Sort of lapse for the past few weeks, for one simple reason: it has been hot as hell here in Michigan. We have shattered multiple daily highs (this has gotten monotonous) as well as several never been hotter at this place ever records. No rain for 6 weeks, and I have been watering yard trees to keep them alive.
This has had an insane effect on Michigan Rivers. Ultra low water, hardly any flows, and the quiet stretches have become so weed-filled that fishing is more like gardening. You hook a fish, it dives into the salad, and you wade over to clear the morass of junk on the leader and are rewarded by a green fish on the other end of the tippet. Surprisingly, water temps are warm but not like you would think because most of our rivers get some groundwater. Anyway, people do not like to read about skunk trips and a couple in a row were close. We were in the doldrums, and I was starting to dream of September and salmon.
But ...
Last weekend we found a river. A little one that was like fishing two rivers at once. The upstream portion was small and tight, and so shaded that it was cool and dark. But downstream, it made a sudden transition into a mile wide and an inch deep with all the salad fixings. The water was so low and clear that I decided to fish upstream. This turned out to be an eye opener. Mind you, smallmouth bass on the fly is not a finesse sport. Trout fishing is figure skating, smallmouth fishing is roller derby. You fling big flies, and it does not matter if you are six inches from the big rock or 6 feet because the next cast will be closer and the sloppy cast is likely to catch a fish anyway. Down and across, move down, repeat until satiated or you have just enough energy to slog back up to the access. But in a tiny stream this was an anathema. The first few casts ended up in trees until I remembered how to actually cast. I then moved along quietly, and put a small white bluegill popper close to any cover I could find. A limb sticking out from the bank, a tiny knee deep cut in an ankle-deep run, a weird deep pool the size of a bathtub that was almost isolated from all flow by the low water. Most casts were less than 30 feet, and many placed the fly in the water on the opposite side of dry exposed ground.
I took a tip from my friend Ron. He likes to fish slowly to the point where he often lags behind us as we run and gun. My approach is that if they do not want it in two or three casts then the hell with them and I will go find someone who does. He moseys along, and just keeps putting in front of them until they all decide that this must be a bugger hatch and commence feeding. Earlier that day we watched him snake half a dozen fish out of a hole that everyone else considered fishless, so I decided that this was an interesting trick and tried to emulate his approach.
I floated the popper past each cover at least 20 times, and every damned time fish would start to whack it on the 10th or 15th float. But only if it was fished on a dragless float with teeny twitches that moved the rubber legs but made no real noise. I tried a couple of pops, and constant movement but never got a hit that way. It was dead drift with a twitch or two or nothing (there is an earlier post about this technique). This was a small stream, and I expected rock bass with the occasional 6 to 10 inch fish, but was surprised by both the number and size of the smallmouth lurking in the reach. And how they could still be invisible in a foot of water. A couple of 10-12 inches, then a couple that you had to grab by the lip to land. Go figure. It was an amazing day that was more like dry fly fishing for trout, and after a while I realized that the number of fish was up there to a point where there were some bragging rights to be claimed.
This is where it gets weird. I began to wonder what had happened to my friends who had disappeared downstream, and got to the point where I thought I had better find them. I expected them to be back at the car with heat stroke, but nothing doing. So I went downstream for a big garden fest. I expected nothing because the habitat was barren, it was now hitting 90 degrees, brilliant sunshine, and they had already fished through not an hour before. Came to a place that looked like it might be worth a cast. A trench had formed along the bank, and it was at least knee deep with the rest of the river channel being barely over your boot soles. Better yet, the afternoon sun was low enough to cast a shadow line that put it in the dark. Popper goes out, and what followed was strange to say the least. There was a hit on every cast for 30 minutes, I never moved, and every fish came from an area the size of a pool table. No master angler fish, but no dinks, and the largest fish was an honest 15 inches (measured). It was as if the entire bass population of the watershed decided to gather for mass suicide. The catch rate was governed entirely by how fast you could land them on a 3x tippet and get them unhooked and back in the water. At some point, you no longer wanted or needed to catch another fish, but you had to keep fishing just to see how long this could possibly go on. It finally slowed down, but moving downstream still produced fish until I met my partners on their way back up. I asked them if they had fished that run and they had, but it only produced a few dinks because at that point it was still in the sun. Even weirder, I was darned glad I was fishing a 7 weight. Fish were fighting hard, and there was more leaping that I had seen in quite some time.Actually, one hell of a lot of leaping. I have no idea of the final tally of fish released, but it was large enough that I actually considered staying home the following weekend to paint exterior door trims. At least for a couple of minutes.
A new river, a new technique, and it was glorious. One of the best things about fly fishing is that rare moment when you just can't explain anything and simply have to accept that something worked. And the doldrums were cured. Especially after the previous trip the night beforethat ended with no fish and being lost in a buckthorn thicket while wearing shorts.
More about 7 weights next time, and why you should fish them more often than you do.And I am working on a salmon primer for those who must.
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