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.
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