I headed down Cardiac Hill and decided to use the flies I have been teaching in my Fly Tying class at Brethern High School. I tied on the Black Leech and started drifting it down the river.
Looking upstream towards the Coffer Dam were two guys floating bobbers and egg sacs. I decided to stay down by the bend.
I could just make out two guys below me and they were throwing bobbers also.
This is the North side right at the boat launch at Tippy Dam. No combat fishing today.
I kept drifting my leech and doing repetitive casting. Drift down, bump bottom, lift and reel in. Throw out again, drift down, bump bottom, and reel in. Over and over and then move a few steps down and do it again. Whoa, what was that! I go to set the hook and am fast into something. The bottom! I tugged but it didn't tug back. Finally, the line broke and I had to re-rig. Then cast and cast again. The sun was out and a little windy but nice to be on the Manistee River.
Fish on! A colorful Brown Trout hit the black leech! Yeah, I can tell my fly tying class that the fly does work!
Back to the casting and drifting. I fished from 9:00 - 11:45 am. It was relaxing and fun. This is day 159 of fishing for this year. I have to teaching Fly Tying on Tuesday night and Glass Bead Making on Wednesday night and Thursday I am heading over to Slippery Rock, PA to help my son, Ryan, put down new flooring.
So I only have a couple more days of fishing before I head down to Key West for 30 days of sunshine!
Not many people and lots of open space to fish...priceless! I have to work on my boat trailer bearings so I get all the water out before winter. I was going to start the job this morning but the nice weather beckoned me to the river. I switched to a new style of a leech. This was made with marabou tail but petite Estaz black braid body. I thought it would work as well and I tossed it out. Second cast and wham!
The new Black Leech works as well as the old style fly. Another Brownie! Where are the Steelhead?
I switched to the Nuclear Egg pattern. I told the class it was a great fly. I snagged another one on the bottom and broke off my rig. I re-tied and started floating the egg pattern down.
All right, a Rainbow trout that will grow up to be a Steelhead. Ok, three fish and no Steelhead. I released everything to grow bigger. I decided it was time to head back. My Egg pattern caught a fish and my Leech caught two so I could report that fishing was good on the Manistee River on Monday!
As I started up Cardiac Hill I took this picture.
What do you see? Notice the railing?
This shows the railing on both sides. The wind gets pretty strong sometimes and last Spring it blew over several pine trees and bend the railing. The hillside is rocky and the tree roots do not get a deep root here. The stairs were closed for 2-3 days before Consumers Electric cut up the trees and opened the stairway.
I carried up another bag of trash and noted that it still looks pretty good. Remember what Smokey the Bear says....."Pick it up and pack it out". At least, I think that is what Smokey told me last week!
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