The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report
June 1, 2017 !!!
Happy day, the glory of June is upon us. June is simply the best fishing month on Northern Michigan streams. It’s time to take all of your vacation or a sabbatical or something . . . quit your job if you have to. The campgrounds, forests, and vacant river access parking lots are like halfway houses for bleary-eyed fishing addicts. It’s a 30 day trout bum’s holiday.
Even successful professionals are infected with Peter pan Syndrome. Doctors and lawyers will shuffle over the fly shop threshold right next nearly homeless, fishing afflicted, twenty-year-olds and everyone will be have three day beards and tales of woe over big ones that got away and talk about the bad luck of fishing. Or they’ll hold up triumphant cell phone photos and spin tales well executed skill that outfoxed the craftiest trout in the stream. After all, there is only one kind of luck in fishing—bad. Everything else that happens is purely talent.
There is now plenty of opportunity for all of us to exercise our special skills as brown drakes are making an appearance on much of the Au Sable River System and on parts of the Manistee and Brown Drakes make fish dumb. The hatch should be nearly system wide shortly and I expect that it will burn through the area rather quickly this year. This is not the time to wait for fishing to get better. Gather your gear and get to flowing water as soon as you can.
And the water you choose doesn’t have to be the famed stretches of the A Sable or Manistee Rivers. Northern Michigan streams are so in tune with one another this year that fishing reports should resonate on all streams. Even if the hatches vary some from the Au Sable reports, the fishing will likely be good. Nearly everyone in the fly shop inner circles are exploring new waters. Folks are seeking adventure in the fingered rivulets and feeder stream of major water bodies and finding brook trout and brown trout gold in the sneaky stretches. Anglers are finding new secrets and true reward. They’re figuring out what it’s all about.
Get driving or you just might miss it,
Andy
Excellent, as always, Andy.
Great observation of hatch and fishing opportunities. Enjoyed your writing style.