On many U.P. rivers, access is limited and generally rustic. No log stairways leading down to the water, as you find on many popular streams in Lower Michigan, and usually, very few paths that slope gently to a clearing along the bank. This means you may have to walk a ways from an "access point" to find a spot where you can easily enter the water, where you're not gazing down at the water from a bank five feet above it, or blocked from the stream by a phalanx of timber. At the middle branch access point pictured in pt. 1, there is only one location to enter the water easily, which requires a walk of a couple hundred yards downstream from where your first encounter the river. There was some water upstream from the access point I wanted to work, preferably while moving downstream. Just up from the entry, I found a relatively open high bank that looked angled enough to walk down without much difficulty. I took a few steps down, then promptly lost my footing and fell on my backside, smashing my right elbow against a large stone on the way down. It couldn't have hurt more if someone had hammered it.
My first fear was that I'd broken my arm. But it moved normally, and nothing felt out of place. The pain actually subsided fairly quickly. I did have a couple of nasty scrapes on the elbow and forearm, but they weren't bleeding badly. I washed them with my water bottle and daubed them with some of my emergency toilet paper. My rod was intact (I broke one when I took a similar tumble along the Pere Marquette a few years ago), as was my wooden net, which I had landed smack on. Despite the lingering soreness and a little blood seepage, I decided to fish as planned. I didn't get so much as a tap, and after a couple of hours, I headed back to the motel to dress my wounds and finish breakfast.
I didn't rush back onto the river, and the condition of my right arm had nothing to do with. After the last couple of days, I had become pretty disillusioned about these rivers (although as commenter Matt reported below, there obviously is some good fishing there if you know how to go about it). The prospect of a long, hot afternoon on unproductive water was not in the least inviting. Perhaps instead of fishing, I could drive around the country a bit, exploring a few waterfalls and maybe scouting some grouse cover.
Then I remembered a small creek I had seen. Sometimes smaller, more obsure waters hold relatively unmolested trout that are ready to play when others aren't. This creek had looked open enough to fly fish when I'd seen it from the road. I had nothing to lose by trying it, so I ate an early lunch, and hit the road, eagerly in the hunt once again. I think that for anglers, there is no discouragement so heavy that it can't be lifted by the prospect of new water.
I took me a while to find an access point other than the highway bridge (if you're going off the beaten path, you might as well go all the way), but as soon as I got down to the creek I was certain I'd made a good choice. I saw feeding fish in the first pool I came to, in sight of my car, actually. Of course the place was so pretty that merely exploring it would be worth the trip.
Those unsophisticated small stream trout may not shy away from a fly, but a false step or any unnecessary disturbance of the water can put them down in a hurry. Maybe out of excitement, my first two casts were a bit clumsy, and I put the fish down. I was sure I would find more feeders, and moved on up, creeping and squatting to keep out of the trouts' sight. In the very next pool I saw another feeder and quickly took a 7" rainbow with a small adams. This was a sign of very good things to come. Whether risers were visible or not, practially every pool contained rainbows ready to jump on my fly. The result was the same with the adams, a royal wulff, a stimulator, and a blue wing olive, natural versions of which were hatching steadily by the end of the afternoon. I landed 8 'bows that were 10-11", which, by the standards of this trip, constituted nonstop trophy action. Here's a representative sample:
At one point in the afternoon, the sound of rushing water seemed to grow deeper. I waded around the next bend and saw this:
If I were very ambitious, I would have cut off my dry fly and tied on some streamer with a half pound or so of tungsten beads on the shank and plumbed the pool beneath this waterfall in search of a true bruiser. But I'd been spoiled with the eager little ones, so I just snapped the photo and worked my way back downstream.
The afternoon had raised my spirits considerably. I celebrated by partaking of the Friday fish fry at U.P. Chuck's in Kenton (a somewhat unfortunate name that does no justice to their cooking), then returning to the middle branch above Agate Falls to finish out my trip. Along the way, I stopped in the village of Trout Creek (the only place within 5 miles of my motel that had a payphone) to call Kristine. TC has always seemed like one of the better maintained and friendlier towns in that area. They reinforce this impression with this display at the turnoff from the highway into town.
How could I not daydream about settling there?
Well, maybe not after I remember the fishing on the Ontonogan. At dusk, the spinner flight was much lighter than it had been the previous nights, though the feeding was about the same--sparse. I took a 9" brookie at the first hole I worked. As I approached the next, I heard what sounded like a much better fish take a fly no more than about twelve feet to my left. I crouched down immediately, not wanting to spook him. I feared I might have, since I didn't hear him again during the fifteen or so casts I made over his lie--"casts" in this case being wrist flicks with a couple of feet of fly line out from my rod. Interesting that while fly fishermen aspire to make long graceful casts, actually catching fish, especially at this time of year, often comes down to a dap in the dark.
While I blew on my now sodden sulfur spinner and pondered my next move, the fish I'd been stalking fed again, so I immediately tossed the fly in his direction. This time there was no hesitation. He smacked it, though when I felt his resistance, I was disappointed. He didn't have any more weight to him than the 6 inchers I'd been overrun with much of the week. But sometimes a little fish can make a big splash. I hauled him in with mechanical strips of the line, but when he was about five feet away, he made an explosive splash and ran hard for the other side of the river. Not so little as he'd let on, he took all the loose line I had out and a bit more from my reel. The fight didn't go on long, but in the course of it, the fish must have danced over every square inch of that pool, wriggling, skittering, half in and half out of the water. In such instances, I wonder why brook trout don't get more respect as fighters. They don't leap like rainbows and they don't have the brute strength of browns, but for sheer spasticity they have no equal. They're little aquatic berserkers. This is as true in the hand as in the drink. After unhooking him I held him up for a photo (the fish measured 12" , not bad at all for a brookie ), but before I had the camera out, he flopped out of my grasp. This suggests a good reason, aside from companionship, to find a fishing partner--I need someone to snap pictures while I hold fish.
I heard a couple of isolated rises after that fish gave me the slip, but I couldn't pinpoint them. Figuring the fishing was unlikely to get better at this point, and wanting to rise early for tomorrow's trip home, I decided to pack it in. I was grateful for a relatively good day after the frustrations of Wednesday and Thursday. I was glad also to have finally had a few days of solid fishing time in an area I've enjoyed hiking in for several years. I'm sure I could have caught more fish much closer to home, but I would have regretted not having had a chance to fish there. When I think about the fishing I still want to do on this earth, I find myself thinking less about the fish, large or otherwise, I want to catch, and more about the places where I want to fish. As places to fish go, the Ontonogan system is trophy class.
Tags: Fishing; Fly Fishing
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