Most of the haul came yesterday in a golden stretch of midafternoon on the river. From about 1:30-4 we were hooking up almost constantly in a long, sweeping hole where a sand bar pinches the river's main channel to about 15 feet--this in a river 200 feet across. We caught or at least hooked about everything that inhabits or traverses that part of the river, from sheepshead to summer steelhead. Our commonest catch was smallmouth bass (my old friends from the Huron). In the last 15 years, I think I've caught perhaps three or four smallmouths on the Manistee, and I had that many in half an hour Wednesday.
The hot bait? Nightcrawlers on harnesses sporting gaudy spinners--chartreuse, blaze orange, fluorescent green, or bright, glinty silver. We held these near the bottom with a one oz. bell sinker sliding freely on our main line above a barrel swivel, a 16" 8 lb. leader between the swivel and the crawler harness.
No, I don't flyfish all the time. This trip kind of inspired me to do more non-fly fishing. I always liked to do it, but became focused almost exclusively on it once I started about 12 years ago. On trout or smallmouth streams, I could reach good water without the aid of a boat. And there was so much to learn. Still is.
I'm thinking I'll have to look into some kind of watercraft, probably inflatable for the time being. So many lakes around here, at least some of which must hold decent fish. Another project ( or should I say compulsion?).
I do have a few trout tales from this trip, which I'll get to shortly, along with more highlights of the warmwater expeditions.
I'm becoming acutely aware that this season is winding down. There's more good fishing left this year, but also a school year to get launched, and home projects that need to be finished before it gets too cold. And that's not far from now. Any doubts I had about that vanished this morning as I noticed that maples along M-55 east of Manistee were already showing flashes of red.
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