The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report.
The River just keeps on flowing unconcerned about what we’re doing and unconcerned with what we want to happen.
Hendricksons have largely moved through the system, but I surely wouldn’t go to the river without some parachutes and I’d be looking for Hendrickson spinners at dusk. We’re moving toward Sulphurs and popcorn caddis. And we’re especially moving toward the time of the evening rise.
As much as the afternoon, Early Spring fishing was a disappointment, we are about to wade into the best of what the Au Sable has to offer. Although we all love brook trout, we are, in truth, a brown trout, hatch matching stream. Those browns stew under log jams and undercut banks and in the bottom of deep holes until the evening light turns orange and begins to fail. Then they move to feeding lanes and bubble lines and look to the surface in June for mayflies that fall en masse. When it happens, it is something special.
Plenty of anglers that come here never really get it. They catch a few little ones in the high sunlight and try to push a nymph deep into runs that would hold big fish in Western streams. But those fish aren’t there in the Michigan Summer. Not on our Rivers. Our best browns live in the tangles that no underwater fly can penetrate. We need conditions to line up perfectly for wise, old trout to make the mistakes that give us a chance for success.
Some folks that are lucky enough and/or have tried enough get to see it. Those fishermen hunt it year after year, season over season, and chase the dragon past one failed hatch over the next. I do. It can change lives. Ruin potential. But it’s irreplaceable. Special.
There’s about to be thirty days of try.
The River is out of its banks right now. Dirty. But clearing every day. And there’s always, always some water to fish around here.
The shop is open and a little bit of a mess but no more so than the rest the world. So stop on by. A few of our guides are not going to run with Covid concerns, but out core group is running. And eager. Please double check your booked trips with the shop.
See you soon,
Andy