MIBowhunter
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Fly-fishing still good in the fall
October 23, 2003
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
Wading up a small stream, I was beginning to wallow in the melancholy that the last day of trout season brings when the words from an old comedy routine popped into my head:
"Come to me, my melancholy baby. . . . I called her that because she had a head like a melon and a face like a collie." Some words are like that. You think of them, and the association that springs up is anything but the dictionary definition.
Which in this case was good, because there was nothing to feel melancholy about. In the week before the end of the regular trout season, brook and brown trout were hitting flies like it was May. Even better, the big hatches were over, and the fish weren't fussy about what an angler threw at them because they were seeing a smorgasbord of insects all day long.
Most of the insects that were hatching were small. I fished from two to four hours on four straight days and caught a dozen to 30 fish each day, most on No. 18-22 blue-winged olives and elk hair caddis that are old standbys at this time of year.
But the fish also took a No. 14 hair-wing Roberts drake, a No. 10 Michigan hopper, a No. 16 yellow-bodied hair-wing caddis and a No. 14 white royal Wulff. The royal Wulff is a pretty good match for the white Ephoron leukon mayflies that will continue to pop off on many streams until the first hard freeze.
If you're going on a hunting trip for grouse or deer in the next couple of weeks, take a fly or spinning rod along. The regular trout season is over, but dozens of streams throughout Michigan have extended seasons, and the unusually mild weather we should see for the next week or two can produce some of the most enjoyable fishing of the year. That's especially true of sunny days, when the temperature gets into the 50s. To find open streams, all you need do is look at the maps in the state "Inland Trout and Salmon Guide."
Every day warm enough for flies to hatch, trout will be surface-feeding until the water temperature drops below about 45.
There's one caveat: The water everywhere is low and clear. I've always liked long leaders, but in fall I usually go a foot or two longer than usual and also use 5X or 6X tippet. With a six-foot, 2-weight mini-rod that's great for brushy creeks, I go with a 10-foot leader. If I'm fishing with an eight- to nine-foot rod in a bigger river, the leader is 12-14 feet long. In the clear, low-water conditions we're experiencing, the best thing you can do is follow the advice Charles Cotton gave us more than 300 years ago: "Fish fine and far off."
On a favorite stream near my home, the water is as low as I've seen it in a dozen years. As I waded along on the last day before the creek closed until next April, the high-water line on the banks was often above my shoulders, and I could wade hip-deep through places where I would have floated my hat last spring.
Some of the best trout lies, places where I had caught the best fish in years past, were now above water, exposing secret tangles of downed timber, tree roots and undercut banks that made them perfect hides in higher water.
I know this creek intimately. For years I've been able to creep along and predict with a high degree of accuracy not just the places where I could expect a strike, but the numbers and size of fish I could expect from them.
But not this day. Because the water was so low, the fish had moved from their usual lies and often surprised me with their new positions. Many had moved out from the cover of timber and banks to hold in the few deep slots and pools at midstream, especially where riffly water gave some cover from above.
I reached the end of a half-mile stretch between access points and sat on the bank, deciding whether to quit or try to fish up to the next access before the daylight gave out. Just then a fish rose 20 feet upstream, and I waded out and put the fly over it.
It took on the second cast, a nine-inch brook trout whose fall spawning colors were so rich and brilliant it seemed to glow in my hands. Looking at the little trout's red and lavender spots, sunset-orange belly and red-and-black fins edged with white, I tried to think of anything in nature more beautiful.
I couldn't, so I slipped him back in the water, climbed out of the river and began the hike back to the truck. It was enough to know that the memory of that brookie will stay with me through the seven months until I can fish the stream again.
October 23, 2003
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
Wading up a small stream, I was beginning to wallow in the melancholy that the last day of trout season brings when the words from an old comedy routine popped into my head:
"Come to me, my melancholy baby. . . . I called her that because she had a head like a melon and a face like a collie." Some words are like that. You think of them, and the association that springs up is anything but the dictionary definition.
Which in this case was good, because there was nothing to feel melancholy about. In the week before the end of the regular trout season, brook and brown trout were hitting flies like it was May. Even better, the big hatches were over, and the fish weren't fussy about what an angler threw at them because they were seeing a smorgasbord of insects all day long.
Most of the insects that were hatching were small. I fished from two to four hours on four straight days and caught a dozen to 30 fish each day, most on No. 18-22 blue-winged olives and elk hair caddis that are old standbys at this time of year.
But the fish also took a No. 14 hair-wing Roberts drake, a No. 10 Michigan hopper, a No. 16 yellow-bodied hair-wing caddis and a No. 14 white royal Wulff. The royal Wulff is a pretty good match for the white Ephoron leukon mayflies that will continue to pop off on many streams until the first hard freeze.
If you're going on a hunting trip for grouse or deer in the next couple of weeks, take a fly or spinning rod along. The regular trout season is over, but dozens of streams throughout Michigan have extended seasons, and the unusually mild weather we should see for the next week or two can produce some of the most enjoyable fishing of the year. That's especially true of sunny days, when the temperature gets into the 50s. To find open streams, all you need do is look at the maps in the state "Inland Trout and Salmon Guide."
Every day warm enough for flies to hatch, trout will be surface-feeding until the water temperature drops below about 45.
There's one caveat: The water everywhere is low and clear. I've always liked long leaders, but in fall I usually go a foot or two longer than usual and also use 5X or 6X tippet. With a six-foot, 2-weight mini-rod that's great for brushy creeks, I go with a 10-foot leader. If I'm fishing with an eight- to nine-foot rod in a bigger river, the leader is 12-14 feet long. In the clear, low-water conditions we're experiencing, the best thing you can do is follow the advice Charles Cotton gave us more than 300 years ago: "Fish fine and far off."
On a favorite stream near my home, the water is as low as I've seen it in a dozen years. As I waded along on the last day before the creek closed until next April, the high-water line on the banks was often above my shoulders, and I could wade hip-deep through places where I would have floated my hat last spring.
Some of the best trout lies, places where I had caught the best fish in years past, were now above water, exposing secret tangles of downed timber, tree roots and undercut banks that made them perfect hides in higher water.
I know this creek intimately. For years I've been able to creep along and predict with a high degree of accuracy not just the places where I could expect a strike, but the numbers and size of fish I could expect from them.
But not this day. Because the water was so low, the fish had moved from their usual lies and often surprised me with their new positions. Many had moved out from the cover of timber and banks to hold in the few deep slots and pools at midstream, especially where riffly water gave some cover from above.
I reached the end of a half-mile stretch between access points and sat on the bank, deciding whether to quit or try to fish up to the next access before the daylight gave out. Just then a fish rose 20 feet upstream, and I waded out and put the fly over it.
It took on the second cast, a nine-inch brook trout whose fall spawning colors were so rich and brilliant it seemed to glow in my hands. Looking at the little trout's red and lavender spots, sunset-orange belly and red-and-black fins edged with white, I tried to think of anything in nature more beautiful.
I couldn't, so I slipped him back in the water, climbed out of the river and began the hike back to the truck. It was enough to know that the memory of that brookie will stay with me through the seven months until I can fish the stream again.
