Fishing report (long)
Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI
>I took a day off work Friday, originally intending to go out to Brown's auction, which I have wanted to do for some time. But I have also wanted to spend a weekend on the Manistee river for some time, fishing for steelhead. The steelhead is an anodromous rainbow trout, planted in the Great Lakes sometime in the sixties I think. It is a multi-million dollar business now, with hundreds of thousands of eggs hatched every year, and thousands of sporting goods shops and guide services and charter fishing boats making their living off of the steelhead and salmon plants. There is some natural reproduction of the fish, but a lot of the rivers they are planted in either get to warm or get fished so hard that a lot of the egss don't survive.
So looking at a nine hour drive to Browns auction at $2.25 per gallon, or a 4 hour drive to the Manistee river, and not having much tool money anyway, it was a no brainer for me to head north. The weather was great spring weather, and I launched the boat Friday morning right around ten after moseying up there enjoying the ride and stopping at a few sporting goods shops to check out the tackle. I don't have a fly rod heavy enough to handle these fish right now, so was using a spinning rod, and drifting spawn bags and waxies on the bottom. The water was extremely high; I am used to fishing this river in the fall, so knew where some of the deeper holes and channels were, and set myself up to drift through channels near logs that you couldn't see now but I knew they were there. In the fall I have to choose my way carefully through the channels so I don't knock the bottom off the boat, but now the water was about 2 feet higher, so it was much more pleasant to cruise the river.
It was Friday afternoon before I had my first hit. The steelhead is much different from the salmon; they are not dying when they spawn, and are a smaller and much quicker fish. I usually fish with 8 lb. test leader for salmon, and had gone down to a 6 pound test leader for steelhead. I have set my drag a lot and usually just pull on the line at the spool to see how heavy the drag is set, and set it accordingly Friday morning. Well, this fish hit and took off like a senior higher schooler let out for spring break. It came thrashing to the surface, head shaking and started down the river, and with a snap, crackle, pop, was gone. I had set the drag too tight, and with very little time to react had been april fooled by a fish. A few hours later in a different hole, the line went slack right at the end of the drift as I started reeling in, and I made another amateur mistake when that fish took off; I never set the hook. As the line started screaming off down the river, I was about ready to pull the anchor and start after the fish when it turned and headed up stream and shortly thereafter the line went slack. I pull in a perfectly good empty hook, thinking it through and realizing I had never set the hook; foiled again!
Saturday dawned crisp and clear, a lovely spring day. There were more boats on the water than there are during any other time of the year as far as I know. After eating a too big but delicious breakfast at a local diner I got one of the last parking spaces in a very big boat launching area, and headed downstream. The hole where I had planned on hanging out most of the day had a boat parked in it, so I went downstream a little further and bided my time. They eventually left, and I moved in. Here was a spot where there was a nice deep channel beside a very big log next to the bank. This tree has been there for years, and it has a very large hole washed into the river bottom right at the end of the tree, and the fish will lay on the bottom a lot of times right in the branches of the tree. I started drifting waxies through the channel, carefully checking my drag first. It took a few hours, but I finally had that movement on the end of the line that makes your heart rate increase to dangerous levels. I made sure and set the hook this time, and ended up landing a nice male steelhead after a brief run downstream chasing him. Not real easy to do in a boat by yourself, but it was doable. I ended up deciding to keep him for Sunday dinner, so I have some very large filets in the fridge right now after a pleasant drive home yesterday evening.
Now you have the whole story, whether you wanted it or not; that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.