The Fly Fishin’ Christian

Today I stumbled onto an open source desktop search engine called DocSearcher.  While it doesn’t have all the capabilities of Google Desktop, Yahoo, and a couple of the other big ones, it works really well on word documents, pdfs, and other local documents (not email).  The best part is it is a local program, and I don’t feel like I am giving Google or Yahoo access to the files on my PC.  Check it out here:

http://docsearcher.henschelsoft.de/index.html 

Over at www.desiringgod.org they are selling all books in their online store for $5 on June 27 and 28th.

One of my all-time favorite books is “Don’t Waste Your Life” by John Piper.

Click here to link over to their announcement.

Whether you are a Christian or not, my pastor had a good message on Father’s Day about how fathers can have good relationships with their children.  This three bullet point overview just scratches the surface, but if people could do these three things in almost any relationship it would build strong bonds.

The three points where that you need to build and foster:

1. Involvement
2. Trust
3. Commitment

Over at Michigan Sportsman Forums, someone posted a link to the LSSU Fish Cam up in the U.P.

Check it out, there are actually a bunch of fish swimming around this thing.  Pretty cool…

http://www.lssu.edu/arl/fishcam.php

I was looking at some of my pictures and did a quick search on flyfishing on Flickr.com and was amazed at the quality of some of the pictures. You can do some perusing by clicking here on this link.

REMEMBER, I DID NOT TAKE ANY OF THESE PICTURES!

Take a look at this guy’s stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14684343@N00/
Take a look at some of these photos that others have taken:

Other Christian Fly Fisherman? Cool:

A black and white:

Beautiful scenery:

Thank you Flickr and all the folks that use it!

Everyone keeps talking about the hex hatch up north. Interestingly, I think I had a visit from one today and I live in the middle of the burbs…

Sunday:
My last day in Grayling was extremely fun as well. Because the temperature was set to drop down in to the upper 30’s that night, we decided to opt for a hotel instead of the tent. With a good night’s rest, and being only a couple miles from the Holy Water, it made for a great start to the day. However, Jen and I were awakened by River’s need to go potty a little earlier than we had hoped.

I felt guilty about not going to church on Sunday, but it was just too difficult with River there. We were not going to leave him in the car for an hour (especially in this heat), and were not allowed to leave him at the hotel alone. I almost wonder if some aspiring entrepenuer could start (or maybe already started) a chain of Pet Day Care at tourist locations.

Either way, we were up and moving by 7am, and I got onto the water with the sun starting to rise above the trees. I tried some more streamer fishing at Burtons, but still had no luck.

River was starting to get a little more courageous and started to edge his way into the water:

In the end we ended up with one really wet dog:

After we dried River off, I thought we could go check out Kneff Lake, but the urge to head back to Gates Lodge for some advice overpowered me. We headed north on Stephans Bridge Road and I stepped into the Fly Shop one last time on this trip. I asked for some advice and some flies. I don’t know the name of the guy who helped me out, but he looked younger than me. He told me to try some Iso’s and some soft-hackled wet flies that imitated an emerging brown drake. He even told me to drift it upside of a log to try and entice the fish out. I paid for the flies, and headed right around the corner to the Stephan Bridge site:

I began working the far bank with the brand new wet fly, and there where there was a ton of structure with logs and grass along the bank:

I saw a small pop on the water underneath a tree and noticed some bugs hovering around the water. I decided to cast under the tree hoping I wouldn’t lose my brand new fly. After the third cast, a fish came up and nailed the wet fly. There wasn’t a huge fight, but I reeled him in and couldn’t believe the colors on this brookie. It was simply beautiful. Within 15 minutes of buying the fly, I already had a nice brookie on it, and I wanted to go back and thank the guy at the fly shop. Jen took several pictures of the fish before I released him back into the river:

This is the obligatory bragging shot:

And this is my favorite picture of the trip that Jen took where the brookie was hovering in the water while I was trying to get the hook out of his mouth:

This was one of the best fishing trips that I’ve been on, and know that with every fishing trip I learn more about reading the water, knowing where to look for fish, perfecting my cast, and choosing the right fly. It should only get better from here.

Saturday:
So, the next morning I woke up around 2am, 4am, and finally got up at 5:30am. It was about 45 degrees outside and I was staying fairly warm, but I wasn’t as warm as I would have liked to be. I got up and headed over to take a hot shower, and was looking forward to making a hot cup of tea. When I got back to my campsite, I went to boil water, and noticed my propane tank was empty. Jiminy cricket. I then realized that along with no tea, that I was not going to have a very good breakfast. My choice was cold pop tarts, cheese-its, or granola bars. So, with what little firewood I had left, I improvised and used my cast iron skillet over an open fire to cook up some bacon and eggs.

My friend Matt can build fires in a jiffy, but this one took me a good hour to get to the point where I could actually put the pan over the fire. So after an hour an half wait, that was some of the best tasting bacon I’ve ever had. I then had the debate of whether I should wait around until Jen showed up that afternoon and try fishing at the lake again, or if I should go fishing on the East Branch – 3 miles away.

I decided I came up to Grayling to fish, and I would enjoy the hike anyways, so I was going. I packed up my gear and some meager food rations (some cheetos and a couple granola bars) with some water, and tied my wading boots onto my backpack just in case I could enter the water.

The “hike” was more of a really long walk along the campsite road, then through the Old Growth Trail (geared towards tourists with a paved trail), and finally on the Au Sable Trail which was a little more rustic.

On the Old Growth Trail there was some cool trees:

I finally made it to the East Branch of the Au Sable, and was rewarded with a nice little trout stream. The day prior I was told by a local fly shop owner that the East Branch was “just a mud hole,” but I would beg to differ:

I tied on a Royal Wulff, and with no luck after a while I switched over to a Roberts Drake. After a while, I was rewarded with this little guy who was between 4 and 5 inches:

After a while longer of fishing, I was starting to get fed up with the flies buzzing around my head so I packed up and headed back to camp.

Later that evening, I visited the two lakes near camp while waiting for Jen to pick me up. She was running late so I just kept fishing. I decided to pack light because she was going to be picking me up anyways, and all I brought was a fly box and my rod. There were a bunch of folks out on the lake and the pier, but no one seemed to be having much luck.

Then right around 6pm, fish started to pop up along the banks. Mostly little blue gill. I decided to practice roll-casting, so I tied on a griffith gnat, thinking I might trick a blue-gill. I snagged it on a small plant and tried to reach over and get my fly back. I stepped off the rocky boat ramp, and almost tumbled into the water as my leg went about two feet into the soft muck that surrounded the entire banks of the lake. There was a sign warning me of this, but the bank looked solid.

I later switched over to one of my homemade files that Jenny has aptly named “The Big Boy” in honor of one of the few sit down restaurants in Grayling. It was a big fly that I tied once while experimenting with pheasant feathers:

Anyways, I started casting this guy out where i saw some fish popping up. Next thing I know… WHAM. Probably the biggest trout I’ve ever caught came up and chomped down on it. It was at least a 10″ rainbow, and could’ve been as big as 14″. Because of my packing light, I did not have my camera, and I still regret that. It was a beautiful fish.

Soon after Jenny showed up and we went into town for dinner. After dinner we headed over to Burton’s landing again because it was the closest spot to town, and I got to do some more fishing. I tried some streamers mostly because I didn’t see any bugs coming off the water, and was hoping maybe a big brown was getting ready for dinner.

This was my most memorable day of the entire trip.

Thursday:
My father-in-law and I met up around 6:30 AM and headed north for Grayling. The bad news was they were predicting high winds, and even worse was the river levels. Before I left I checked the USGS water charts, and much of the river system was at all time record high levels. I also was recovering from a nasty cold I caught. Our plan was to head directly to Gates Lodge to pick up some flies and get some advice.

My new shirt got some chuckles from one of the workers, and he helped us pick out some sulphurs and Roberts Drakes and sent us to the North Branch because of the water levels throughout the rest of the system. I had never been to the North Branch and was excited because I had heard it was very scenic, and that was the truth. We arrived at a site, geared up, and walked a few hundred feet to the river. There were already two fisherman in the water, so we headed downstream about 100 feet. When we climbed into the river, we started tying our flies on, heard a ruckus, and were greeted with several deer crossing the river:

We did not see any fish rising. It was about 11am by this time, and there was not much action. Then I noticed a small splash on the edge of riffle. I cast my recently purchased sulphur pattern onto the seam, and this guy came up and smacked it:

This was my first brookie I’ve ever caught, and I was excited. We braved the high winds, and kept fishing, but did not have much more to show for it. Later that day we drove to Hartwick Pines State Park where we were camping. We set up camp, and drove into town for dinner. The State Park employees warned us that there was a hazardous weather advisory, and that there would probably be early storms that would accompany the primary system. So, instead of hitting the mainstream during prime feeding time, we went to the lakes at the camp site. I caught some blue gill on flies, but we were seeing some HUGE fish swimming around in the lakes. Here is a picture from that evening:

The sky got dark, we started to hear thunder, and it sprinkled for about 5 minutes. Then everything cleared up, but by that time it was really to late to go back out to the river. Sometime around midnight, the big storm started. There was lightning and thundering like I have not heard before. I’ve never seen so much lightning. It rained hard, and the tent held up, and I was able to get some rest.

Friday:
Friday morning, my father-in-law and I headed out to Big Boy’s and I was starting to feel better so I got the breakfast bufet. Yum. Grayling is an interesting place because it has a mix of locals, soldiers from the army base, and tourists. While at Big Boy’s, a huge military Humvee pulled into McDonalds next door. After breakfast, we headed to the Fly Factory in downtown Grayling. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but the owner decided he was going to give everyone there free streamer casting lessons. It was nice of him, but there were a bunch of folks want to go fishing. As we were leaving, my father-in-law said that the guy just took an hour away from being on the water.

We headed to Burton’s Landing (picture above), the first stop of the Holy Waters. We fished with no catches for a while. I decided we should move to try another part of the river, so we went down to the Keystone Landing access point. We fished for about 10 minutes, when a group of 4 anglers very politely walked around us in the river. There were two other fellows who also walked through that same section. While my father-in-law was taking a break, I waded over to where I had just seen a fish rise. I was using a size 12 roberts drake, and a brown came up and hit the fly. My rod tip bent a bit, and the fish started fighting me. He jumped out of the water twice and really put up a fight. I didn’t have my landing net, and as I got him close in to me I lifted him out of the water, and he broke free from the hook. He looked to be about a 10-incher. After that, we headed back because the sky was growing black again. My father-in-law had to head back home to be able to work on Saturday, and that night I was now on my own sitting around the campfire drinking tea and relaxing.

One of the more knowledgeable members (Steeldrifter) of the BBT forums put together a really cool line winder made from some leftover parts.

Check out his finished product in the BBT forums.
(http://www.fishbaldwin.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=3365)