Spots of Time, pt. III--Pere Marquette/Au Sable, 5/11-13

Those predictions for "numerous thunderstorms" overnight last Thursday were dead-on. As in Baldwin the night before, thunder boomed and lightning flashed long into the night. The rain fell even harder, as if the clouds were dropping lead balls instead of water. But again my tent kept it out and at some point I fell asleep in spite of the ruckus outside. In the morning, the skies were still cloudy, but the rain had stopped, and the radio assured me that little more was expected that day.

The Au Sable mainstream was running dark--not as dark as the PM had been the day before, but still murkier than I'd like. Wading the evening before had been difficult in spots, and it would be worse today. I expected the upper north branch would be clear and easier to wade, so I struck camp and set out for Love lls. Of course, I detoured through Grayling to pick up one of Goodale's fantastic cinnamon rolls tocap off my lunch under the pavillion of the Lovells township park.

I began working down the north branch from the Twin Bridges a little after two. It was cool compared to the previous days--mid 60s, maybe--and overcast. Not many bugs on the wing--a handful of caddis, some stray hendrickson spinners, and every now and then a henny dun on the water. I threw assorted nymphs and emergers and caught some of the dinky brook trout that abound in that stretch.

Toward three o'clock good numbers of caddis and hendricksons took to the air and more hendrickson duns started to drift by. But nothing was rising yet, so I decided to walk back upstream fish a fast run where I had had a few strikes but no firm hookups one more time. I switched to a black gnat wet, which during the caddis hatch sometimes outproduces the emergers I'd been using. I made a cast that swung the fly in front of one of the log trout shelters put up by TU or whoever when I got my first hit. This fish didn't come quickly skittering back to me across the surface like those I'd caught earlier. Maybe it was one of those high single or low double digit brooks that usually don't show until the hatch gets going, was my first thought. But when I pulled I didn't budge it an inch. Then along the line came several hard sharp taps--like a steelhead head shake (not a sensation I associate with the upper north branch). Holy #*&@, what have I hooked, I'm thinking. I found out quickly when, after short charges between several of the shelters, the fish heaved itself up onto the edge of one. It was an orange-bellied brown that at that moment looked longer than my arm.

It was a miracle the fish didn't actually make it over the top of that fish shelter ( I won't complain about the drag on my aging Battenkill anymore). But there was a lot of other wood in that spot and the fish was doing it dangdest to get in it. The current there was fast too. There was no way I'd land the fish on 5X where I stood. So I steered it around the timber and walked it downstream into some quiet shallow water. Once there it didn't take long to get it close to me so I reached for the net, only to have it run hard downstream toward yet another pile of timber. I chased it and once again waltzed it into safe water. There, it just bulldogged me---you know how it goes with big browns where you fight over that last 20 feet of line half a dozen times. In comes the fish, out goes the net, and sayonara trout. But eventually it came in and held long enough for me to scoop it up. I took it to the bank, cursing myself for leaving the camera in the car. At least I had my tape, so I pulled that out and measured the brown. 23 inches. Tied for my second largest stream brown, and certainly the largest caught in the middle of the afternoon on a size 16 fly.

During the fight, the hatch finally commenced and trout were feeding around me as I chased the fish all over the stream. A shame I was busy, since I'll bet some of those feeders would have gone 11", easy. (heh)

That was the only fish of (to indulge in some understatement) respectable size that day. But if you're going to catch only one, that's the kind to catch. It was a magnificent day on the water because of a few moments of tense combat with that big brown. Which was in keeping with the best parts of each day on the trip--the spate of stonefly action Wednesday, the last trout as darkness fell Thursday. Small spots of time when what this angler sought merged precisely with what the rivers offered. Yes, there were other times when I caught fish, and more fish at that, but somehow these added less to the contours of the trip as it remains in my memory. We release most of our memories as surely as we release most of our fish, and I suspect this is partly why it matters little to many fishermen whether they catch many fish or only a few. The mind does not have infinite creel space.