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River Report - June 14, 2019

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report

The rains keep falling. The rivers rise.  The hatches keep moving along.

Some reaches of river have become too high and clouded to effectively fish. It can be stressful for the anglers that have planned a fishing adventure some twelve months ago and have arrived to high, cold water.  Some favorite reaches of the river are un-wadable and some stretches are unfishable even from a boat.

Conditions like these can even make the guides scratch their heads. But we have two great river systems here and, at the Old Au Sable we have many of the best guides in Northern Michigan.  Every morning the boys rally over breakfast at the Grayling Restaurant and hash out the texts and reports from all corners of the county and figure out the day’s possibilities over eggs over medium and hash browns and a smoked pork chop.

By the last bread crust, yolk mopping the game plan is in place. If the conditions won’t let us go - we don’t.  If we can slip in some fishing between storms - we do.  It’s rare we don’t have a window to exploit.  Lots of places in Michigan have fine trout streams.  We have great trout rivers.

I had the most relaxing day in the midst of all this head scratching. I put aside the where to when to and if you can go head voices and just went where the water was fishable.  And as luck had it, where the drakes were happening - eally happening.  The flies were sort of expected but the fishing was surprising.  It’s always worth going.

We’ve had drakes right through the high, difficult to wade waters and we’ve had drakes on some of the too cold, too rainy days. It certainly hasn’t been a perfect June, but those who work hard occasionally persevere.

The coming days will continue to show us soaking rains and foul weather will throw us curve balls, but we’ll lean on the rivers that hold together.   And we’ll float on top of the rivers that rise.

Brown drakes should be everywhere over the coming days and we’ve already started to see ISO’s. It’s June and you just have to go in June.

Have fun out there.

Andy