![\"STEVE](\"https:\/\/www.oldausable.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/STEVE-WITH-GUIDE-ALEX.jpg\")
<\/a>We\u2019re lucking in this North Country, as we are with all inland angling, as we have lots of water to fish.\u00a0 We have the shallows and weedbeds of Lake Margerethe, Manistee Lake, and Lake Otsego and we have little, uninhabited puddle lakes in the guard range as well as Bright and Glory Lake in Hartwick Pines State Park.\u00a0 Then, of course, we have the catch and release gems of Jones and Wakely Lake.<\/p>\n There\u2019s willing bluegill in all of them.<\/p>\n I always try to give good advice but too often I don\u2019t take it myself.\u00a0 Advice like, \u201cclean your fly line regularly and clean and dry your waders\u201d is good stuff.\u00a0 Those acts will make your gear perform like new and make your gear last much longer. \u00a0It\u2019s easy to do.\u00a0 Hand wash your waders in a mild detergent soap like Ivory, rinse them thoroughly, and air dry.\u00a0 Grab a single use Rio fly line cleaner from the shop and your line will slide through the guides like it\u2019s brand new.\u00a0 It\u2019s great advice that I rarely take.\u00a0 My waders are usually muck laden and scrunched into a mildewed ball in the back of my truck and my fly lines are sticky with dirt.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve also been saying that you should take a youngster fishing for bluegill.\u00a0 I took that advice this week.\u00a0 Jack and I hiked into Wakely the other day.\u00a0 He was a champ, taking three steps for my one.\u00a0 Swatting mosquitos on the back of his neck automatically and without complaining (those all natural bug sprays just don\u2019t work as well as good ol\u2019 deet).\u00a0\u00a0 I carried the backpack and the rods and the butterfly net.\u00a0 You take a nearly three year old kid out there and you\u2019ve gotta have a plan to keep him busy if the fish won\u2019t bite.\u00a0 Catching bugs with a butterfly net is a great back up plan.<\/p>\n We had a great time before we even got to the water.<\/p>\n I gave Jack a fly reel when he was about two years old.\u00a0\u00a0 Gave him the top half of a broken rod shortly after.\u00a0 He waved that half rod into the driveway pavement all Spring, raking the line guides over the scrabble and proclaiming that he was fishing\u00a0 He twisted the handle on that old click-pawl like a New Year\u2019s Eve party favor to the point that we had to hide it from him. \u00a0All the time he wanted to go fishing with Daddy.<\/p>\n So he had a general idea about how to work the goods.\u00a0\u00a0 But he had no idea about what was really about to happen.\u00a0 Neither did I, really.\u00a0 I actually started out tossing a spinning rod for him.\u00a0 I knew I could cast and he could reel fast enough.\u00a0 But that just didn\u2019t work for us.\u00a0 I cast and he reeled but the fish just didn\u2019t participate.\u00a0 That lasted for about five casts.\u00a0 Maybe spin fishing isn\u2019t my game anymore or maybe fly fishing for bluegills is just a great way to catch fish.\u00a0 All I know is that when we switched to the willow stick, things got interesting.<\/p>\n We waded into the shallows and I tied on a rubber-legged something or another, flopped it out onto the smooth lake, and gave it a twitch.\u00a0 The gills thumped at it but just wouldn\u2019t quite commit.\u00a0 Those fish in Wakely have seen a trick or two.\u00a0 One thing about catch and release fishing is that it gives fish an education.\u00a0 So I dropped a sunken ant off the back and when the first little bluegill sucked it in, I set the hook, handed Jack the rod and told him to reel.\u00a0 He knew what was up right away.\u00a0 \u201cI got one! I got one!\u00a0 I got one Daddy!\u201d\u00a0 He just kept right on reeling until the knot nail knot was well into the guide and we tipped the rod back and, just like that, Jack caught a fish.<\/p>\n He waved when I took his picture.<\/p>\n Nothing quite like a bluegill.<\/p>\n He\u2019ll learn to cast soon.\u00a0\u00a0 And then, I bet that next fish will be a brook trout.<\/p>\n On to the Fishing Report . . . <\/strong><\/p>\n The rivers are in great shape.\u00a0 Knock on wood and cross your fingers, but it looks like the long, cold winter and cold Spring are paying off with a cool and relatively wet Summer.\u00a0 There is plenty of water in the rivers and temperatures are good.\u00a0 So far, it is shaping up to be another great Summer trout season.<\/p>\n Tricos and olives are hatching in the mornings on the North and Upper South Branches and while it\u2019s just been olives so far on the Holy Waters, I\u2019d expect both hatches to get going on all stretches by the weekend.\u00a0 It is small fly and terrestrial time on the Au Sable.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not seeing many bigger fish on the Au Sable during the daylight right now, but we are catching just about as many smaller trout as anyone could want.\u00a0 That is especially true on the Holy Waters\u2014the bottom of that stream must just be squirming with little browns and brook trout.<\/p>\n The Manistee is a bit of a different story.\u00a0 If you ply that river with terrestrials, you may not catch as many trout, but you may just find a better age class.<\/p>\n The mouse bite has been pretty good as well.\u00a0 If a big brown trout is on your agenda, this is absolutely the easiest way to put one in the net.\u00a0 There\u2019s really not much to it.\u00a0 The methodology is simple and you don\u2019t have to depend on a hatch\u2014the mouse hatch always happens.\u00a0 All you have to do is get out there after dark and swing, chug, and gurgle big flies around on heavy leaders.\u00a0 All you need are some trout that are willing to play the game.<\/p>\n I would make just another suggestion or two about night fishing, though . . .\u00a0 in order to help your odds.\u00a0 Fish very heavy fluorocarbon after dark.\u00a0 Not because the fish might see it, but because it has a very low stretch and when you\u2019re trying to make a big hook land, that positive connection to the fly can make the difference.\u00a0 Also, if you\u2019re missing a bunch of fish, it\u2019s actually probably the fish missing the fly.\u00a0 You\u2019re probably moving the fly too quickly and the trout are having trouble tracking it, so slow down your retrieve and maybe even mend a little more often.\u00a0 One last tip . . . tie loop knots to big flies that you\u2019re fishing on heavy tippet.\u00a0 When the fly is in a dead drift, the loop will let it move more naturally with the currents.<\/p>\n What a great time of year on the trout stream.\u00a0 There are lots of ways to play the game and you could fish all twenty four hours of the day.<\/p>\n The guides are hitting the streams regularly on all sorts of trips.\u00a0 We\u2019re doing a bunch of instructionals for new and moderate anglers, as well as morning small fly trips, and afternoon terrestrial trips.\u00a0 We\u2019re also taking folks out late and poking around after dark and pitching gurglers to the soft spots for big browns.\u00a0 Whatever the trip, we can get you on the water.<\/p>\n We\u2019re going to host our Grand Re-Opening party on Saturday August 1st<\/sup>.\u00a0 We\u2019ll have some exciting news, fun games, and sales on just about everything.\u00a0 We might not know a lot about everything, but we know how to fish and we know how to throw a party.<\/p>\n Hope to see you all soon at our shop on the River,<\/p>\n Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" July 15, 2015 The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report I\u2019ll tell you what, if anyone thinks that a bluegill isn\u2019t an absolutely fine fish, I\u2019ll have to poke them in the eye.\u00a0 In the group you\u2019ve got bluegill, redear sunfish, green sunfish, longear sunfish, rockbass, and pumpkinseeds.\u00a0 It\u2019s an all-star line-up of fish … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,7,5,68],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687"}],"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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>