Manistee Trip, 5/31-6/2

When my father kept a trailer at Manistee, we went up there fairly often, either together or by ourselves. He was up there every other week, actually. Since he gave up the trailer in 2000, I haven't been back very often, aside from a trip or two a year with him. These days, going to Manistee feels like returning to a place I used to live; visiting a strange town where you happen to know all the streets.

We usually fish Manistee lake (a drowned river mouth just upstream from the river's outlet into Lake Michigan) for bass, pike, or panfish, sometimes venturing up into the lower Manistee river. Our favorite thing to do up there is cast topwater lures for bass early in the morning. There are two locations on the lake where we ususally do well with this, but neither produced well this week. We did manage a handful of bass, mostly sublegal. We did better bait fishing for panfish. Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, we caught nice messes of bluegill, rock bass, and perch. As I forgot my cooler, my dad took all of them home.

After he left on Friday afternoon, I drove east to explore the Clam River near Cadillac, which is reputedly a good brook trout stream. It looks like one, clear and gently flowing with deep bankside runs, lots of brush, and deep pockets hidden among large hummocks of weeds. Spider webs along the stream had brown drakes caught in them, but there was no insect activity while I was there, roughly 3:30-6:00. I fished a number of attractor dries, as well as nymphs and soft hackle wets, but landed only three dinky brook trout. I thought seriously about staying until nightfall, but the temperature was cooling fast, and I had a busy Saturday ahead of me. Instead, I made a mental note to return to the Clam when I had more time to explore. For looks alone, I think it merits another visit.