Hex 2015

Trout

Summertime, And the livin' is easy, Fish are jumpin'

Our new baby stroller works best on paved trails, so the family and I headed up the road to one of the small towns north of us. A live blues band was playing and Emmy got to do some dancing. Did a little recon work while we were there. Lots of browns and a few large resident rainbows trying to head up stream, maybe in search of cooler headwaters?

Panorama of the Dam site - Where can I swing a fly?

Mr. Brown

The following are some animated gifs...

These guys...

Pere Marquette - First Day of Summer

Group fishing trip on the PM...lots of fun. Really made me want to camp/fish. This 12 inch Brown Trout took a stripped "Bad Hair Day" streamer in black with copper flashabou. Still using a #4 Gammy B10s for the hook and getting that same deep gill hook that I've been getting on bass from time to time. Going to start experimenting with some different hook configurations.

No real bug action and the streamer bite was weak until just before dark.  At dusk things seemed to turn on like a switch.  I tried  mousing with the white bellied mouse, but didn't have my headlamp, so I cut it short.  I think mousing or even going down river to try some Hex fishing would have been a way to go for tonight, but I ran out of time.

Gray Drake Spinner Fall - Paying Dues

Real McCoy's Gray Drake Spinner

Real Gray Drake Spinner

Here they are

Fresh from the hatchery, must have mistaken my fly for a pellet.

End of Spring Steelhead Season 2013

I'm officially done chasing chrome until the summer runs starts...next month.  I hope to hit the St. Joe for the first time this summer.  On my last trip searching for steelhead, I caught this obese little brown on a swung Kevin Fennstra fly - the psycho sculpin. I was using a bass/bullet weight to get it down fast.

I'm surprised by how many of these aggressive little  10"-12" browns there are in the lower Rouge right now.  Imagine if they made a section catch and release only...we'd have a bunch of big aggressive browns in a few years.

Fishing - May 12th, 2013

I got on the Rouge River just after 7am.  I was looking for chrome, but almost instantly had some Rouge River gold on the end of my line.




















 I fished for a few hours and must have rolled a dozen or more browns, but only ended up bringing two to hand.  So goes streamer fishing especially when you're looking for bigger fish.

There were still Steelhead in the river, some kids fishing downstream from me hooked two and brought in one. They were using Mepps spinners.  I saw one splashing by a shallow log jam and gave it a few swings, but it wasn't interested in playing, so I moved on.

This streamer ended up being my best fly all weekend.  Both on the Flat for smallmouth and browns on the Rouge.  It's just a little white Arctic Fox, silver flashabou, pearl crystal flash topped with some peakcock herl on a size 6 Gamakatsu B10s.  I used a fishskull head, but stuck eyes on it from the next size larger head.  I'm thinking this hook isn't a good match for the smaller browns on the Rouge.  The gap is too large.  I missed tons of fish and I didn't like the way it hooked the ones I did land.  It was a little too damaging.