Fishing

It’s Open!

May 27, 2010

Dan Donarski is back, and this time, he’s sharing some great advice on how to make the most of bass fishing season, which opens this Saturday!

The last Saturday of May is upon us, and that brings bass fishing season! (Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair and Detroit rivers don’t open for a few weeks yet)

One of my military instructors implored our class to “Go for the bronze.” He felt that unless you were incredibly lucky that the gold was out of reach. If you achieved silver then you’d be green with envy about not getting the gold and be mad at yourself. For this fellow, if you got the bronze you got your medal, everyone behind you did not, and you should be quite happy. In military parlance, you’d be a stud.

When it comes to the bass world, going for the bronze may as well be going for the gold. Smallmouths or bronzebacks, no matter what you call them, are the studs of the Great Lakes bass scene. To be quite frank, smallies make largemouths look like pigs with fins.

For the fly rodder, particularly in the early part of the summer, smallies will give you the time of your life. Going for the bronze doesn’t get any better than right now.

It’s romance time in the world of the smallmouth bass. The fish are cruising the shallows, anywhere from two to eight feet of water, searching out the perfect matrimonial bed to do their duty and ensure that the species continues to flourish.

Fine gravel or gritty sand is what you should be looking for in these shallows. A nice break, where the water drops quickly to deeper water, makes the area even more enticing. Throw in a few good sized rocks or even boulders for added cover and you’ll be in the smallies’ version of the No-Tell Motel.

Here’s what you’re going to need to get in on this late May and June action:

A nice, fast action 7- or 8-weight rod is perfect. Attach a matching reel that has a smooth disc drag and you’re all set. In most cases with this early summer bite you’ll be just fine using a weight-forward floating line. When you do need to go deeper, you can always attach one of those short lead heads to help get your fly down. Or simply use a small split shot a couple of feet above the fly.
For a leader you can stay away from the pre-tied variety that go for four dollars or more. Instead grab a couple 100 yard spools of mono, one in the 10-pound class and the other in six.
Tie up your leader using six feet of the 10-pound attached to the fly line (or the lead head) and then tie in a 4-foot section of the six to use as your tippet. The easiest knot to tie these pieces of mono together with is the double surgeons, which is basically just two overhand knots. Of course, you can always get fancy by tying a blood knot or two uni knots but these take a bit longer to tie.
Fluorocarbon lines definitely have their place for leaders and especially tippets. If you find yourself in clear water these new semi-invisible lines will go a long way towards improving your hook-up rate. Smallies aren’t particularly line shy, but they are aware of their surroundings and what looks like trouble.
Flies are an easy matter. Like just about anything in the fly fishing world you need to match the hatch. For smallies you’ll need to have a selection of streamers that imitate the local baitfish and a few that come in hot colors (yellow seems to really excite these fish). Then you should put a few crayfish imitations in the fly box along with a variety of leech patterns. Always leave room for a number of Wooly Buggers. These impressionistic flies, rather than the imitating varieties, are smallmouth candy. Depending on the retrieve, they can give the impression of a baitfish, crayfish, or leech.

Fly rodding smallies in late May and early June is a load of fun but, like all things with flies or fake baits like spinners and plastics, sometimes they just don’t do the job. While I’d rather catch them on a fly or plastic, the mission is to catch fish, not to practice your casting.

So, when the fly, plastic and hardware bite isn’t biting, go to the real thing. Big juicy crawlers and/or squiggling minnows. These are as close to “no-fail” baits as you are going to get.

The set up is simple. For rivers, simply tie in a No. 4 hook on the terminal end and place a splitshot about 18 inches above the hook. Load that hook up a crawler or minnow and send it into the current, preferably a current break or a hole created by a mid stream obstruction. Now, keeping a tight line let the thing tumble with the current. When it gets directly below you reel it back in and cast again.

In lakes it is the very same set up. While you could simply cast this offering out and let it sit on the bottom and wait for the fish to come to you, there is a better way. Start casting and let the bait fall to the bottom. Now, very slowly start reeling the bait back to you keeping the bait next to the bottom. When, not if, you get that tell-tale tap, stop reeling, give the fish some line, and when the fish moves off with your bait, hammer the hook home. If you fish two rods, let one sit and fan cast the other. Unless you like buying new outfits, you’ll want to keep the bail open on the stationary rod.

Where to go? Let’s see, there’s Little Bay de Noc, the Menominee River, Lake Gogebic and the Les Cheneaux Islands, along with Drummond Island in the U.P. In the lower peninsula look at Wilderness State Park, Beaver Island, Grand Traverse Bay and the Lower AuSable River. The Kalamazoo River, along with the other drowned river mouth lakes along the Michigan coast will also be worthwhile.

Dan Donarski is an award-winning journalist/photographer and author. He specializes in the outdoors and adventure travel. When he’s not out and about he lays his head in Sault Ste. Marie.

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Tomorrow

May 14, 2010

in Fishing,Outdoors

Thank you to Dan Donarski for this guest blog piece on the opening of walleye and northern pike fishing season up in the Upper Peninsula!

Remember the old adage “Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday”? Well, tomorrow is going to be the today you’ve been hoping for since the 15^th of March.

Tomorrow, the walleye and northern pike season opens in these parts – these parts being the U.P. of course. And with that opening come hoards of expectations. It’s just as it should be.

If indicators are correct, then Eastern U.P. area walleye waters like Waiska Bay, Baie de Wasi, Maxton Bay, and Munuscong should offer up some fine fishing. Water levels, while still down, are certainly manageable. Perch anglers out on Munuscong and the two bays are reporting more than a few walleyes finding their baits to the fishes’ liking. No, the lilacs aren’t blooming just yet but the ones in my backyard are sure showing signs of an early show of color. The weed growth on Munuscong is well ahead of last year. All very good things.

If there is one “downer” to the opener, and this happens year in and year out, it’s that the walleyes are widely scattered. It takes a good deal of weeds for the fish to congregate in these shallow places and we just don’t have that weed growth yet. The fish are going to be scattered.

Scattered fish mean one thing: you need to cover a fair amount of water in order to find them. One method that does this very well is trolling.

Trolling any time after early-to-mid June is a fool’s method with all the weeds grabbing a hold of your baits. Now, however, it is perfect.

You’re going to find two types of fish and what type you find is all dependent on the mood of the fish. On nice stable days the fish will be active. It’s your pick to the bait you use: a crawler harness or a trolled body bait. On days when the barometer is inching downward, the experts believe you should target the aggressive fish. Those mean ones that want to lash out. Rather than feed them you want to tick them off into chomping down on that thing in front of them.

One of the better baits for these aggressive fish is something like a Wiggle Wart or a Hot-N-Tot. Anything fat, short, and with a very tight wobble should do in the stained waters. The major vibrations call the aggressive fish in and hopefully they’ll hammer that thing.

Back to the nice days. Yup, those short and fat baits will still work, and you do troll them a bit faster than the next bait so you can cover more water, but there is one early season trolled bait that really shines when the fish are dumb and hungry.

That is where that magical mysterious crawler harness comes in. Troll them slow. Using the wind if it is just right, your trolling motor or your arms, just get the boat moving over likely water. Troll the crawler harnesses no more than foot off the bottom. Six inches is even better. Now just keep going.

Likely water includes changes in the bottom structure. Changes from gravel to sand or clay, or mud are a good bet. So is trolling by old weed beds and even better is if you can find some weed beds that are starting to show a good deal of green. These differences in the bottom or of the weeds represent an edge and walleyes like edges.

Now, keeping your crawler harness at the right depth will take some doing. A good rule of thumb is to get the boat to trolling speed and send the harness out on a free spool. When the harness hits bottom stop line from going out. After a few seconds do it again, stopping the line from going out when the harness hits bottom. And, after waiting five to 10 seconds do it all over again.

What this does is this– by letting out the line until it hits bottom you’re splitting differences. When you stop the line from going out the harness lifts off the bottom and climbs up. By doing this two or three times you are continuing to split the difference and getting ever closer to the bottom. And, the bottom is where the walleyes will be in these shallow waters.

There is another bait type that you should consider. If you are of the over 50 age you’ll remember one of the Godfathers of fishing shows, Virgil Ward. Well, ol’ Virgil had a favorite bait, so favored in fact that it took his name. That bait is the Virgil Ward Bass Buster Beetle Spin. Most shops carry the bait in simply the Beetle Spin name. In today’s world of gimmicks it’s nice to know that the old stuff still works well. Very well.

With a small blade on a piece of L-shaped wire that flashes above a jig head, which is dressed with a simple tandem tail plastic body, this “bass” bait, catches a heck of lot of walleyes. While I am not all that strong a believer in color making a difference in water that is heavily stained, I always put on a purple or black color to start. It rarely fails.

This is a bait that can be readily cast into likely areas but it can also be trolled very effectively. You’re going to want to get it close to the bottom, just like the harness. And, just like the harness, you can use the splitting the difference method to get it there.

Tomorrow I won’t be in the office. God willing and the weather doesn’t send a storm, you can bet I’ll be playing hooky. Some of you will, too.

Fresh walleyes are on the menu tomorrow night.

Dan Donarski is an award-winning journalist/photographer and author. He specializes in the outdoors and adventure travel. When he’s not out and about he lays his head in Sault Ste. Marie.

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Trout Services

April 14, 2010

in Fishing,Outdoors

Thank you for this guest blog post by Dan Donarski on his love of Pure Michigan fishing, and the opening of trout season.

You have to get up early sometimes. It just can’t be helped, avoided- postponed any longer. The last Saturday in April is one of these.

Bare feet hit hardwood floors. Hunched over shoulders balanced on the side of the bed, elbows on knees and hands on face rubbing stubble.

Struggling to stand. A hobbling walk brings you to the kitchen. Hands find the light switch. Recoil at the invasion of light on the dark room.

Two cups of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. Time to get ready. Time to put on your Sunday-Go-To-Meeting clothes.

Old blue jeans. Tattered shirt. Well worn boots. A ball cap stained by sweat. A vest- whoa! Yeah, that vest. A bit ripe, that vest.

Trout season, Saturday Services trout season. Church of the Fallen Cedars season.

That’s the way it is with the opening day of trout season. To be quite frank, that’s the way it is with every day of trout season, every day when you can get away, anyway.

High holy days are many in the varied religions of the world and for well worn, worm smelling, fly-tossing, hardware-flinging trout bums, the opening day of trout season is every bit as meaningful, full of certain traditional rituals, and observed with the passion of zealots. I know- I am one. A trout bum that is.

Over the past several years I’ve headed to the same spot on opening day. I’ve fished it the same way, with the same bait, the same rod, and the same clothes. My wife, Kris, wishes I’d throw them out but I can’t, they are as much a part of the service happening on this little stretch of river, somewhere south of nowhere, as the trout themselves are. Maybe more.

Over the years I’ve met opening day with an ice spud and winter woolies to fish a trout lake when there was still too much snow to go into the stream. I’ve met others with short sleeved shirts and heavy doses of bug dope. I’m betting on the bug dope scenario this year.

My particular church is located in the eastern Upper Peninsula, somewhere between Raco and St. Ignace. Yours could well be in the pine barrens north of Marquette where the Yellow Dog flows lazily along, or maybe the storied waters of Iron County.

My afflicted brethren that live below the bridge have churches scattered from the swift waters of the Sturgeon River north of Gaylord, to Grayling, and the twin sons of different mothers, the Au Sable and Manistee Rivers.

Your pew may be in the form of a canoe or one of those sleek Au Sable River drift boats. Others, like me, will find our pew after a rather long hike in to waters rarely visited by other anglers. Mine is at the base of a big bend, a fallen cedar at the top end lies half buried in the river, the current scouring a deep hole just behind it. A cathedral of hemlock and cedar tickles the sky here.

It would be nice to think I could fly fish this water, fly fishing is one of my greatest passions. However, this four-step-to-get-across stream just doesn’t have the room for a cast, my cast anyway. Instead I go with how I was taught by my father and uncle Clem. A nine-foot fly rod, the reel loaded with monofilament, a single split shot and a hook dressed with half a crawler. If you are a purist fly fisher change the crawler to a No. 10 Pink Nightie. (Hope you feel better.)

I’ll work the water slowly, dapping the crawler into current seams and using the rod to keep it there. I’ll let the current take the bait under the stream-bank, into those hidden hides that the larger fish favor. If the sun is bright and strong, and I get lazy, I’ll pitch that crawler just behind the cedar and let it sink into the hole before it settles on the bottom. Then I’ll just set the rod down and wait for a brook trout to come by and nip at the worm. Or not. Some baits are never taken, just as some prayers are not answered.

Spring and trout fishing go together like April showers and May flowers. They are intertwined, impassioned lovers. Trout bums such as I celebrate their union.

Dan Donarski is an award-winning journalist/photographer and author. He specializes in the outdoors and adventure travel. When he’s not out and about he lays his head in Sault Ste. Marie.

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Metal Heads

April 5, 2010

in Fishing,Outdoors

Thank you to Dan Donarski for this great guest blog post on spring fishing and the steelhead run!

Sportsmen and women living in Michigan have it made. We really do. We have it so good in fact that all too often we take what we have for granted. I know I do at times.

Take spring, for instance, and in particular, the steelhead run. Right now dozens of our rivers are filling with silvery bright lake-run rainbow trout, or, as they are more often called, steelhead. These fish, weighing in at anywhere from seven to nearly 20 pounds are simply incredible. While this is only a guess, I’d hazard to say that our state has more “named” or steelhead rivers than the west coast.

Over the past few years I have taken this spring run for granted. I’d start on the St. Joe and the Muskegon in February, move to the Pere Marquette in March. In April, when extended season rivers open, I’d find the Boardman and dozens of smaller rivers in the Upper Peninsula. Then, right in my backyard of Sault Ste. Marie, come May 15 the run would just be starting to kick in on the St. Mary’s River and would go until mid June.

When you have it so good, well, we tend to forget how special it truly is.

By a quirk of fate, enter one Leon Joubert, “Spyker” to his friends. Spyker hails from South Africa in the small northern village of Vaalwater. And, for the last five years he has scheduled his business trips to the United States to coincide with the steelhead run. To be exact, Michigan’s steelhead run.

“You know, from my very first visit, I kept hearing of these fish called steelhead. I love to angle,” he says. “I bought a few of your sporting magazines and read up on them. The next year I made sure to schedule a couple days of fishing on the Pere Marquette in between business conventions.”

Talking with him, I learned that he has fished when ice still clung to the banks of the river, in blinding snowstorms, in the rain, and this year, in some un-spring-like warmth. “This year the conditions have been the best I’ve seen. I know it is supposed to be much colder than it is but I’m not complaining. Neither is my wife, Ilse.”

After hearing his fish stories over the past few years his wife joined him for the first time in the United States. “I don’t believe his stories about a meter of snow and all that ice. Not for a minute,” she says. “But, I do believe those fish stories now. This river, the Pere Marquette is wonderful.”

“Spyker told me that I’d love fly fishing and my guide, Tom Johnson, taught me that it is quite easy. It’s really quite a beautiful sport, too.”

Over dinner I learned that Spyker ended up the day catching three steelhead and losing four others. His wife caught one, and lost two others. “They take the fly so lightly you really have to pay attention. It took me awhile to figure it out but by the end of the day I was getting the hang of it pretty well.

“What was really nice was the wilderness, the wildness of the float trip. We saw an eagle, and a group of six deer came to the river bank as we floated barely two meters away. That was quite nice.”

What about the wading I asked?

“I like that best,” said Spyker. “We don’t get to do much of that where we live, not without a lookout anyway, not with the crocs and such. The pull of the water on the waders is nice. It was serious fun watching Ilse for the first time this morning trying to get around in waders. Now I know how funny I must have looked that first time.”

Before they left the table I asked them if they planned on coming back. Ilse didn’t let her husband answer.

“Yes, we’ll both be back, I’m not letting him come over and do this by himself anymore. I want to do it again, too. We’re coming back next year and staying an extra week just to fish more of the rivers. I hear there are quite a few of them.”

Ilse is right, of course, we have dozens of steelhead rivers. And, we have an extremely long season.

If you’re interested in a fly fishing trip for steelhead and wish for the whole fishing lodge experience, two facilities come immediately to mind. The Pere Marquette Lodge in Baldwin sits on the banks of the river and offers wonderful rooms and a complete fly shop. On the banks of the Muskegon you’ll find Gray Drake Lodge and their newest addition, Trout and Eagle Lodge. All three of these are top-notch lodges and know how to treat their angling guests.

Now it’s time for me to hit the river.

Dan Donarski is an award-winning journalist/photographer and author. He specializes in the outdoors and adventure travel. When he’s not out and about he lays his head in Sault Ste. Marie.

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Walleyes!

March 10, 2010

in Fishing

Thanks to Dan Donarski for another fantastic guest blog piece about Pure Michigan fishing!

The planets have aligned, the sun has been shining, the temperatures are warming. What normally happens after the general walleye closure is happening right now. As in this minute, and it will continue until the general season closes on the 15^th of the month.

What I’m so dang excited about is the walleye bite. Right now the fish are invading the shallow spawning areas in our lakes and spawning rivers. This is at least a couple of weeks earlier than normal. This is great news for walleye anglers and eaters. However, before we get to the spots of note, one word of caution please– the walleyes you are going to be catching are getting ready to spawn. There will be some big females. Please release those big girls as they are creating the fish you’ll want to catch in a few short years.

My good friend Mike Avery of radio and TV note has seen some great fishing coming from open water on the Tittabawassee River as well as the Saginaw. You don’t need a boat either, though it will help. Anglers fishing from shore are having good success, while anglers in boats are having great success. Casting Rapalas or a similar stick bait works well, but it is jigging with a live minnow, or using a three-way with a minnow that is really producing the best catches.

The same goes for the Detroit and St. Joseph rivers. Oh, and the Muskegon and Grand rivers, too. In fact, if there is open water on a river nearby your home, and it is known for its spring walleye fishery, there’s a better than good chance that it’s getting stuffed with fish right now.

On the inland lakes, the same pre-spawn activity is taking place. Up here in the U.P., Munuscong Bay (just south of the Soo), the Manistique Lakes, Indian, and Gogebic are all seeing walleyes in the shallows.

Because of the snow leaving the ice, the fish can get a bit spooky. Try using a longer rod, like a five footer, to get away from your hole in the ice. Jigging spoons, preferably tipped with a minnow head, seems to be attracting the most attention. A simple live minnow rig is also working, but the fish seem to really like the flash and dash of the jigging spoons better.

What about ice conditions, you ask? Last Friday, March 5, Munuscong had approximately 25 inches of good, hard ice in the inner bay. Out in deeper water it gets thinner as the current gets stronger. As always, ask before you venture out on the ice.

Yes, I’m a bit giddy over this last week of the season. Rarely do we see such a massive push of fish this early. Then again, rarely do I see daffodils poking through in my gardens this time of year. Yet, sure enough, they are doing just that.

Now I’m going fishing. Walleyes are on the menu!

Dan Donarski is an award-winning journalist/photographer and author. He specializes in the outdoors and adventure travel. When he’s not out and about he lays his head in Sault Ste. Marie.