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River Report - Christmas Day 2015

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report.
Happy Holidays everyone.

While it wasn’t a white Christmas, it is a good old fashioned Holiday Season here in Northern Michigan. A severe windstorm on December 23rd toppled trees and turned off the Christmas Tree lights for tens of thousands of forest dwelling Michiganders.

We faired just fine at our little house in the woods, though. Of course, like many other folks we woke up with a groan in the absolute dark and silence that comes with a power outage.  But this kind of thing has become standard fare around here, and we still had supplies lined up and gas in the generator from the powerful wind shear that rolled over us late this past Summer.   In a strange turn of events, we were20151222_094939 fortunate at our house that the August gale uprooted and knocked over so many trees—all we had left for this event were the strongest and most battle tested pines in Crawford County, so at least the chainsaw could stay sheathed in the garage and we incurred no damage.  I hope everyone else was as lucky.

With a good stoking of the woodstove and a pull of the generator cord, we were back online for Santa Claus’ visit on Christmas Eve.

There’s another year of outdoor fun under our belts and a new and exciting season on the horizon. I was organizing photos of fish caught and outdoor excursions commemorated the other day. Grinning friends holding thick fish.  Dogs on point or with retrieved birds in their mouth.  The sunrise on the North Branch and the sunset on the Manistee.  Each one a memory that measures our time like rings on a tree.  I’m looking forward to making new and similar pictures this year.

The fishing report remains in a holding pattern. Nymph fishing and streamer fishing on the open stretches of the Au Sable should remain fair over the Holidays and, though ice should start forming on area lakes, ice fishermen will need plenty of patience as safe ice angling is still very much in the future.

As for me, I think there are just enough ticks left in the year to tromp one more time into the grouse covers and climb one last time into a tree stand.

Thank you for everything, folks.

Andy