![\"Donnie](\"https:\/\/www.oldausable.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Donnie-Friend-fish-263x300.jpg\")
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May 16, 2017<\/p>\n
The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report<\/p>\n
First off I\u2019d like to let everyone know that this is the one hundred and fifty sixth episode of the Old Au Sable Fly Fishing radio broadcast report.\u00a0 It is also with this report that we say goodbye and good luck to Dave Shurbert\u2014the best producer in radio history.\u00a0 He must be because he\u2019s worked hard to make many of these segments sound better than they deserve.\u00a0 We wish you well, friend.\u00a0 The bluegills of Crawford County are in big trouble.\u00a0 You folks may want to start chasing them in other counties—Dave is deadly.\u00a0 He lets them all go but they\u2019ll be well educated from now on.\u00a0 True at least for all the big ones.<\/p>\n
The rivers are alight with rising trout in near perfect conditions right now.\u00a0 This is the time of year when as many as nine different aquatic insect hatches converge to make some of the finest, most complicated hatch-match dry fly fishing in the world.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fun game to play.<\/p>\n
Biker Dave and I lit to the South Branch the other night eager with the prospect of a fabulous evening.\u00a0 I was fast into my boot-footed waders and fast out of my SUV with my four weight rod already strung.\u00a0 We paused at the top of the ridge that offered a sweeping view and watched with anticipation.\u00a0 One fish rose on the peel-off at the top of a sweeper that paralleled the current.\u00a0 He rose tightly to the log\u2014smartly and consistently.<\/p>\n
Dave saw him first so it was his nod.\u00a0 We sat on the bank with a modicum of patience trying to decide by committee which of the multiple bugs that fish was choosing.\u00a0 We watched closely and we considered the intricacies of the rise form.\u00a0 It was gentlemanly.\u00a0 And then Dave got after that finicky SOB.\u00a0 Dave fished perfectly with no response and the fish rising to some invisible natural bug.\u00a0\u00a0 Dave changed flies four times and only was rewarded with one refusal before he tipped his hat to me.\u00a0 \u201cYour turn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I moved that trout once on a refusal in my first three fly changes.\u00a0 But as the light lowered and I tied on the last fly my old eyes were going to be capable of threading onto the leader, the game changed slightly.\u00a0 Darkness on the Au Sable is the great leveler.\u00a0 The fish ate my offering and I broke him off on the hookset like an over-eager teenager on a first date.<\/p>\n
We had size 14 dark spinners on the water.\u00a0 We had Sulphurs hatching and spinning on the water.\u00a0 We had little Mahogany Spinners.\u00a0 We had black caddis and popcorn caddis.\u00a0 And who knows what else.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t heavy, but it was a deep flight and hatch.<\/p>\n
And we both fished to good trout.\u00a0 And we both left skunked.<\/p>\n
It just doesn\u2019t get any better.\u00a0 An ass whipping on the Au Sable leaves you humble and wanting more.<\/p>\n
Get driving,<\/p>\n
Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 16, 2017 The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report First off I\u2019d like to let everyone know that this is the one hundred and fifty sixth episode of the Old Au Sable Fly Fishing radio broadcast report.\u00a0 It is also with this report that we say goodbye and good luck to Dave … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[201,148,155,84,166,5,1],"tags":[176,107,45,170,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2038,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}