a lake, augurs, I hoped, of what awaited me when I took to the water with my new rod. The evening was still, and the twilight caught clouds of gnats jiggling in the dusty air over a pine-lined two track. After my hike I drove back to Baldwin and ate my first hamburger in Edie's Log Bar. A short detour on the way home gave me a look at the stream I would fish on the opener.

Back at the apartment I felt a little guilty for pissing away the hours and the gas money. I can't say I bought off my restlessness by the ramble, either. If anything, it heightened my anticipation of opening day. Stockerfest works on me much the same way. But, as I said above, the restless energy of the pre-opener weeks sometimes brings positive results. A footloose day in the woods isn't quite the same as writing an article or washing the car, but it is a good thing too scarce in my life. Dreams of fishing can scatter or dilute other ambitions (buying a fishing rod among them), but on occasion they leave behind something besides time lost. The time I spent shopping and sauntering in Lake County that Saturday clearly has never gotten away.

89-72

2009-04-07T11:10:00.002-04:00

I guess the snow wasn't enough to shut down the Blue Devils last night. The Spartans certainly weren't.I was just glad the final score was closer than the halftime one. Still they had a great run, better than anyone would have guessed a month or two ago. Here's to next year.

I'm already saying that about the
Tigers.

Foul Weather Fan

2009-04-06T09:57:00.004-04:00

Today I awoke to 5" of new snow. Of course, I'd put my snow shovel back in the barn on Saturday.

This kind of weather in April isn't common around here, but it happens. And it has now happened on the eve of the NCAA basketball finals, with Michigan State playing for the title against North Carolina. Perhaps the spring snowstorm will put the willies into those southern boys and mess up their game. With the Tar Heels favored, I'll look for hope where I can.

I actually am not much of a sports fan, and college sports I see as the bane of higher education. Still, I like to see Michigan State,where I did graduate work, do well. I especially like to see them beat the University of Michigan. Yet I don't follow their teams closely. I didn't listen to one of their games until the last quarter of their Elite Eight game against Louisville. Saturday night, when they won their semifinal, I was out to dinner with friends and heard only the last 30 seconds of their match with UConn. That was enough, and if I'd only heard the score the next day, I'd have been satisfied. I won't watch the game tonight, though I'll probably put it on the radio while I'm working.

So my blood doesn't exactly run green and white. But today the snow and patches of open grass are taking up my slack and then some, radiating more school spirit than all the denizens of the Izzone combined.

Stockerfest #2

2009-04-04T08:07:00.005-04:00

Finagled some free time yesterday afternoon and made my way back to Proud Lake for another shot at the stockers. Took two nice, heavy football shaped rainbow and briefly hooked up with two others. All the action came on wet skunks.

It was blowy when I got there and winds increased during the afternoon. By three the wind was pushing whitecaps upstream. I took that as a signal to head home for some hot tea.

Toying with the idea of burning my meadow today. It's time, and it looks like a damp week ahead. If you hear of an entire neighborhood outside Ann Arbor going up in flames this afternoon...well, you won't be hearing from me for a while.

Kolke Creek Win (The end of the affair?) & Lad Hanka's Site

2009-04-03T07:47:00.005-04:00

Wednesday, a Michgan state appeals court upheld an injunction against Merit Energy blocking its plan to dump 1,000,000+ gallons of treated water daily into the headwaters of the Au Sable. It also barred the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality from participating in any further appeals of this case. Merit has now been swatted down twice, and if they go on, they're going alone.

This is a big win for the Au Sable watershed and for the coalition of conservation organizations that have been fighting Merit for years: Anglers of the Au Sable, the Sierra Club, among others. And the icing on the cake...Merit has to reimburse those plaintiffs for their legal fees. The lawyer for the Anglers expressed his hope that this will mark the end of the case. Let us all hope so.

Get the full scoop from the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

I found yesterday that artist Lad Hanka (whose fishy works have adorned this site, as well as my home) has a web site now. Check it out.

Stockerfest Opener '09

2009-04-01T17:25:00.005-04:00

Once a year the State of Michigan dumps some of its excess hatchery broodstock of brown and rainbow trout into the Huron River in the Proud Lake State Recreation Area. For a few weeks, southeast Michigan fishermen get to catch sizeable trout (many are in the mid-teen-inches and up) without driving three or four hours. The game is flies only, catch and release from April 1 through the regular season opener. Then it's general regs, catch and keep. By the end of May most of the trout will be caught or dead from heat--the Huron reaches the 70s in summer.

It's not fishing for wild trout, but the fishing isn't always easy, in spite of the fish-in-the-barrel quality of the event. Stockerfest trout behave unlike any wild trout I know (or, for that matter, any stocked trout in the streams I frequent in the summer). They often don't bother to take shelter. Pods of large trout cruise up and down the river in plain sight, and they won't spook unless you walk into them or pass your fly too close to them when they're not inclined to strike. You can usually sight fish them. I wouldn't be surprised if the visible fish often outnumbered the hidden ones. Still, as I said, they aren't easy to catch some days. Like today.

I was on the water around six, still in full darkness. Clouds that had dropped rain overnight began to drift off, revealing stars. I heard a few trout splashing near where I entered the river, though these were unfortunately above the signs that mark the upstream limit for legal fishing. (Just upstream is low head dam, and fish assemble in dozens below it. These fish-in-the-barrel enjoy a refuge). I worked downstream in the dark tossing different versions of a wooly bugger. I didn't encounter another fishermen until about seven, just in time to have an audience for the only fish I would catch today, an 18" rainbow with a head almost thick as my forearm. It must have sucked down a lot of shrimp pellets at the hatchery.

After releasing it I began to hear voices from downstream. The fishermen who'd joined me earlier were edging closer to me, so I edged on down and soon ran into a long line of anglers. I stayed put then and fished for about another hour. Plenty of fish swam past me but none bit. I saw a few other fish caught, but no one was tearing them up.

I needed to be in Toledo by 11:30, so I left at 8, happy for my morning out. On the five minute hike back to the car I heard at least three kinds of frogs singing, and I couln't keep track of the birdcalls. The trail led through the river's mucky floodplain and through a band of spruces to high, sandy pinewoods, dipping back down into marshy patches along the way. I can't think of a part of southern Michigan that resembles the north as much as Proud Lake.

I'll back there on Friday afternoon. Rain is expected, which should screen out the dilettantes and, hopefully, induce the fish to lower their guard.

News from Birdland

2009-03-22T10:45:00.003-04:00

Grey skies and temps that barely reach forty before noon make it easy to doubt, but spring really is on the way. Yesterday we got to witness a couple of doves having it off on a willow branch about five feet beyond our kitchen window. I watched them closely for a while but not out of prurient interest. It wasn't the actual copulation that was interesting (it lasted for seconds on the few occasions it happened), but the courtship ritual. They faced each other and pecked at each others' necks and breasts, parrying and drawing back in turns, keeping it up for a couple of minutes at a stretch. Usually they would stop and retreat for a while, then resume. A few times though, in the midst of the pecking one would grab the bill of the other and then Mr. Dove would make his move. While we see an avian tryst or two in the spring most years, none has involved such elaborate foreplay.

We were treated to another novel bird encounter this morning as we drove to church--we saw a wild turkey along the side of the road, only about a mile from home. I've seen them in this county, but never so close to town. They are known to hit feeders; I'd love to see them at ours.

Their Cheating Hearts

2009-03-21T08:57:00.004-04:00

Somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of college undergraduates cheat, according to studies on academic dishonesty. So statistically, it's all but certain I teach some of these chiselers. Until recently though, I didn't think dishonesty--which, since as I teach writing courses would take the form of plagiarism--was a chronic problem in my classes. Maybe it wasn't but this semester I've encountered more plagiarism than I have in the past three or four years. Never mind that on day one of class I define what plagiarism is and outline the consequences it can bring--they do it anyway, and in shameless fashion.

These days, at least as far as I can tell, plagiarism usually takes the form of cutting and pasting information from websites. Sometimes students act surprised to find that this constitutes dishonesty, and in a few of these cases I think they genuinely don't know it does. In other cases, students know damn well what they're doing, but can't believe it when I catch them. It apparently doesn't occur to them that if they know how do use Google, I probably do too. The internet may have made cheating easier, but it also makes catching it easier.

I'm not sure how to explain this. The abundance of information free for the taking on the web, with the attendant blurring of intellectual property lines, likely is part of the problem. Maybe students take their cue from the seemingly endless parade of stories about cheating in the worlds of finance, government, sports, or journalism (or, for that matter, the high reaches of academia), reasoning that if the big shots do it, why shouldn't they?

I write my plagiarism policy in my syllabi, and refer student's to the university's statement on academic dishonesty. Maybe I could give the message more impact with a few lines from The Smiths:

If you must write prose and poems
the words you use should be your own,
don't plagiarize or take "on loan."
'Cause there's always someone, somewhere
with big nose who knows,
and he'll trip you up and laugh when you fall,
he'll trip you up and laugh when you fall.

Or, for this multimediated generation of undergrads, forget the syllabus. I'll just show the clip (giving due credit, of course).

Reset

2009-03-20T07:33:00.010-04:00

This, some pundits tell us, is the Age of the Reset: The Obama administration is seeking to make a clean break with the Bush administration's arrogant, unilateralist foreign policy and its laissez-faire economic and regulatory practices (though to date that last break has been slow and messy).

A lot of individuals and businesses are in reset mode now as well, trying to recover from foreclosure, bankruptcy, layoffs, or restructuring. This includes the Shupac household.

As I reported back in January, my wife lost the job she'd held at a graphic design firm for nearly ten years. A personal referral gave her the one interview she's had to date, though no job offer came of it. Since then, no suitable job for her has been advertised on Monster, Michigan Works!, the local papers, or on sites of businesses or universities. None of her contacts in the business have turned up openings for her either. She's sent blind resumes to several local design shops, but heard nothing back.

So lately she's wondered if the time has come to investigate different kinds of opportunities. If perhaps it's time for a reset.

Over the years Kristine has voiced a wish occasionally that she could do "hands on" work of some kind, crafting things instead of images. It looks like she may set out to do that. She's applying to interior design programs at some colleges in this area. She enjoyed remodeling our kitchen recently, and is proud of her work rebuilding the porch a few years ago and constructing cabinets in our basement. (I was there too...but she was responsible for the detail work. I'm just muscle.) She's always been interested in furnishings, home layouts, colors and textures. She has a formidable spatial intelligence (which did serve her well as a graphic designer). It's a logical, even astute move for her.

Of course it's going to be a difficult one. Part time study isn't an option. Tuition is expensive, and while in school it's unlikely she'd earn even half of what she was making in her last job. Once she finishes, she may have to relocate to find a job--God knows where I'd find another one. Thing is...I think she could be a star in this business. I don't mean having a national reputation or a show on HGTV; just that she could be very, very good at it.

So I guess we'll be taking the plunge. We can only hope to land on our feet.

On a more cheerful note, I heard spring peepers for the first time yesterday. The world truly is waking up.

Listen

2009-03-16T08:36:00.007-04:00

I appreciate the bible as much for its poetry and rhetorical craft as for any spiritual guidance. Actually, I think the bible's literary qualities are responsible for most of the impact its spiritual and and moral message has. Of course, there are lines that can be savored for their words alone, or that provoke ideas that are interesting without reference to any narrowly drawn theology.

For me, one of these is the opening of Psalm 19 which we read in church yesterday:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows his handiwork.
One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
Their sound has gone out into all lands,
and their message to the ends of the world.

I'm no biblical scholar, though my hunch is the psalmist was being as metaphorical here as any modern writer would be. Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the quasi-animistic vision in these lines. Creation may bear the imprint of a creator, though here it, even the passage of time within it(which if the physicists are right is perceptible only because of creation, of the establishment of some defined place in space)is imbued with a life, a meaning, of great significance and without any necessary connection to human beings and their concerns. To take a theological turn, one might say these verses limn a relation of the creation to God that goes beyond being a "general revelation" of divinity.

The biblical religions have been accused of contributing to environmental destruction by portraying humans at the center of creation and subordinating nonhuman nature to the needs and cultural prerogatives of people. There is truth in this charge, but it overlooks biblical passages that offer a contrary view. These are found throughout the Pslams, in Genesis 2, and in pronouncements of the prophets. (They do seem concentrated in the Hebrew bible.) Of course, adherents of these faiths have generally disregarded them too.

Would that be different, I wonder, if people, believers and unbelievers alike, could hear the language of the days and nights, and of the earth over which they spread. I wonder if we cannot simply because we forgot, or never took the trouble to learn.

Getting Back: Conclusion

2009-03-11T11:40:00.004-04:00

I wouldn't have such a night again on that trip, but I did enjoy three more days of very good fishing. I stayed on the east branch between the campground and where the river crossed M-77, trying different access trails. The stretches of water I fished didn't differ a great deal from one another, and neither did the fishing they offered. Each day the wood and the shadows yielded up a dozen or two brook trout of assorted sizes (though no more 17"ers, or anything close), along with a scattering of browns, most of which registered about 12". There were slow periods. There were lost lures and snarled lines, frozen feet and sunburned arms. More than one snag or trailing root brought me to my knees midstream. But none of those things clouded my relishment of what for me is one of the rarest of feelings: joy.

I savored camp life--the evening fire, the stars overhead, fresh pan-fried trout. Waking to find frost on a June morning. Hearing grouse drumming in the distance when I'd never heard them before. A troop of rowdy boy scouts rolled into camp Friday and staged a talent show in the evening, but even they didn't ruin the mood.

Something began on that trip. What had a few weeks before been a tentative impulse prompted by memory had become a passion. I'd gotten back to the headlong excitement about fishing I'd had as a child. But beyond that, the pursuit of trout became caught up in the desire for a rich and variegated bundle of experiences, one that expands and contracts, gains and loses and regains pieces over the years: the lonely places, the campfires, wading into a river through morning fog, the chattering of kingfishers, mayflies bobbling along the surface of a river, drinking a beer on the tailgate while the moon rises and coyotes begin to howl. In short, my idea of the trout trip was born.

That week on the Two Hearted and the Fox first gave me the experience of fishing as a parallel life, complete in itself, which I mention in my bio on this blog. Not that I've sought to relive that moment. I'm not trying to step in the same river twice, and I know that you can't go home again. The life I entered there has evolved, gone into and out of different phases, just like the ordinary one. Thankfully, its end is not in sight.

Getting Back, Part 7

2009-03-08T16:08:00.000-04:00

Had it rained, though, I'd have had a good excuse to venture into the bar in Seney and pamper myself with a smelt basket. Before I hit the Fox for the first time, I think I heated a couple of slices from the turkey "ham" I'd packed, a mass of turkey thigh meat compressed into an oval and injected with nitrates, corn sweeteners, and artificial flavors. I was wary of red meat in those days. The stuff didn't taste bad at the time (bear in mind I wasn't much more than a year beyond dormitory food), but I dread to think of having a bite now. It is amazing what we consumers can be convinced is healthy. Or, for that matter, is food. Then again, I spent a good deal of that week trying to convince trout to ingest shiny metal blades. That particular night I convinced quite a few.

Below the campground, the east branch of the Fox parallels M-77, with logging trails leading in from the highway at assorted points. I picked one of them at random and maneuvered the Cutlass over deep ruts and downed limbs to its dead end in a clearing among the spruces, the river just visible beyond. Once in the water I tied on a Panther Martin spinner with a yellow body and silver blade and began fishing upstream.

The river was narrow there, never much more than fifteen feet wide, and snag filled. Sweepers, mats of sunken brush, stumps, and in a few places wooden stakes that held up the remnants of trout shelters erected long ago. It was hard to see how fish in that river could need artificial shelter, though its environs might have been less wooded when the shelters went in. Things can change, drastically, as I could tell from the charred stumps pocking the woods along the river, evidence of great forest fires in the past.

Whenver and whyever the shelters were placed, they apparently served their purpose: trout had survived and thrived. Within half a dozen casts I'd caught one, a brook of about legal size. I had another less than a minute later, and for the rest of the night I never went longer than about five minutes without at least feeling a nip on the line. For a short stretch I hooked fish on about every other cast. These fish ran small, with many sublegal and most not beyond ten inches. However, on that night I would catch what remains the largest brook trout of my life.

I tossed the Panther Martin into a deep run that cut beneath the limbs of alders on the bank. It was undistinguishable from spots that had yielded seven or eight inch fish all night, but when my line stopped mid-retrieve, something obviously larger had come out to play. The fish darted back under the alder branches and I lowered the rod keep the line clear of them, walking ahead and reeling. The trout thrashed deep in the run before bolting upstream. I worked it close and it ran out again. It took longer to get the fish in a second time, but once I had I guided it easily into my net.

It measured seventeen inches. I intended to release it, but I had to hold it a while before I did. This helps revive the fish, but I did it mainly to savor the moment. To take in the fact that this had really happened.

I caught other trout after that one, but none stand out in memory. I'm not sure what my tally for the evening was. I must have landed twenty that were better than legal size, keeping just the first three. What does remain with me, what returns to me from time to time, is the wish I uttered walking back to my car in the darkness: that I would have many more nights like that one before I left the earth.

Fisher Poets

2009-03-04T18:01:00.004-05:00

In my blogger dreams, I'm reporting live from the annual Fisher Poets Gathering:

ASTORIA, Ore. — Work, sometimes just the memory of it, is what brings the fisher poets to this faded port at the mouth of the Columbia River for a weekend each year.

They might wax about the versatility of a deck bucket or of romance in rubber boots, but they also describe a livelihood that can kill those who pursue it. And at a time when industries everywhere are in decline, this year some said that increasingly restrictive fishing laws had long ago taught them about struggle....

First held in 1998 with a few people standing on a stage in a bar, the event now fills a weekend with verse, song and storytelling across four sites. Given the economy, attendance was somewhat lower this year than in the past. Then again, populism played particularly well. Camp converged with oceangoing cred. Old salts dazzled California transplants. Even a bad day of fishing, it seems, can produce a decent rhyme. Or not.

Read the rest. There's a cool slideshow too.

I wonder if they'll ever have a festival for logorrheic trout bloggers?

Getting Back, Part 6

2009-02-28T09:33:00.003-05:00

It wouldn't be that long before I set it up again, so instead of folding and packing the tent I wadded it into the car's trunk. I stowed the rest of my gear into whatever free spaces I could find there or in the seats, then motored out of the park and down to Newberry as fast as the state or the pocked asphalt allowed.

My ultimate destination was the Fox river near Seney, but before I could get back on the water I would have to either buy a new reel or have mine fixed, and the latter I figured was an unlikely prospect in those parts. But as I reached the outskirts of Newberry, an ad for a sporting goods store there came onto the radio, and among its offerings was fishing reel repair. The store wasn't hard to find (there isn't much room in Newberry for anything to hide), and after spending five minutes and two dollars there, I was Seney bound.

During the time I was a student at Northern Michigan, I passed over the Fox on M-28 often. Usually when I did, I thought idly of fishing there sometime, despite the fact my tackle had been gathering dust for a few years. It was, after all, the river Ernest Hemingway had actually fished on the trip that inspired the story "Big Two-Hearted River," which for an English major was enticement enough. I remember now too that I was reading the novel Laughing Whitefish by Robert Traver, the celebrated UP author and fisherman, on that trip. That book is itself set in the UP; I guess that in more than one sense I was putting myself in a storied landscape, though literary history was of peripheral concern on that trip. I was there to catch trout, the more the better.

At the state forest campground on the east branch of the Fox, I set up my camp within sight of the river. On the side of my tent opposite the river, maybe a hundred feet off, a flowing well spouted away. So on that part of the trip, whether I was fishing or in camp, I was almost never away from the sound of moving water. That was something of a comfort while I wrestled with my tent, an old nylon two-man model by Camel. It had steel poles at either end that were barely stouter than a radio antenna and I could almost never keep one of them erect while trying to set the other. Once I had them in place, I would stake the lines as tight as I could, though that was never enough to keep the tent from sagging. If I'd known what I was doing then, I'd have tied lines to trees in front of and behind the tent to hold it taut. Some mornings I awoke with not quite enough headroom in the tent to sit up. I was fortunate no rain fell during that week, sparing me any long confinement in the Camel.

Getting Back, Part 4

2009-02-26T19:59:00.004-05:00

For the next day and a half, I continued fishing the main and east branches of the river, with modest success. I tire hiked most of the roads between High Bridge and Lake Superior passable with two wheel drive, and walked the dunes lining the big lake. And when Tuesday night came, I had a decision to make.

Looking though my trout stream guidebook, my appetite for angling whetted by the morsels of success I'd enjoyed so far, was like looking through the window of a pastry shop on a Sunday morning. So many sweet, enticing possibilities, and I wanted them all, or at least a bite of them all. To leave open the possibility of sampling some other rivers, I only paid to stay at Muskellonge Lake through Wednesday.

I had planned one more run at the east branch Wednesday morning, and as I headed to the river I still wasn't sure what I'd do. Despite the temptations of other waters, I was enjoying myself, and because I had an old, unwieldly tent, I wasn't especially eager to break and remake camp within the space of a couple hours. At the river, though, I received some none too subtle suggestions to move on.

First there was the dog. As I rigged up beside my car at the bridge over the east branch, I heard rustling in the woods. A tan, setterish mutt was slowly padding toward me. No collar, fur grime smeared and bedraggled. Its tail wasn't wagging, and while it wasn't obviously threatening, it seemed suspicious of me. When it got about twenty feet from me it stopped and fixed me with steady yellow eyes. My eyes went to its mouth. No lathering of saliva there, and no teeth bared, but no release into a friendly panting, either. Then it growled quietly and advanced again. "HEEEEEY!" I shouted at it. Usually a good bellow is enough to dissuade a strange dog. This one only stopped. I yelled again at it again and it held its ground, so I picked up the largest stick within reach and flung it at the animal. It turned and loped back a few yards before stopping and turning to stare at me once again. To drive home the message, I grabbed an egg sized rock, ran toward the dog and threw my projectile at it as hard as I could. I missed (and hitting the dog, it occurs to me, could well have compounded my problems), but the mutt bolted out of sight. I stood still for a few minutes. Then, having seen no shadows peeking from behind the spruces and heard no stirring in the forest duff, I went back to my car, finished rigging, and waded into the river.

After only about an hour, I was wading out. When I began reeling in after a cast, the reel's bail hung for a moment when it should have closed, a muffled clink sounded from the reel, then the bail flapped freely. Short of dapping a worm from line tied to the rod tip, I was done fishing. Correcting the situation would require driving out of the Two Hearted country, and as I waded back to the bridge, I considered again whether I should return.

Once I heard the growling, my mind was made up. Still in waders, packing gear into the trunk of my Cutlass, I heard a rasping whuff from the woods, followed by a quiet, even growl, like someone's chainsaw idling in the distance. It trailed off, and though I'd heard more distrust than menace in that growl, I still believed the dog might rush me at any moment. It was less than forty feet away, and I was about to make myself extremely vulnerable by pulling off my waders. It's hard to run (or kick) while tugging on a wader boot that's hung up on your heel, or with one leg in the waders and one out. The dog took a step toward me, and stopped when I yelled at it, but didn't retreat. I wasn't going to make myself an easy target, so I opened the car door and hopped in still wearing waders. As I drove off, the dog didn't chase me, but in my rearview mirror I could see it standing in the middle of the road, watching me go.

In the mythology of the Anishinabe, who have inhabited that area for centuries, bodies of water are inhabited by spirits, manitous, which can threaten people who enter their domain. Crossing waters, on foot, by swimming, or by boat required propitiating these spirits. After encountering that dog at the bridge over the east branch of the Two Hearted, that is an idea I can appreciate. If I had known something of the old ways, I might have been able to reach an understanding with it, and wade in peace.

Fighting the Good Fight

2009-02-19T11:13:00.004-05:00

In southeast Michigan musters a new platoon of conservation commandos. I'm not using the military argot for dramatic effect.

Michigan's Land Rescue Team is an organization of self-described "Soldiers of Preservation." The members gather at sites on public land to clean up garbage left behind by slobbish visitors.

It's a great cause, of course, though the martial motif is a little over the top, as in this description of upcoming deployment:

OUR NEXT TARGET:
Chenango Lake Public Access
This public access site is off E. Schafer Rd. in Livingston County and is part of the Brighton State Recreation Area. On tour, one of our soldiers reported back to us that this site was in desperate need of a full on assault by our Soldiers of Preservation.

THE BATTLE PLAN:
We are currently in contact with the DNR. They have informed us that a dumpster will be available when we need it. Our forces are combat ready, unfortunately, with the snow fall, this is going to be postponed a week or two so we can ensure the task at hand can will be completed, we do not want to miss anything. A date will be scheduled soon, stay tuned.

Perhaps as the organization grows, ski troops will be in order.

Like I said, I'm all for these kinds of efforts, though the work strikes me less as battle (the enemy, such as it is, has long left the field) than as tending wounds. But if sabre rattling inspires people to take action on behalf our public lands, I won't quibble over metaphors.

Getting Back, Part 3

2009-02-12T22:19:00.004-05:00

My first look at the east branch was encouraging. The river offered the smaller water I felt at home on, and was loaded with brush that I just knew concealed legions of brook trout. The current was gentle, but the river's channel grew deep enough in some places to nearly top my waders. I had to crawl over some logjams that spanned the river. I tried to exit the river to walk around them, but dense alders or steep, unstable banks made that impossible. When that happened I actually found myself missing the suburban stream I grew up on. If you didn't like one spot, you just moseyed across someone's smooth, open lawn to the next.

I waded upstream, fishing worms around the edges of the logs or under overhanging alders. I got a few nips, but nothing that stayed on the line. When I turned around to fish back to the bridge, I finally connected. I had several more short strikes, but three small, legal trout inhaled my nightcrawler when I let it wash beneath logjams and held on. They went in my creel.

Catching them wasn't much more of an accomplishment than landing those few trout on Pine creek on my trip to Manistee a month earlier, but the satisfaction it brought was pure and unconflicted. My slight success at the end of that outing didn't wipe out the disappointment brought by a week of lucklessly flailing the water. But this trip was just beginning. Those trout didn't leave me with much meat when I fileted them, but they were substance enough to nourish hopes for the days ahead.

Getting Back, Part 2

2009-02-09T22:33:00.003-05:00

Early June, 1991

My intention the next morning was to seek out the west branch again. After a coffeeless breakfast I drove south and turned left onto the road just short of High Bridge which, my map lead me to believe, would put me only one more left turn from the river. That road was sandy and narrow but relatively open. I could have passed an oncoming car with room to spare. The left turn I thought would take me to the river put me onto a two track with barely enough room for my side mirrors to clear the jackpine trunks lining it. Occasionally I did brush protruding limbs, and I held my breath as I rolled over few downed limbs thorny with the sharp bases of twigs that had snapped off. This was the last place I'd want to blow a tire.

If I could choose my mishaps though, I'd rather have had a flat than torn up the oil pan or destroyed the suspension lumbering through deep ruts and over protruding stumplets. How would I explain to my employer why I'd ruined the company car on a two track road a hundred miles from my nearest account, during a time when I wouldn't have been making sales calls anywhere?

(My 78 Malibu died just after I got hired and I didn't buy my own car for another two years. I even drove the Cutlass to Utah later that summer. The company had to pay Hertz $1200 for excess mileage when they returned it. The national sales manager burned the ears of my manager over this, though he gave me only a mild admonition. I was doing well that year.)

These concerns about the car chewed on me while I chased the river through a maze of seemingly ever tighter roads for the better part of an hour. Eventually, I gave up: I needed either some coffee or some trout. It only took me about twenty minutes to get to the pavement, though once there I didn't know where to make my next move. The map hadn't been my friend on this trip, but not being ready to ditch the trout in favor of coffee, I scanned it once again. The only places where access looked certain were at bridge crossings. On the mainstream there was only High Bridge and Reed and Green bridge a ways below. Farther east, another road crossed the east branch of the Two Hearted. Whether on account of my instinct toward the remote or from simple desire to see more of the country (if the two are distinguishable), I made for the last. I can't say that was a great decision, but it wasn't a bad one. It was actually the second best decision I'd make on the trip.

Getting Back, Part 1

2009-02-07T08:56:00.005-05:00

Early June, 1991

I left on a Saturday evening, driving north under peach-skin twilight. Full darkness overtook me somewhere south of Grayling, and I arrived at the Mackinac bridge around ten o'clock. I stopped for the night at a motel near Brevort, and as I unpacked, I got the notion to take a moonlit walk along the Lake Michigan shoreline, since I didn't feel tired at all. I returned to the motel dead tired a bit after one and slept late the next day. After a breakfast of spongy pancakes at an Epoufette diner, I continued north through Newberry into the Two Hearted country.

I'd read some promising accounts of fishing on the Two Hearted river system in northern Luce county, but what really drew me there was what I saw on the map: lots of blank space lightly strewn with the black stitches marking primitive roads. From the very outset of my adult angling career, fishing was as much about the place as the fish. I wanted to see wilder parts of the UP than I'd known while I was in school. I wanted to go where you could drive half an hour without seeing another car or passing through a clearing. (Ironically, automobile travel provides my benchmark for wilderness--even in the northern lower, places where you can hike for hours without encountering civilization aren't that rare.)

At Muskellonge Lake state park I set up camp, and I must have struck the ranger as an unlikely visitor. Probably few people who declare they've arrived for a week of fishing the boonies show up driving an Olds Cutlass (company car) and wearing rainbow plaid surfer shorts. By then a wind blowing off of Lake Superior, less than a mile away, was making it too cold to wear shorts of any kind. While I unloaded the car, the ranger solemnly warned me not to keep food in my tent. "Of course," I responded, nodding, matching his tone. "Bears." "No, raccoons," he corrected me. "They'll claw their way into your tent even while you're sleeping." He had become irritated; probably he gave that speech to a lot of troll campers. My cluelessness must have stood out like buck teeth.

I left camp around five to go fish. Prompted by a guidebook, I set out for the west branch of the Two Hearted. I never made it. According to the map, a dirt county road turned west off the blacktop road coming up from Newberry which, after a few jogs, would hug the west branch for several miles. I turned west onto what I was sure was the road; I'm still certain it was, but I believe I got turned around on the jogs. I spent at least half an hour retracing my route, trying different trails that seemed to go in the direction I wanted, but I never found the route (an actual numbered road at that) I sought. I never saw the river.

My adventures are often guided by an instinct to get far from the accesses or the river stretches that attract large numbers of fishermen. On more than a few occasions though, including the one above, this brings me to a pass where I conclude I would have been better off following the crowd.

On that night there wasn't a crowd, or anyone actually, at the developed access at High Bridge, where the paved road crossed the Two Hearted's mainstream. The river is swift there, with rapids that attract steelhead in the spring. I remember wading over slippery rocks in water up to my waist at some points, bending into a current that seemed determined to make me swim. I cast along the edges of rocks and into the deeper runs with spinners and worms, but didn't get a bite all night---at least below the water. Above, hordes of mosquitos drilled away at my bare arms and neck in spite of the repellent I applied in increasing quantities though the night. They didn't seem to mind the deepening evening cool, which drove me from the water around sunset. They followed me diligently back to my car.

I feel like I need to stop here and apologize for telling what may be the most dismal, discouraging fishing story ever offered for public consideration. Be assured that things do get better. But not before they get worse.

(Just Good) News from the North

2009-02-06T06:18:00.003-05:00

For the last several years, utilities in the Upper Peninsula have prompted controversy by selling lands along waterways where they maintain hydroelectric operations. Critics of the sales have feared a loss of recreational access and piecemeal development of large wilderness tracts. Some sales have gone ahead and development has begun, but the most recent sale ensures that some of the targeted lands will remain wild. The State of Michgan has acquired over 1,000 acres along the Sturgeon river in Dickinson county, a federally designated wild and scenic river. Details in today's Free Press.

News From the North

2009-02-01T13:50:00.005-05:00

Good and bad news streaming out of the jackpine wonderland of Crawford County this weekend. The good news is that the plan to build the massive theme park outside Grayling is going down in flames.

The bad news is that Rusty Gates, owner of Gates' Lodge and a champion of conservation in the Au Sable watershed, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Prayers and good wishes are in order.

You can follow his condition and leave your get-wells at Caringbridge.com. Search for "rustygates."

Joining the Ranks

2009-01-25T14:34:00.003-05:00

Kristine was laid off on Friday. Her company may be about to lay down for good.

We'll get by, though we're in for a tight stretch. Guess now I'll have to eat these words.

A Long Way to Go, Part 2

2009-01-24T17:57:00.005-05:00

May, 1991

My excursions later in the week played out more or less like that first day on Bear Creek. I tried the Little Manistee and Claybank Creek besides heading back to the Bear a few times. I probably spent as much time driving around, guided by my AAA map, investigating different access points on the streams, as I did fishing. (Surely, I thought, there had to be a spot where the fish were abundant and eager.) Tire hiking, I called it, as I still do. I think I coined the term on that trip.

I honestly can't recall if I caught a trout during the first four days of the trip. If I did, it made less of an impression on my than a steelhead that exploded from the water five feet in front of me when I put a toe into the water on a lower stretch of Bear Creek, then again a moment later thirty or forty feet upstream. That felt slightly humiliating. It was as if the river was taunting me with my quarry. I could look, but not touch.

However, the final outing of the week would put a little slime on my hands. I set out for Pine Creek near where it angled across M-55 by the town of Wellston. A rough trail leading south from the highway brought me to a pulloff overlooking a beaver pond--the first beaver pond I'd ever seen, actually. And it was the most pleasant a day I'd yet had, near sixty and sunny.

I cast a spinner across the center of the pond, letting it sink for several seconds then slowly retrieving. No luck. I waded in and worked toward the pond's inlet, which looked very promising: a narrow chute, knee deep, guarded by overhanging alder limbs and sunken brush along its margins. I pitched my lure into the top of the chute and about a second after I clicked the bail I felt a shaking on the end of my line. Not a throb that nearly pulled the rod from my hands or made my drag scream, but resistance enough to give me ten or twelve ecstatic seconds before gold flashed in the water before me. I whipped out my new net (the fish didn't actually require it, but I'd be damned if I didn't get some use out of it)
and scooped up a brook trout. Laying it on the bank, I measured it at a hair over ten inches.

Maybe that was a moment I should have savored, but I quickly unhooked and released the trout and cast into the chute again. I had a lot of fishless hours to make up for. The second cast brought another strike and another brook trout, this one a little smaller. I continued fishing the chute and managed one more strike but no fish that stayed one the line. I waded upstream from the pond, working under the alders and along tangles of brush. I took a third trout quickly, but then fished for over an hour before another came. The last two were actually quite small, six or seven inches, though I did fight for them. Above the pond the creek was no more than ten feet wide. Many of my "casts" amounted to popping the spinner through a small gap in the alders, and I didn't wade so much as I ducked and crawled though the brush, sometimes in the stream and sometimes along its banks.

With my luck waning and the confines of the creek tightening I called it quits on Pine Creek, and on the week. I would be leaving that night, and I needed time to pack my bags and shut down the trailer. And trying elsewhere else and getting skunked (an all-too-likely prospect) might have erased my already fading satisfaction in the day. Driving back to Manistee I felt ambivalent. Catching those trout did bring back a measure of the hope I'd felt as I set out on the trip, but they still were a small payoff (in more than one sense) for a week of fishing well-regarded trout waters. I thought the unthinkable: maybe I really wasn't cut out to be a fisherman. Or at least, maybe I'd be happier sticking to pursuits that didn't involve persuading someone to accept a dubious offering ( a suspicion that came to me often during my years as a sales rep). Maybe I ought to stick to hiking, which required only looking at the scenery. I knew that fishing was about more than catching fish, but I wanted the fish to be more than anomalies the process.

I'm prone to quitting things too soon, to fixing on the mote of failure in my successes.

I really did consider hanging up the rod, but that decision wasn't for then and there. I was taking that trip to the UP regardless.

Proof Positive of Insanity (but not mine)

2009-01-17T08:33:00.004-05:00

An unlikely feature from the Travel section of Thursday's New York Times:

BLACK shapes bobbed on big waves out from shore. Through the pine trees off Stoney Point Drive, past parked cars idling with their heaters cranked on, the surfers of Lake Superior waited to catch a wave.

It was a Sunday morning north of Duluth, Minn., and a blizzard had overtaken the region. The surfers — apparitions in black neoprene, floating in mist far offshore — paddled and stood when a wave began to break....

All around the Great Lakes, from breaks on Lake Michigan to western New York and Lake Erie’s shore, a freshwater surfing scene has emerged in recent years. On Lake Superior, where winds swoop hundreds of miles across open water, surfers swim and paddle year-round to ride waves as tall as 20 feet, rushing tsunamis tumbling on an inland sea.

Read the rest.

There's a love of winter and then there's batshit crazy.

Seriously, I feel respect for the people who do this. Their sport requires both smarts and guts in large measures. And they certainly can't let concerns about their equipment slide. If I have a leak starting in my waders, I might let it go for a day. For Superior surfers, that could be a fatal error.

Actually, I think I would enjoy a day of this--in the capacity of a spectator. I'd be glad to keep the coffee hot.

(a later thought: imagine "Wipeout" rendered on accordion and fiddle...)

Trip Series: A Long Way to Go, Part 1

2009-01-16T10:20:00.005-05:00

May, 1991

I don't know why, but I've always liked driving at night, especially when driving in or to northern Michigan. Maybe because darkness screens out some of the human impositions on the land: homes reduce to lighted windows, closed stores, farms, or construction sites to shadows. I prefer to drive home from my trips in the dark, since that cloaking effect softens the impact of returning to urbanized southern Michigan. Night feels wilder, wherever you are.

Perhaps the wildness of the dark added to the sense of being freed or revived that came over me as I drove to Manistee to take that first step back into the water. I left fairly late, at almost ten, but I was more than alert. Exhilarated, even. Rainshowers had just passed, and as I drove through the Manistee National Forest on M-55, I caught a whiff of the sweet, marshy smell of the damp woods, bark and grasses releasing their scent into the mist. (Forget new mown lawns--if the color green has an aroma, that's it.) Ignoring the chill, I rolled down my window to get more.

It was after one when I got to the trailer. I hadn't hooked up its utilities in years and at that moment I wasn't in the mood to relearn. Powered by the trailer's decrepit battery, the overhead lights gave off an amberish glow that just sufficed for unrolling my sleeping bag. Exhaustion quickly dispelled the excitement of the trip and I slept.

Shortly after noon the next day, once I'd hooked up the trailer's gas, electric, and sewer and laid in a few supplies, I sat at the kitchen table to begin working on that sales report. I actually managed a couple of hours before the temptation to go fishing became too great. Consulting a county map I'd picked up from Triple A, I set off for a stretch of upper Bear Creek, hoping for the kind of small, brushy water on which I'd cut my trouting teeth.

And I found that: a clear, narrow stream flanked by alders, dotted with brushpiles and downed logs. I was encouraged in spite of the dismal weather. The skies were overcast, the temperature was in the forties, and wind howled through the tops of the pines. I saw a better omen in the slight stain left in the water by last night's rains. On the stream I'd grew up fishing, rain always put trout on the feed. It surely does on Bear Creek too, but I either missed the bite or couldn't find it. I dragged worms and spinners through the holes, beneath the logs, and around rocks for a couple of hours, but connected only with a small trout that skittered on the surface for moment before slipping free.

I was frustrated---and freezing. Jeans underneath vinyl waders weren't adequate protection against the chilly water (and I was unable to buy longjohns anywhere in Manistee that week. I had to settle for wearing tight jeans under baggier ones.)
I didn't have to deliberate long over whether to head back to the trailer. There, I heated a bowl of Dinty Moore stew and consoled myself with the thought of four more days to turn things around. The realization sunk in that if I wanted to become a proficient angler once again, I had a long way to go.

Proof Positive of Insanity

2009-01-15T11:10:00.003-05:00

Been cold here lately...single digits during the day, just below zero at night. Some places are colder still. Tuesday night I checked the weather for on of my favorite localities, Kenton MI, and saw they had -19. I actually envied them. I love a good hard winter. But I'll admit I did not enjoy skating home over 40 miles of black ice last night.