Cloud Creek Closer

It's been nearly a month without a post. The semester has been a busy one already, plus, weird as this sounds given that I teach writing and literature for a living, I've developed an aversion to writing. I shrink, go numb at the thought of it. It's about as appealing as touching a corpse. I don't know what to make of that.

Don't get the wrong impression: life overall is pretty good. At least the part lived away from pen and keyboard.

I'm biting the bullet today since I do have a fishing report to offer, if not a very inspiring one. I'd originally planned to be up north now observing the end of trout season with a cast and blast weekend somewhere near Gaylord. But with money tight right now I thought I'd best hold off. As a consolation, I've indulged in some little local cast and blast. Yesterday I went to the Pinckney Rec Area hoping to scare up a grouse in some decent looking cover I scouted out this summer. None to be found, though I did see a few squirrels. Maybe I should hunt those.

I hadn't fished at Cloud Creek this season, and having always wondered how it fished in the fall, I headed there to try for my last trout of the year. After I pulled in at my favorite access (seen in the photo above), I strolled to the creek to check out the water and see if any insects were coming off. Some BWOs and tan caddis were winging about, but the water was running fast, high, and brown--this when we haven't had rain (at least where I am, 50 miles away)in a week and a half, at least. Having driven all that way, though, I felt like I had to give it a try. It could actually be a decent day for streamer fishing, I thought. I suited up and waded in, and for the first twenty yards or so the wading wasn't too hard. The water never got more than knee deep. I cast a coneheaded sculpin along the edges, hoping to draw a big brown from under the thatching of alders. When I approached a section that gets waist deep at normal water levels, I figured I could pass around it if I hugged the bank, but the water reached waist level while I was still 10 yards upstream from the really deep hole, and I was struggling to stay on my feet. Sometimes I curse the dense brush along the banks of Cloud Creek, but today I was glad I had something to hang on to.

It would be better to close my season early than to fight the water all day, I figured, and trudged back to my car. I was disappointed with the experience, but not sorry I came out. Outdoor time on clear autumn days, spent with rod, gun, camera, or picnic basket, is good time.

Five whole paragraphs! I haven't written that much, anywhere, since my last post here. And it only took two glasses of wine.