Fishing report (OT)
Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI
>I worked most of the week on a project that required figuring materials and labor costing for about 15 different pieces of furniture, which included doing design work and cutlists for a number of the pieces, plus a lot of my normal work load. 11 hour days in front of a computer looking at I am not sure how many thousands of numbers. Friday night I loaded up the boat and set the alarm for 4:30 am.
I awoke with numbers running through my head, thinking about getting up and getting to work. Then my heart did this little extra beat, may have skipped a beat, and suddenly I was wide awake; I was going steelhead fishing. I was heading north, so I put on three layers of clothing and made a pot of coffee before going out the door. Everything was ready to go and I just hopped in the van with the boat attached and hit the road.
It is a fairly long drive to the Manistee river at Tippy Dam from my house, usually takes about 2 cups of coffee and a Dr Pepper to get there. I was about half an hour north of Grand Rapids before the sun awoke enough for me to see my surroundings. We had some snow at our place on Thursday, but none stuck on the ground. Here, there was a few inches of snow over everything, and as the sun rose it made a very pleasant scene. I drove north to Cadillac and then went west to the little town of Wellston. Wellston is out in the sticks. There may not be any residents there; I am not sure, but I imagine there are some. There are three or four motels, little places that are smaller than most modern houses, two sporting goods stores, a grocery store, and three country restaurants. A package of 2 AAA batteries in the local grocery store will cost you almost $4. If your headlamp dies and you need 4 batteries, it will cost you $8. I stop for breakfast here because I like the atmosphere. American fries with two over easy eggs and wheat toast and I am ready to hit the river.
The river below Tippy dam is a medium sized river. The bottom is mostly gravel and is very pleasant to fish. It is funny how a river changes very slowly. You can get to know it real well, and then you will notice small changes from one year to the next. But mostly it stays the same. Pulling up to put my boat in the water is like coming home. I went down river a little ways to a spot I had been thinking about during my drive up. I saw a steelhead jumping as I went down the river, and as I turned the boat to go up river and position it for fishing I saw a nice steelhead flashing into the hole behind the gravel bar. I figured I had probably spooked it away permanently, but found out I hadn't. I had been drifting through the hole with a spawn bag on the end of my fly rod set up with a chuck & duck rig for about an hour when he hit. Shooting line with a fly rod is different, and I have just started this year. The line being cold tended to have more memory, so it coiled more as I stripped it into the boat, and I hade been having some problems with it coiling around the reel. When the fish hit, it didn't take me long to realize I had one coil of line around my reel handle, and three seconds later I had the line clear and was ready to fight the fish. But three seconds is a long time for a steelhead; this was his chance at freedom, and he was already under the log right beside my boat, and I felt the last lunge as he took off and snapped the line. There are not a lot of steelhead in the river during the winter; they don't spawn until spring, but some will come in and winter in the river, gorging themsleves on the salmon eggs in the fall. I figured that was my one shot at a good fish, and so it turned out to be. The cast and drift is very pleasant, and the environment and weather was fantastic. A very nice day. I fished till the sun was dropping down behind the trees then drove home.