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River Report - November 7, 2017

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report
Anglers are moving those brown trout around in fair numbers.  The bigger streamers seem to be garnering attention but smaller flies in the three inch range are the best bet—you simply target more fish.  The rivers are in much better shape than the deluge last week left them and the clarity is such that black, olive and copper are all great color choices.  Wading is still an issue but the strong of heart and weak of mind will find plenty opportunity.

The boys are finding steelhead on the swing using spey tactics in river like the Pere Marquette and Muskegon.  This is their time to shine as brightly as the dime chrome fish they pursue.  Even if that isn’t in your wheelhouse of techniques, catching a fish on the swing should be on every Michigan angler’s bucket list.  It certainly is on mine.  I’ve been working on shuffling that time into my schedule for years and I’m confident this is my year.

Bird season is wrapping up for another season, but I’m still trying to get my last looks in—cutting upland time into my bow hunting hours.  They marry well.  I hunt in the rising or falling light and hike the woods with my setters around noon day sandwiches.  You just can’t do it all this time of year, but outdoorsmen should certainly try.

All of your preparation and all of your scouting doesn’t mean anything if you’re not in the woods to let the opportunity greet it.  The birds have moved to classic and predictable covers and the white-tailed bucks are stiff-legged rutting on the muscle.

But all of that: the brown trout, the steelhead, the grouse hunting, and the bow hunting doesn’t mean a thing to the perhaps 750,000 rifle deer hunters that could take the woods this season.  And, you know what, for good reason.  Rifle season is a Michigan tradition.  It’s a time for friends and family to take to little shacks and hunting shanties and live under a propane hiss.  It’s a time for young hunters to grin over their first deer and for old hunters to find one more.  It puts people elbow to elbow in cramped quarters listening to old stories of victory and bad luck.  And puts them to sleep with the common goal of making new stories.  It wakes them up to bacon frying and grand hopes of the camp record.

And, if nothing else, it puts folks sitting silently in stillness in the great forests of Michigan.

I hope you all find it all this year,

Andy