It was a short visit home and another long trip across country yesterday and I’m presently in Midland, Michigan as a guest of Scientific Anglers (SA). As you know I fish Scientific Angler fly lines and tippet exclusively and have the good fortune of helping to develop and test new products that aid us all catch more fish. For the next few days I’ll get to meet and actually fish with some of the SA employees, see how fly lines are made and catch up on a long array of new products SA is introducing for the 2016 season.
Today I fished the Au Sable River up north for smallmouth bass with head fly line designer Andrew Bosway. The Au Sable River is famous for its brown trout fishing but little do most fly fishers know the beautiful river is also home to many other fun species including smallies.
It’s been a great month for me and smallies with the Ririe Bass Tourney on May 27 followed by ten days I NH. No doubt, my bass skills are tuned to the hilt. We pushed off for our float trip at mid day in extremely high water from 3” of rain that doused the area yesterday. Nonetheless, the pretty river was clear and ready to fish.
The first thing I noticed about the Au Sable is the amount of structure along the bottom. I’ve seen rivers with lots of trees in the water but this place is unreal. I fished an intermediate sink with two flies and made sure to be careful to run the flies high and clear from submerged logs. Andrew and I were quick to lay into a heap of smallish smallies.
Along with us in another boat were my longtime friends Brad and Tyler Befus. Brad and I go back more than twenty years and Tyler, his son, is now seventeen. Neither of them had floated this stretch of the Au Sable so they followed behind and touched up a bunch of small size smallmouth bass as well.
The end result of the day was a heap of gorgeous little smallmouth bass, a few rock bass and two rainbow trout. I got one cast to small pike but I could see his belly was full and he showed no interest in my fly. It was a nice relaxing day on the water – exactly what the Dr ordered after all the travel this week. Looking forward to more neat Michigan fishing for tomorrow.
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