Wakeley Lake - Huron National Forest - Michigan

 

This will be alot of fun in June!

The Tale of Two Sections of River.

 

I got to the shores of one of our states stocked streams and decided to go high above the lake. The water was a nice deep emerald, green color with strong flow. This would will be amazing to swing today. No bobbers were used on this day!

I was determined to get a trout to feed up while using my Deer Creek 11ft - 5wt switch rod that a has a grain window of 250-450.  This is one of the set ups I used in Montana this past summer. I paired it up with a 325 grain skagit short and the tip was a 10-foot clear intermediate with a sink rate of 1.5”/second.

I only threw one pattern today and it was the tungsten bead-head soft hackles.

After I figured how to time my casting stroke with the speed of the water and dropped the fly into the run it was on. They were all super lethargic and was all in the range of 6-9” long. I brought five to hand and that has been the most I have brought to hand in years!

The flow was perfect and I would leave the upper stretches to head below the lake.  This would be a disappointment to say the least. She was having mud issues and had a lot of silt in the water column. 

I walked to the dam to the first riffle and swung flies to the frog water.  I picked up and fished through the campground. Although I would not hook anything other than three trees and river weeds, I was done for the day.

Swinging a fave large trout bucket

 

I'm returning where I cut my teeth

 

Due to me having the day off I am headed to the creek where I cut my teeth in fly fishing. We all started somewhere in our fly-fishing adventure. Sure, some of us started on some amazing and hallowed waters.

I am also going down to see how my Michigan Mice cast.  It will be interesting and to also see how they float and track in the water. The majority of the creek is in a river valley and no reel reason to get there to early.

Here are some photos of the creek from years past enjoy my friends.

Sonder

Michigan Mouse Meat

This June I will be headed up to the hollowed waters of the Au Sable River a tributary to Lake Huron. Its been a long time since I have seen her. This time its not for steelhead its for trout. I will be using my new 4wt Pixie stick and my 6wt at night to fish for trout with mice! Here are a few mice I tied today.

Daiichi 2720 #2 "debarbed"

 Lay-in the rabbit zonker strip "natural was used"

Add foam to top of fly

Wrap forward the zonker strip "I was short this time, but all is not lost". Instead of scrapping the fly I used brown dubbing to fill the gap.

Normally you want the zonker to wrap just behind the eyelet

All was not a total loss!

BC Planning

 I know it's early way early but gonna meet up with a good friend and pick his brain a bit.