John Pepin

“If everything’s gonna turn out right, you’re gonna fry fish tonight.”

— Johnny Cash

Turning out onto the highway from the county road, I was surprised to see a thickening fog bank ahead of me.

It had been cloudy all day as I worked on chores indoors. Now, seeing this pea soup drifting in across the road got me thinking whether I shouldn’t turn around and postpone my plans to get out into the woods until tomorrow.

As soon as I had that thought, it was immediately followed by another that said it could be even worse weather tomorrow. I decided to keep going and in retrospect I am very glad that I did.

It wasn’t long and I was splashing through big mud puddles that covered significant portions of the dirt roads I was traveling. The night before there had been tremendous rains in some parts of the region.

I was surprised at how deep some of the puddles were. The forests around me looked lush and green, but there was a hint of something fall-like in the air – something barely tangible that washed a quick feeling of uneasiness over me.

As the fog was thickening, the miles I traveled stretched out behind me. It was clear there would be few, if any, people out traveling these backroads today in these conditions.

I turned off onto a puddle-covered side road headed for a couple of creeks I know that might be holding some brook trout. After big rains, the streams typically fill up and sometimes over their banks.

Conventional wisdom says that to find better chances to locate biting fish, head upstream in the watersheds to smaller, colder feeder creeks.

By August, a lot of fish head to these places anyway as the waters get warm and trout are preparing to spawn.

Moving along, I noticed a vehicle parked off to my left at the head of an open grassy area that may have once been a logging road.

The driver was a man who was outside the truck dressed in hunter orange on his jacket. At least one dog ran out in front of him with training bells sounding off through the heavy air.

He turned halfway around hearing my Jeep rumbling over the gravel road. He threw his right arm halfway up in the air to wave to me. I waved back and drove on.

I got to the first of two bridges over different creeks that are located close to each other and eventually find a confluence.

The vegetation covering the downstream flow of this first creek was thick, scarcely affording much more than a few casts.

I had one fishing line with a hook and sinker fastened to it and a nightcrawler for bait. The other line had one of my favorite lures attached. I tried both tactics but got no bites on either side of the small, wooden bridge.

I moved on to the next creek. The bridge here had seen far better days with the road eroded below both approaches and holes rotted through the wooden decking.

I stood on the bridge and looked over the rusted iron rails. Beavers had been working hard to stop the water flow, but they had only partially succeeded.

Dropping the worm into the water, I immediately felt one tug and then another. It turned out there was a ravenous swirl of chubs moving around my bait. I pulled up the line a couple of times, hoping for a hooked trout, but that didn’t happen.

It wasn’t long and I had turned around and was headed back along the gravel road.

The hunter was headed toward me in his truck. He pulled over alongside the road to let me pass. When we met, I stopped and rolled down my window to talk.

I recognized the gentleman. He asked what I was doing. I told him I was trying to wet a line. He said since he had gotten into dogs, he had pretty much quit fishing.

We both agreed that it was a great evening to be outside in the woods. We then waved good-bye and headed in our opposite directions.

In about 20 minutes, I was headed up a different gravel road. A broad-winged hawk dropped down off a tree limb above me and flew alongside my vehicle, just off the passenger side, for about 100 yards.

That was very cool to experience.

It wasn’t long before I had reached another bridge over another creek. Getting out of my Jeep, I didn’t hear the creek water tumbling over the rocks as it usually does here. I translated this to mean that the water was high.

Sure enough. It made almost no sound passing by as the water lapped at the underside of the bushes growing along the stream.

I tried my luck, first with the night crawler and then the lure over several casts.

Nothing doing.

I walked through the wet and overgrown trees and bushes along the creek that obscured the walking path. I found more holes to stop to cast.

No bites.

The high water produced a strong current that moved my nightcrawler up off the bottom and downstream, even with a sinker on. The current also kept my spinning lure higher in the water column than it usually sits.

I decided to switch lures and give the night crawler a breather. I selected a heavier lure that would get down deeper.

On the very first cast, a fish hit the lure hard. I lifted the pole and saw a big trout moving through the water, bending the rod down. It was fighting hard.

The fish turned on its side just before I had reeled it in to the grass along the shoreline. It was a beautiful fish with a nice broad and colorfully speckled side.

I bent down to grab the fish and it thrashed hard at the water’s edge, spitting the lure and swimming away.

There was a time when a situation like this would upset me greatly, but with age comes humility. After grumbling a couple of swear words aimed at myself, I got ready to cast again.

On the next cast, I hooked another fish. This one wasn’t as big, but it was beautiful nonetheless – perhaps even more so because I was able to land this one.

In the next hole, a sharp-looking male decked out in dark orange spawning colors, with a hump in his back hit the lure. I reeled him in too.

I had certainly made a good move switching lures. I was now filled with anticipation every time I let the line fly and would hear the lure smack and splash on the top of the water.

With the depth of the water crowding the shoreline, there were several places I didn’t dare step in the submerged and slippery down-sloped mud to cast.

Some other places were either too grown in to cast over or too tricky to pull a fish out of with overgrown branches and underwater snags.

There were, however, several holes that I was able to drop my line into. In one right-hand elbow pool, a fish came out from under submerged log and took a dash at my lure but missed.

The same thing happened on a second attempt.

On the third cast, the fish didn’t rise.

Other holes that I thought sure would have a hungry trout just waiting to strike produced no bites or sightings.

I then reached a deep pool at the foot of what typically is a length of riffles.

Trout often will bite on the first cast into a fresh hole, and that is exactly what happened here. I landed that fish and caught another, almost identical size and colored beauty, on the next cast.

Then everything went quiet – no fish action at all.

I decided to give my rested worm a try. I tossed the line out directly in front of me and leaned the fishing pole against the top of some streamside bushes.

I turned to readjust my fishing bag.

When I turned back, I noticed the line moving out toward the far edge of the pool. I picked up the rod and waited for a more decisive bite before jerking the pole and starting to reel.

But that decisive bite never came as I watched. So, I took a few cranks on the reel handle and discovered there was already a fish hooked on my line.

I reeled the fish in for the last in my limit catch caught in less than an hour once I had switched lures.

On the way home, I saw a six-point buck standing at the side of the road.

The dog-training hunter I’d seen earlier ended up being the only person I saw in the woods all night. The fishing had been tremendous, and the fresh air was incredible.

A little night music on the radio on the way home as the sun set was the sugar on top of this glorious outing. Fishing like this doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it sure is a thrill.

One thing is for certain, I shall return – the sooner the better.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.