Today is Michigan's traditional trout openers. This occurs each year on the last Saturday in April. The previous 3 days have been outstanding and we have awakened to a new day. It was warmer than the previous 3 mornings as we had cloud cover all night and those clouds have remained this morning.
Yesterday morning I cooked omelette's for everyone in camp that were stuffed with ham, onions, mushrooms and cheese. This morning, not to be outdone, Jeff is made his "Mountain-Man Breakfast". This is a complete breakfast cooked in a dutch oven and consists of browned sausage & hash browns. Once those are browned all the ingredients are placed in the dutch oven and well scrambled eggs are poured over top and then sprinkled with cheese. The lid is put on the dutch oven and hot coals are placed on the lid. A half hour or so later, viola'! A delicious breakfast concoction that is very satisfying.
Opening day, to paraphrase from "Escanaba in da Moonlight" is like Christmas with fly-fishing as the gift. No need, really, to blast out of camp too early for any fishing on dry flies today is going to be later in the afternoon.
After bright and mostly sunny days we are blessed with cloud cover today so we had high expectations of better hatch and bug activity then the previous days ... Hennies like clouds, or so we thought.
Jeff, Rick and I fished the South Branch again where we waited patiently and diligently for the hatch to come on, but the hatch never came. We had a few very sporadic rises but other than that fishing was a disappointment. The only tale to tell of any adventure was Rick stumbling over a log, falling into the stream, coming up, soaking wet. No one likes to fall in, but this was tempered with a bit of a bonus of a caught fish that had taken his fly!
It spit and rained off and on, but it was really nothing of significance. In spite of the slow fishing us three enjoyed good conversation and used the opportunity to further let the troubles of our daily lives drain from our systems....This is, really, the key and purpose of our trip anyway.
Made it back camp late and upon our arrival we found everyone already
chowing down on dinner, Beef stew. They got tired of waiting for us and
so their appetites prevailed! I feel we are fortunate that there was any
left! Fishing has a way of creating in you a deep hunger that begs to be
satisfied. From what we have been told it sounds like us three were just
in the wrong section of river. There was good hennie activity below the
Chapel and the group down there got into some nice fish with my brother
Mort caught a nice sized brown trout that measured from his inner elbow
to the fingertips of his extended hand! Measured out that came to about
19+inches! Nice! So we have another lesson learned ... Location,
location, location!
Tonight we sleep in camp. Tomorrow morning we pack up and head home. While we are always anxious and excited to go camping and fishing by the time our trips come to a close we are equally anxious and excited to head home to wives and children.
Categories: Fly-Fishing
