The Great White North

So last Monday I was in one of my favorite northern Michigan taverns getting a bowl of chili before hitting the river when I overheard a stunning bit of sociological analysis. To be precise, several locals at the bar were advancing the proposition that African Americans had ruined Flint and Saginaw (never mind dependency on a single industry, the globalizing economy, NAFTA) and threatened to ruin the entire country at some point in the future. "That's why I moved up here," announced one man at the bar. (There are next to no black residents in most parts of northern Michigan.) Another, a former Flint resident, noted that one graduate of a distressed high school who had gone on to play in the NBA donated money to his alma mater to rebuild the track and the football field, which the school itself couldn't afford to repair, leading to a concession that "there are a few good ones." The aforementioned refugee shook his head in response and muttered, trailing off, "most of them, though..." A few others at the bar chimed in with like sentiments.

No one attempted to draw me into the conversation, thank God. Anything I'd have been likely to say likely wouldn't have gone over well, though if I had tried to say something, I'm not sure where I would have begun. My primary response was less indignation than disorientation. Whenever I hear these kinds of conversations I get the feeling I've slid back fifty years, or at least back to my childhood, when family gatherings sometimes came with a dose of those attitudes. I tend to operate with the assumption that mindsets like those of my barmates no longer figure broadly in American society. Certainly I don't share the attitudes displayed in the bar on Monday, nor do they arise in most of my day to day life. But sooner or later they do reappear and diminish my illusions of barriers falling, of affinities spreading.

I've singled out northerners in this post, though truth be told, you don't have search too widely in southern Michigan, or anywhere else I've been, to hear frankly racist comments. This isn't peculiar to or concentrated in rural areas, either: I've run into more racist chatter in suburban Detroit than anywhere else (though usually it's in more subtle, coded forms there). Even liberal Ann Arbor, as some black acquaintances at my church tell me, isn't the haven of inclusion and tolerance it makes itself out to be. For all the real progress in racial equality made in the last half century, it sometimes seems that this country is still saturated in racial antagonisms.

I'm not claiming sainthood in the area of race relations or any special bond with the oppressed and marginalized. But I know enough, as I think most Americans do, not to blow on the embers of the problem, not to keep committing the sins of the past. In various media outlets, self-appointed dominant culture scolds step forward occasionally to admonish blacks, latinos, whoever, to stop blaming racism for their problems since it has been vanquished by civil rights legislation and the examples of minority individuals who have "made it" despite experiences of prejudice and poverty. I would actually agree insofar as I believe no one, of any background, should passively submit to the limits of their situation. But if blacks and other minorities are a more that bit skeptical of arguments that full acceptance in American life is theirs for the taking, I'd have a hard time arguing they don't have reasons.

Au Sable/Manistee, 5/4-5/6

Last Thursday my doctor told me that whatever had laid me low a couple weeks back (see previous post) was almost certainly not heart related. He said it likely stemmed from one of a number of abdominal disorders, though this couldn't be determined without further testing, and that would be most productive while the symptoms were active. This wasn't entirely comforting, though he did say that none of these potential problems were life threatening, and he told me there was no reason I shouldn't go fishing last weekend. So on Sunday I drove to Grayling hoping to get in on the late end of the Hendrickson hatch and hammer a few early morning browns on streamers. I did both, albeit minimally.

I decided to float the north branch on Sunday afternoon. When I set off around 1, there were black caddis fluttering like confetti over the water and a few hendricksons on the wing blowing by from time to time. That looked promising, though an angler I passed just below the 612 bridge told me he hadn't seen a rising fish on the river in two days. After floating for about half an hour I did see one and pulled over to fish the log-strewn slot where it has risen. I cast a black caddis dry with a beadhead caddis emerger on the dropper into the far edge of the slot and on the second drift the dry plunged beneath the water and I hauled up. I felt shaking on the end of the line. The fish was no dink, and I had a few anxious moments steering him around the many snags in the run, but I did get him to the net and had the pleasure of holding the largest brook trout I've caught in a couple years-a 12 incher. No trophy, but certainly above average for the north branch. It was a photo worthy fish, but as I unhooked him I saw another rise in the run and turned him loose so I could get back in the game. Alas, the fish won that round.

One quirk of the north branch is what I call the "3:30 caddis quickie meal." I think that a good share of those black caddis you see flying about emerge during a brief period beginning roughly at 3:30 each day. Quite often on the north branch, you'll see hordes of caddis in the air but no fish feeding. Then, around 3:30 fish will begin rising and they will take black caddis dries freely for 10 or 15 minutes. Then they will stop. While emergences of black caddis usually concentrate around certain times, I haven't seen them as predictable, and as predictably brief, on any other river. The quickie meal occurred again last Sunday, and while it lasted I caught four brooks of 8-10" and a few littler ones.

After that, I floated two hours without a nibble in any of the places I stopped to cast. When I got to the landing at Dam 4, a man asked me how I'd done and I gave him the story. He told me he'd done the same, but without having to row. There's the celebrated brotherhood among anglers for you.

Not a landmark day, but it would be the best of the trip. I was on the mainstream ripping streamers early Monday morning and managed to turn 4 without getting a solid hookup. The great accomplishment of the morning was managing to avoid getting knocked off my feet by the current and swept down to Mio. The mainstream was running high and fast, and the usually gentle currents around my favorite streamer runs were vicious. I had planned to float part of the mainstream Monday, but the water looked like too much for my boat handle, or rather, too much for me to keep my boat out of the lumber. So it was back to the placid north branch, where I waded a stretch above where I'd floated and did next to nothing. This time there was no 3:30 quickie meal, and a light hendrickson emergence went unnoticed by the fish. I picked up a few dinks fishing runs blind and that was all.

Tuesday morning the mainstream was slightly less menacing--wading back upstream I only had to stop to rest every seven or eight steps instead of every three. The fish would treat me better too, with two fair browns coming to hand besides a few other hookups and slashes. I decided to fish the Manistee in the afternoon and had essentially the same experience as I had on the north branch Monday. By six o'clock my first trout adventure of the year began the customary wind-down sequence of trips to Grayling: sandwich at Spikes, coffee to go at 7-11, I-75.

I plan to be up north again in another month. But before then I expect I'll be sneaking off the Cloud Creek for an evening. Stay tuned.