Find The River

Interesting piece in the New York Times Magazine yesterday on how weeds will fare in a warmer, carbon enriched atmosphere. Quite well, it seems. In short, weeds will grow faster and taller, and some of their noxious properties will intensify. Weeds generate more pollen in response to higher temperatures and CO2 concentrations, and their pollens contains higher levels of the protein that causes allergic reactions in persons with hay fever. Levels of the irritant urushiol in poison ivy increase as well. Weeds from warmer climates will spread north, with some scientists predicting kudzu ("the weed that ate the south") will reach the Upper Peninsula by 2015. That, for this lover of UP rivers and woods, is truly scary.

There are upsides to these developments, though. Resillient weeds may supply genes that will help food crops to survive the changing climate, and some, notably kudzu, may be excellent sources of ethanol.

All this is one reminder that living things tend not to stay in whatever places societies assign them, and that these places are brittle fictions to begin with: a fact surely frustrating to native landscape enthusiasts and industrial farmers alike.

What we are is where we have been. That is all there is, at least from where we can see. They keep trying to convince you that there is some objective reality out there, but you know in your heart how much nonsense that is. It's their way of trying to sell you on the idea that change, being an "inevitable" part of "progress"--being dropped on top of your head by some deus ex machina with a bad sense of timing--can't be fought. You can be choking on it, turning red and beginning to perspire, seeing little things float before your eyes, and they'll dismiss you. In fact, they never even bothered to ask. Look in vain for many studies on the only thing that matters, what it feels like to live in the world you live in. That's so they can take your home, the thing that made you, and shatter it piece by piece.

--Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Place You Love is Gone


I just started reading Pierson's elegant reflection on the experience of losing familiar landscapes, both wild and urban, to the varied movements of economic and historical flux--a near universal cause for mourning and disorientation in today's America. It's a remarkably unsentimental and analytical take on the process (the above quote is atypically sanguine), leavened by personal reminiscence. A review may be in order once I finish it. Figure August, at the rate I'm going.

For the last two years, state legislators in Michigan have been bickering over rules to govern large scale groundwater withdrawals. It appears that the state house and senate have ironed out differences between versions of the bill passed through each house. As near as I can tell, most sportsmens' and environmental groups are satisfied with the outcome. Of particular importance are protections for coldwater stream levels, provisions for public input on proposed withdrawals, and a system for precise, real-time measurements for water levels in affected areas.

What the bill didn't address decisively was the idea that water resources are held by the state in trust for its people, a notion deriving from common law that has been invoked for protection of the great lakes. Advocates of strong protection of groundwater resources argued that public trust doctrine should govern their use. Those favoring weaker protections viewed water as a commodity to be regulated like others, and whose exploitation should be encouraged. The agreement lent no special support to either view.

I'm glad to see this agreement in place, and it's certainly better than some of the proposals that were considered. But is it asking too much for our officials to commit to managing resources to sustain a broad quality of life in the state, as opposed to not saying outright that they're selling them to the highest bidder?

I suspect what many of them most wish to conserve is their wiggle room.

Today, had things gone as planned, I'd be out with my dad on Gull Lake, near Kalamazoo, trying for some largemouths. But it didn't happen, and the lost water time is the least of my concerns.

Yesterday my dad--81 years old--called to tell me he wouldn't be able to go. He'd hurt his back earlier in the week while making a bed (a lesson here--avoid housework). He thought it would be OK by the weekend, but it still hurt him to move around, so he would have to skip the trip.

This would have been our first outing of the year. Usually, we make a walleye trip to the Detroit river in May, but we missed that because my stepmother was undergoing surgery at the time and he needed to take care of her. We swore we'd get out to fish sooner or later, though it wasn't clear when we'd get a chance. On the spur of the moment last weekend, I proposed a trip to Gull today and he agreed. But a rumpled bedsheet intervened.

On the face of it, this should be a minor disappointment, but when your fishing partner is 81 years old and has had some serious health problems over the last two years, these small reverses become ominous. You can't help but wonder how many more outings you'll have, or whether you've already had the last.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how gas prices will affect my fishing habits. Before taking my trip last week, I thought that that outing would be my big solo trip for the year; I would do some more trout fishing during my Grayling weekend with Kristine and during a closing weekend cast-and-blast trip. In the meantime, I'd content myself with bass fishing on the Huron river. I started to feel virtuous about cutting back on my gas consumption.

But by last weekend, I began plotting a hex hatch trip over June 29-July 1. What harm would one more trip of only three hours each way? After all, some people still go north every weekend (and in thirsty SUVs to boot), and a few lucky souls will still make the drive to the Rockies this summer. (That's one of the problems with personal conservation efforts--you can always point to someone using more fuel than you are to justify using more fuel that you otherwise would.) Besides, who knows how much gas will cost next year? Shouldn't I get my licks in while I can? And with such lackluster results during my two trips this year, didn't I deserve a shot at more and bigger fish?

I think I will end up taking the trip, albeit with some guilt I wouldn't have felt before. Opponents of oil drilling near trout streams assert that oil and trout don't mix, but the fact is, for many fishermen they are inseperable. I couldn't fish for trout without access to copious quantities of gasoline. I've reflected on this conundrum for about as long as I've been driving to fish, though it weighs more heavily now.

Ideally, I'd find a fishing partner to split the cost of trips with; that may be a good reason to get involved with the local TU or FFF groups. I envision one day groups may charter bus trips to trout waters, though trout fishermens' characteristic love of solitude may make that venture uncomfortable for many. But if it's that or staying home to fish for bass (very satisfying, but "not the same..."), I think I could give up some elbow room

The way this sport is practiced will undergo some radical changes in the very near future. As long as I can still get on the water, I'll roll with them.

And seriously, if you live in SE Michigan and would be open to splitting a trip, even just for a day, email me.

I carry about a mental portfolio of fishing "dream trips." These aren't always excursions to exotic and celebrated places, just the getaways that I always mean to take and can take but don't. I get sidetracked or the money is short, or I follow someone's "hot tip" only to find lukewarm fishing. It's hard to pull myself away from streams in the Grayling area for a number of reasons, so, especially over the last ten or so years, that's where I've usually ended up.

Grayling wasn't always my default location for trout fishing, though. From 1991-2000, my father kept a trailer (our family vacation vehicle while I was growing up)on a permanent site in Manistee, Michigan. He had just retired, and he liked to fish Manistee Lake and the lower Manistee river for salmon, steelhead, and warmwater fish. During most of those years, he would make two or three long weekend trips there each month in the summer and fall. I would occasionally meet him to catch some smallmouth or steelhead, though sometimes I would go on my own, or go up a day or two before I was scheduled to meet him, to get in a little trout fishing on area streams, especially Bear Creek, the Big Sauble river, and, less often, the Little Manistee.

For a long time, especially in the first half of the trailer's years, "going fishing" almost always meant going to Manistee. And why not? Free, dry lodging w/ no outdoor cooking required, no tent and the related gear to pack up, good streams within a short drive, and a location I'd long known and liked. I will have to talk about this place more sometime. But by the late 90s, I was fishing more often in other locations--usually around Grayling. When my father announced he was selling the trailer in the summer of 2000, I made a final trip, mainly for nostalgia's sake, at the end of August. Over the years since then, Manistee has acquired a prominent position among my "dream trips."

While I have occasionally ventured onto Bear Creek before meeting my dad to fish in Manistee (we still make a trip or two together) since he liquidated the trailer, I've dreamed of getting back early in the season to fish some of those heavy mayfly hatches, as well as to further explore the Little Manistee. This year I determined to do it, and this week, I did. Maybe it wasn't the dream I should have pursued this time.

If you looked at my Twitters (in "Field Reports"), you observed that the trip didn't go so well. Simply put, the trip was a wash, in both senses. I arrived the day after record rainfall over the previous 36 hours, and both the Little Manistee and Bear Creek were blown out. The only realistic option for trout fishing, the clerk at Schmidt Outfitters told me, was to go below Tippy Dam on the Big Man. I'd considered spending an evening there anyway, so it seemed like a good place to start catching some fish while waiting for the other rivers to subside. Caddis hatch nearly every evening during the warm months, and they came off steadily between about 8 and 9 PM on Monday. In that time I landed half a dozen 10-12" browns, and countless 6' planters. That, unfortunately, was as good as the fishing would get.

I spent Tuesday morning "tire hiking" between several access points on the Little Man, concluding that I would likely drown if I tried to wade in. In the afternoon, I ventured up to Bear Creek, which looked more manageable. I did fish for a while, pushing through waist deep water in stretches that wouldn't have topped my calves ordinarily. I did turn three fish on streamers, but didn't get them to hold on. Back below Tippy that evening, the caddis hatch was lighter, and the catching was slower. Only needed to (or rather, had a plausible need to) break out the net on two fish.

Spent all of Tuesday on the Bear and had only steelhead smolts to show for it. A flight of Isonychia spinners came out before dark, but none made it to the water.
I barely managed to wait until they finally went back to the trees, since mosquitos were out in clouds.

They practically formed a blood-sucking sponge over the river the next morning when I went back to Bear to toss some streamers--perfect conditions for that with the water still stained, I thought. I didn't catch anything, but I couldn't fish very deliberately in the middle of an insect whiteout. After an hour and a quart or two of blood loss, I gave up.

Some say you should fish at least one new river every year; I fished mine Thursday afternoon, making a run to the nearby Platte River. Clear, swift, shallow, teeming with miniature rainbows and little else, at least as far as I could tell.

Originally, I'd planned to stay up there through today, but reports of heavy storms rolling in were making me reconsider, and when I returned to the campground last night and found it nearly emptied, I decided I didn't need to sleep in the midst of flood and tornado watches. Having heard reports of 3-10" of rain and many trees blown over in the vicinity last night, I think decamping was a good move.

I'm sure I'll still dream of trips to Manistee--a night on what I call the "Miracle Mile" of Bear Creek, when the fish are on, is just about as pleasant an evening of angling as I can imagine. But for a while I may not rush to live the dream.

Hello. Really, I haven't forgotten about this venture. I've been putting a lot of work in on some class stuff for next fall. This blog has been like a lot of favorite fishing spots--I often remember it fondly and plan to get back, but somehow never make it. It's not as if I have much fishing to report on, though. Took a short trip to the Huron last Monday and caught only dinks.

But tomorrow I am heading north for a week to hit some of those spots in NW Michigan I've neglected for a while--places where I cut my fly fishing teeth, really. I'll be Twittering from camp, if anyone is still interested in what happens here.

Oh, and tonight my wife asked if we could take a long weekend in Grayling sometime this summer. If we must...