MIBowhunter
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A day of fishing on the Au Sable
By Herb Boldt / Associated Press
I know spring doesn’t begin until later this month, but there’s something special about fishing for trout on a fabled river -- especially when the fishing takes place on probably the nicest weather day of the year so far.
In this case the river was the famous Au Sable River below Foote Dam not far from Oscoda.
I’m not sure what the temperature was on the river, but the thermometer attached to the outside of my house stood at just above the freezing point.
The ground at the launch site was a combination of wet sand, several inches of melting snow and ice where the cars of fishermen using the location have been packing the snow down for weeks.
Three fishermen, using spawn on a small treble hook attached to a three-way swivel and weighted down with a slim cylinder-type sinker were fishing near the parking lot.
I walked down to find out how they were doing and learned one of the trio had caught the first steelhead of his life. It already was on ice so I didn’t get to look at it, but the smile on the angler’s face was as wide as a slice of watermelon.
I moved further upstream and passed three other fishermen who looked like they were fishing the same method.
The toughest part of my survey of the river was to keep from slipping in the wet and thawing snow along the riverbank.
Eventually I reached my favorite hole and set up shop. I had not planned to fish spawn, and my small pack was crowded with small lures that have been the ticket on junkets to the site over the past 15 years.
I’d tell you the name of the lure if I could remember what it was, but it proved to be a trout killer on a trip to the Upper Peninsula several years ago.
The lure, maybe less than three inches, was painted to resemble a small trout. I had caught 30 brown trout with the lure on a stream near Ontonagon.
It was sort of transparent, and three colors dominated -- red, blue and white. It was given to me to use by the editor of the newspaper in Ontonagon. He told me it was a killer.
Three of us -- the editor, Bud Morris, a traveling companion from Livonia and I -- fished the same lure for three hours. During those three hours we caught and released an estimated 45 browns. All of the fish measured about 12 inches.
However, whether I caught fish or not this week, it was nice to get out on a day when the wind was not blowing up a storm or the temperature forced me to stick my hands in my pockets every two or three casts.
My hands didn’t really get cold, but after I had cleaned a skim of ice starting to form in the guides, my hands always ended up in my pockets for several minutes to restore maximum feeling.
A grandson, Paul, describes the current weather as “tweener” weather. He’d explain it as weather that is not spring like or winter, but a combination of the two seasons.
Steelhead don’t always bust a bait but will mouth it for several seconds, and it takes sensitive hands to interpret what is going on under the water.
The half-dozen anglers fishing near me didn’t do any better than I did while I was there. It’s interesting to watch other fishermen.
They were all fishing spawn. They were casting spawn, watching the slim sinker bounce along the bottom and waiting for a pickup.
Frequently they let the bait rest on the bottom for long stretches and let it roll around on the bottom attached to a light sinker. Their system or their inactivity didn’t fare any better than mine.
My outing was enough to set the juices flowing, and I’ll catch my first steelhead of the season sooner or later, but you know the first outing of the year is always special -- whether you catch fish or not.
The first trout outing of the year has whetted my appetite. I will be on the river frequently until that first fish of the year is hooked in soft water and landed.
By Herb Boldt / Associated Press
I know spring doesn’t begin until later this month, but there’s something special about fishing for trout on a fabled river -- especially when the fishing takes place on probably the nicest weather day of the year so far.
In this case the river was the famous Au Sable River below Foote Dam not far from Oscoda.
I’m not sure what the temperature was on the river, but the thermometer attached to the outside of my house stood at just above the freezing point.
The ground at the launch site was a combination of wet sand, several inches of melting snow and ice where the cars of fishermen using the location have been packing the snow down for weeks.
Three fishermen, using spawn on a small treble hook attached to a three-way swivel and weighted down with a slim cylinder-type sinker were fishing near the parking lot.
I walked down to find out how they were doing and learned one of the trio had caught the first steelhead of his life. It already was on ice so I didn’t get to look at it, but the smile on the angler’s face was as wide as a slice of watermelon.
I moved further upstream and passed three other fishermen who looked like they were fishing the same method.
The toughest part of my survey of the river was to keep from slipping in the wet and thawing snow along the riverbank.
Eventually I reached my favorite hole and set up shop. I had not planned to fish spawn, and my small pack was crowded with small lures that have been the ticket on junkets to the site over the past 15 years.
I’d tell you the name of the lure if I could remember what it was, but it proved to be a trout killer on a trip to the Upper Peninsula several years ago.
The lure, maybe less than three inches, was painted to resemble a small trout. I had caught 30 brown trout with the lure on a stream near Ontonagon.
It was sort of transparent, and three colors dominated -- red, blue and white. It was given to me to use by the editor of the newspaper in Ontonagon. He told me it was a killer.
Three of us -- the editor, Bud Morris, a traveling companion from Livonia and I -- fished the same lure for three hours. During those three hours we caught and released an estimated 45 browns. All of the fish measured about 12 inches.
However, whether I caught fish or not this week, it was nice to get out on a day when the wind was not blowing up a storm or the temperature forced me to stick my hands in my pockets every two or three casts.
My hands didn’t really get cold, but after I had cleaned a skim of ice starting to form in the guides, my hands always ended up in my pockets for several minutes to restore maximum feeling.
A grandson, Paul, describes the current weather as “tweener” weather. He’d explain it as weather that is not spring like or winter, but a combination of the two seasons.
Steelhead don’t always bust a bait but will mouth it for several seconds, and it takes sensitive hands to interpret what is going on under the water.
The half-dozen anglers fishing near me didn’t do any better than I did while I was there. It’s interesting to watch other fishermen.
They were all fishing spawn. They were casting spawn, watching the slim sinker bounce along the bottom and waiting for a pickup.
Frequently they let the bait rest on the bottom for long stretches and let it roll around on the bottom attached to a light sinker. Their system or their inactivity didn’t fare any better than mine.
My outing was enough to set the juices flowing, and I’ll catch my first steelhead of the season sooner or later, but you know the first outing of the year is always special -- whether you catch fish or not.
The first trout outing of the year has whetted my appetite. I will be on the river frequently until that first fish of the year is hooked in soft water and landed.
