![\"20150805_122942\"](\"https:\/\/www.oldausable.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/20150805_122942.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe leaf drop is happening quickly. Fall colors came late and suddenly and, almost as quickly, the leaves started to drop to the forest floor.\u00a0 As much as I hate to see the spectacular, flamed forest colors start to disappear, the thinning trees make for some fast shooting in the upland covers.\u00a0 If you love Michigan, you can\u2019t help but love the season changes.\u00a0 And if you\u2019re a sportsman, you love just as well the secondary changes that happen with both the weather and with the changes that occur with our wildlife.<\/p>\n
This week, while tromping through the grouse woods, I saw some of the first and best buck sign I\u2019ve yet to witness. The antlered whitetails have started to leave their calling cards to does\u2014scrape lines are beginning to form in the best reaches of woodlands.\u00a0 If you can find an oak ridge laden with acorns that rubs against thick bedding areas like swamps, young aspen cuts, or young jack pine you\u2019ll be in the mix for some fine bowhunting and in a great spot to set up for the Michigan rifle season.<\/p>\n
On the river the brown trout have started to move to the rock. White-washed spawning beds are beginning to show up in the graveled stretches of the Au Sable and Manistee Rivers.\u00a0 The brown trout are shining up their mating lies and are becoming active.\u00a0 Please avoid fishing to or stepping on these spots as you wade the streams, but be sure to fish to all covers in the vicinity of good spawning gravel.\u00a0 Tie on streamers dressed in black or olive and let those flies hunt.\u00a0 Natural colors have been best, so if you need to change from the tried and true, twist on tan and maybe even copper colored offerings.<\/p>\n Just tons of good games to play right now. A great, old bird dog breeder I knew, Tom Ellis, always said, \u201cHeaven must be all Octobers\u201d.<\/p>\n I think that might just be true and I think I stole a day this past week.<\/p>\n I have three bird dogs. They\u2019ve been pretty okay and even good at times, but this week two of them really turned a corner.\u00a0 The dogs worked superbly; the boys not only adjusted their range for cover but acknowledged scent early and respected the cagey, running grouse of Crawford County.\u00a0 We were able to get close to and pin more chickens than I have been able to catch up to in a one day hunt in years.\u00a0 They backed one another\u2019s points and slid closer to the sprinting birds once we released them.\u00a0 They were able to snake up on birds and we were rewarded with close clear shots.\u00a0 To make it all better, when we dropped a grouse in the South Branch of the Au Sable, one of the dogs retrieved the bird from the running water.\u00a0 Water retrieving is a rarity for any English Setter, and it was one of the coolest things I\u2019ve even been a part of in upland woods.<\/p>\n Thanks dialing in and try to get outside,<\/p>\n Andy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" October 21, 2015 The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report What a great time I\u2019ve had this week. There\u2019s so much good stuff happening in the North woods and I was lucky enough to take some well needed days off to enjoy some of the reasons we live here. The leaf drop is happening … 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":[203,151,84,7,149,5,150,68,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839"}],"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=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.oldausable.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n