Sports

 My toughest client is my teenage son, Coleman- his friends call him Cole.  Now, you might say taking a kid fishing doesn't count as guiding, but you couldn't be further from the truth.  Taking a teenaged kid fishing is the best practice a guide can get, especially when its your teenaged kid, as they know pretty much everything and don't need your help.

I don't know what the biological mechanism responsible for this is called, but my parents call it karma.  

The spring sucker run is going in full force, and I figured it would be a great way for Cole to have some fun catching fish while I practiced teaching a new nymphing technique I learned from John.  He picked it up quick and put a half dozen suckers in the net. There was a group of bait fishermen walking down the bank while he was releasing the last and I could tell he was being overly dramatic with his movements and sounds to make sure they knew he had just caught a fish.  Smirking, I asked, "What the hell are you doing?"  He knew he was busted and laughed.   

On the drive home he said, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I bring a friend fishing with us sometime?"

"Sure!  Just make sure they think we're fishing the Au Sable."

"I know, all my friends at school already think thats always where we go." 

Insert proud dad emoticon face here.

The arrival of bugs means I'm on the water every day now.  I started out the other morning getting skunked chasing steelhead.  After losing a couple dozen flies to submerged timber, I reeled it in and swung over to the Au Sable to see if the brook trout were finished hibernating yet.  They were, and despite not having any significant bug activity, they were looking up.  Sometimes they'd take on a dead drift, but most fish would chase the fly down after I gave it more cow bell-- a small twitch, or a big twitch that would actually pull the fly under momentarily before the albolene made it slowly resurface.   

I took my daughter's prom pictures that evening, went grocery shopping with my wife, and then put the boat in on the mainstream for the first mousing trip of the year with Chad.  Mousing is best in late summer, and other than the date on the calendar, it felt exactly like a summer night- minus the mosquitoes.  Air temps above 50-degrees.  You could smell campfire smoke in the air- possibly from the forest fire north of St. Helen.  We drank a summer micro-brew and listened to spring peepers.  Every now and then, you'd hear what sounded like a nice fish rise.  I'd drop anchor and we'd sit and wait for the fish to go again so we could pinpoint its location, but there just weren't many bugs on the water for the fish to feed on, so that second rise never came.  

Chad did end up missing a fish blind casting a stimulator, and had one fish just below a log jam go after his mouse.  Go after is kind of an understatement, that fish just plain blew that mouse up.  Everytime a fish takes a mouse is an adrenaline rush, but the first mouse attach of the year is always the best.  We've been waiting 8-months for that fish.  Under the light of the full moon, I could see Chad's eyes explode open as he set the hook and yelled, "Holy shit!"  

"I never felt him!" He said.

"I'm gonna bring you back around for another shot." I said, while circling the boat away from the fish and back upstream.

"You ever get them to go again?" He asked.

"Usually no, but sometimes."  But not this time.  

We finished out the float and I got home about 3:30am, simultaneously wide awake and so tired I felt drunk.

DS20: Part 1 Looking Back on 2019

Our deer season ended yesterday so I guess preparation for the 2020 season-- DS20-- starts now. I had a lot of fun writing a hunting journal here last season, my only regret was that I didnt start it until mid-summer.

Before you can prepare for the next season, you have to reflect on the last. 2019 wasnt my most successful season as far as pounds of meat in the freezer or inches if horn on the wall, but it was my most successful season to date by a mile- particularly my out of state hunts. I had more nice buck encounters, and more mature buck encounters than any season prior. I put lessons learned from past seasons to use and was 100% I was going to let an arrow go during every hunt. I learned some new areas, and I covered some serious ground, hunting 6 counties here in my home state and another on my out of state hunts around 9 hours away. All that despite hunting the same number of days as any other year, 28 hunts. 26 of those with a bow, 2 with the muzzleloader.

All that said, I spread myself too thin hunting so many areas in my home state, taking first time sits to the extreme. Instead of working a few select properties, and squeezing a little tighter and tighter until I got the kill, I bounced from one property to another based on phase of the season, conditions and wind direction. I have complete confidence scouting my way in and doing a first time sit, but I was so mobile I was really just trying to get lucky. I was also giving up on properties too soon. That wasnt the case out of state as my options were a little more limited and it paid off.

I put meat in the freezer, but I missed shots on two bucks, both of which would have been personal bests, and one of which would have been my first P&Y. I practiced my but off in the off season and could make those shots with my eyes closed in practice. But real deer arent block targets. I've gotta pick better shots, and practice even harder. Target panic on the P&Y also has me considering back tension.

I failed to locate a mature buck in the preseason in my home state. It wasnt for lack of effort. I scouted in the spring and summer. I shined 2 to 4 nights a week. I had trail cameras out. If I'm going to shoot a mature buck here, I have to find one first. I need to scout earlier and more often.

I let my trail cameras sit too long between checks. They weren't in anyone's bedroom, there was no reason to leave them alone that long. If I checked them more often, I could have moved them around more and maybe located a mature deer.

I let my guard down. That P&Y I missed at 30yds...well, if I had my act together, I could had a shot at 9yds where he was when I first saw him.

I wasted too.much time finding the right tree to sit in. Scouting my way in means I never knew where I would end up exactly, which meant finding a tree when I found sign I couldnt walk past. There were.a couple instances I spent 30 minutes finding the right tree, leaving an obscene amount of ground scent. One of those times another buck that would have been a personal best hit some of that tree searching ground scent and hung up out of range before backing out.

I hunted more mornings, and I liked them.

I used my full body harness as a saddle with my beast sticks as a platform a half dozen times or so. I loved it, but am going to a saddle in 2020 to increase comfort.

Those were the lessons that are jumping out at me, I'm sure I will think of others as the offseasons progresses. Now it's time to think about winter scouting. Should be able to take a walk on Saturday and see what I see. The number one priority is to locate a mature buck close to home. They're a needle in a haystack, but they're out there. 10/1 will be here before we know it, time to get after it.

I Heart Public Lands, Volume I

I own a little trout stream west of Gaylord, perhaps you've heard of it-- its called the Jordan.

Living so far north, we typically go south to vacation or visit family-- meaning we get to see all the traffic coming north on our way south, and vise versa on our way home.  It always blows me away to see three lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic from Detroit up past Bay City going the opposite way.   Take that 150 miles, multiply by 5,280 to convert it to feet, divide by your average family car length of 15-feet, times your average american family of 3-people, times three lanes, and you've got about ~475,000 people heading north for the weekend- and that's just on I-75 and doesn't factor in US23, 127 or 131-- all, day, long.  Thats a lot of people driving north to enjoy our back yards, which is a nice reminder not to take where I live for granted.  All those folks vacation where I get to live in the heart of northern Michigan because of the abundant opportunities we have up here to enjoy natural resources, (camping, fishing, canoeing, backpacking, boating, etc.) almost all of which are on public lands. 

We're talking about a $22-billion dollar annual tourism industry coming up those highways to recreate in large part on public land.  Not to mention the $26-Billion dollar annual outdoor recreation industry in this state alone. Numbers only made possible by public land opportunities.  

 You think about all of the northern Michigan businesses who are getting a huge influx of customers from downstate on weekends and holidays thanks to the recreation made possible by public land, and you have to wonder why some of our elected officials are so quick to limit or reduce those public land opportunities that these small businesses and big boxes are benefiting from? 

One of the key pieces of anti-public land legislation passed by anti-public land legislators in the last decade was the Land Cap Bill passed by the State Senate back in 2011 and signed into law by Governor Snyder in 2012.  That bill was introduced by Sen. Tom Casperson (R) of the western UP, who fortunately is term limited-- don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out-- but unfortunately, was almost constantly attacking our public lands during his terms in office.    

This is how the current republican party works (sorry GOP readers, but I'm not aware of any non-republican government officials actively working against our public lands, and attacking our public lands is actually in the official republican party platform which is why its no coincidence that this kind of thing is happening simultaneously in multiple states throughout the country and at the national level.  I know there are a lot of republicans and alot of republican leaders who don't like that its in there, but it still is, and until its not, I'm calling you out.  The Democratic party is perhaps more useless when you consider their inability to get anything accomplished and their constant preoccupation with republican built straw men, but at least they aren't trying to steal my public lands from me).  There are companies who want to exploit natural resources on our public lands for their private profit.  They have our elected officials in their pockets, and tell them that the rules protecting our public lands are costing them money or preventing them from making more money.  The repubs are actually smart about how they attack their rich donors' problem.  They don't come at our public lands with a bazooka.  They bring a pocket knife and try to kill them with the proverbial death by 1,000 cuts, and then every now and then when the time is right, they chop a limb off with a machete.  Eventually, the problem is completely crippled and useless. 

Casperson needed a way to make chicken shit taste like chicken salad, so he used the bogus property tax argument.  He stated his primary motivation for the bill was to help local municipalities get their property tax money from the State of Michigan for lands it owned in their jurisdiction.  Those poor local communities couldn't pay their bills cause the State didn't pay its bills on time.  But why didn't the State pay them-- because republicans previously held those payments up at the State legislature.  Its kind of like national republicans who cut the funding from agencies who manage western forests to the point they can't manage them effectively, then scream there are too many dead trees in these forests, we need to cut them all down.   Its kind of like someone going to a restaurant, eating 3/4 of their meal, then plucking a hair from their head and putting it in their food, and complaining about the hair in their food so they can get a free meal.   Its pure deceit.

But I digress.

Some friends having dinner along one of our other trout streams, perhaps you've heard of the Au Sable River?

There are almost no cons to a people having abundant public lands.  Public lands are one of America's best ideas.  If someone can own their own property great, but as a species, human beings have always had a need for a large home range.  Cramp a wolf or a bear into a little zoo exhibit, and they just aren't happy campers.  People are no different.  You cramp us into a small area and we start getting mentally and physically stressed out.  And yet, we're only just beginning to understand the health benefits of spending time in the great outdoors.  But the human need for open spaces is not a new idea.  Between 1821 and 1855, New York City almost quadrupled in population.

"As the city expanded northward up Manhattan Island, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city."

Thats right, people used to go hang out in cemeteries to escape the daily grind.  Which, as you can imagine, is kind of a buzzkill, so they built Central Park.  A couple decades later, Yellowstone became the first National Park, which sparked a worldwide movement.  Today, there are over 100 nations with over 1,200 national parks or equivalent preserves. 

But the bulk of public lands aren't parks or preserves.  They're just land, held in trust for the American people, by multiple federal government agencies.   They come in the form of national forests, national wildlife refuges, national monuments, national conservation areas, national wildernesses, national wild and scenic rivers, national historic sites, national memorials, national marine monuments, national battlefields, etc.

In total, the American people own 650 million acres of land.  Thats something I don't think sinks in completely for most.  We own it.  So that whole Grand Canyon out west...yeah, its mine.  That beautiful alpine forest in state "x"?  Mine, too.  That trout stream running through Rocky Mountain National Park?  Yup, I own it.

I own a little blueberry patch northeast of Gaylord.  You might have heard of it-- its called the Pigeon River Country...

Here in Michigan, we've got a bunch of State land, too.  4.6 million acres'ish.  And while federal public lands are awesome, State land is most near and dear to my heart.  My favorite chunk of State land is one of the crown jewels of our State, the Pigeon River Country State Forest.  I also really like hunting, fishing and hiking on State lands in close proximity to the PRC, but not part of it.  So that gem called the Black River?  Thats mine, too.  In fact, during trout season, I can go catch my family dinner there whenever I want.  The Witness Tree?  It's mine to relax under whenever I want.  All those hardwood hills along Tin Shanty Rd?  Mine to hunt for morel mushrooms each and every spring until my knees stop bending or I die.

Some of those same anti-public land Michigan politicians think we have too much public land in the northern lower.  Despite donating American Flags that flew over the capital for conservation club banquets, or their campaign ads showing them wearing new, crisply ironed hunting clothes, kneeling next to hunting dogs, or paddling a canoe down a picturesque northern Michigan river with their family;  its pretty obvious that they don't actually hunt or spend much time on our public lands, because if they did, they wouldn't think there were too many acres of them up here.  While some areas are relatively untouched, most of our State lands and waters are at or above carrying capacity. 

We need more public lands and access to them.  But where do we start?



  

Bigfoot and Snowshoe Hares

I was listening to the Meateater podcast the other day where they were interviewing Laura Krantz, a journalist and host of the Wild Thing podcast, about the man, the myth, the legend…Bigfoot.  One of the things that particularly caught my attention was that Laura’s relative, Grover Krantz, one of the pioneers of the whole sasquatch thing, who believed there was a bigfoot, was actively trying to kill a bigfoot.  He felt that a researcher would be much more successful at saving the bigfoot population if they were able to sacrifice just one as evidence they do, indeed, exist.  I guess that kind of makes sense, but what if he actually found one?  What if he successfully shot and killed it in the name of science, and later found out that it was the last one on earth?   

That's what I pondered the other day while I was hiking through the heart of the Pigeon River Country State Forest (PRC) in Northern Michigan on a Christmas Day grouse hunt.  I wasn’t seeing any sign of grouse so my mind began to wander to other small game species I might be able to make a meal out of.  Squirrels and rabbits are in season, and I was trying to decide if I would take either if the opportunity presented itself.  That sent my mind down the proverbial rabbit hole—pun intended-- and I was trying to think about the last time I encountered a snowshoe hare in the PRC?  Its actually been a couple years since I’ve seen a live rabbit while hunting anywhere in northern Michigan.  I’ve seen a few cottontails here and there while driving, and I saw a snowshoe this summer on the way to one of my trout spots, but none while hunting or fishing, and I’m out there a lot.    

Where’d they all go?

I’ve never been a diehard rabbit hunter, but when I was in my early 20s—in the early 2000’s—you would commonly see cottontails while hunting other animals.  Even then, snowshoes weren’t as common, but it wasn’t uncommon to see one.  Now if you see a snowshoe, you tell someone about it.  Now, if you even see a snowshow track, you tell someone about it—and probably take a pic with your phone and post it on social media.  Just over the last week, I've hiked over 15 miles in the PRC   Much of that through river bottoms, conifers and cedar swamps,  clearcuts, etc.  Most of this was prime rabbit habitat, and I didn’t see a single rabbit track.  Not one.  I would have probably been better off looking for bigfoot. 

No one alive today remembers how sportsmen spearheaded and led the conservation movement in the late 19^th and early part of the 20^th century.  I’m sure those guys who were saying we need to start conserving our wild places and critters might have gotten a little bit of pushback from their fellow sportsmen.  It probably got a little easier to promote the idea of conservation when species like the passenger pigeon—a bird whose numbers were so high they would literally black out the sky—went extinct.   Martha, the last known passenger pigeon died in the Cincinatti Zoo in 1914.  That same year, Michigan built a grayling hatchery in an effort to restore a rapidly declining grayling population but it was too little, too late.  Michigan grayling were gone by the 1930’s.   

I bet if you told a Michigan resident in 1850 that in only 80 years, grayling would be extirpated and passenger pigeons would be completely extinct, they would look at you like were crazy.  Probably the way someone would have looked at me in 1990 if I told them in 30 years, it would feel impossible to find a snowshoe hare in the Pigeon River Country. 

I was talking to my buddy, Lance, about it.  He spends just as much time in the PRC as anyone I know and has similar observations.  He shared an article with me that says MSU researchers attribute the showshoe’sdecline to climate change.  My other buddy, Steve, showed me a trail cam picture not far outside the PRC of a couple under his corn feeder, but his other half won’t let him shoot one.    My friend, Tim, rabbit hunts mostly in the U.P. and says it’s a night and day difference between there and here.  Tim thinks its because we don’t get enough snow anymore in the northern lower, and have more avian and mammalian predators. 

I’m sure Tim’s right.  But I think the elephant in the room is, why haven’t showshoe hare bag limits been reduced in the northern lower in response to their declining population?  If I could find five, I could go take 5 today, the same as I could in the 90’s.  How long are we going to all talk to each other about how we’re not seeing snowshoe hares in the northern lower anymore, before we don’t have any snowshoes in the northern lower anymore?  I'm not saying we shouldn't be allowed to hunt showshoes in the northern lower anymore, but maybe the daily bag limit should be adjusted.

So getting back to my Christmas day hunt for a partridge in a pear tree, I decided that if I did encounter a bigfoot, er, I mean, snowshoe hare, I wouldn’t kill it.  While I’m not naïve enough to think it would actually be the last one in the PRC, I’m still not willing to take that risk. 

Fishing Needs More Liars

I hit the restaurant at Gates Lodge the other day for lunch.  My friend says you don't go to a place like Gates to order a turkey sandwich.  At his recommendation, I tried a corned beef sandwich they call the, "Eastern Rise."  Its shaved corned beef and kimchi, topped with melted swiss, on rye.  The chefs at Gates cook their corned beef down themselves, and have it down to a science.  The flavors that hit when you take a bite are, just, well, something I don't have the vocabulary to describe. 

Matt took my order at the takeout window and we got to talking about fishing.  He and I always talk about fishing when we bump into each other, in fact I'd say most of our conversations have gone into detail on fishing stuff I wouldn't normally talk about publicly.  But this time he asked a question he normally doesn't-- "Where were you at?"  Now I've unfriended and blocked people on social media for asking that same question or variations of it, but Matt is a good dude, so I just gave him my canned response, "a gentleman never tells." 

"Were you on the South?"
"No."
"The Main, the North, the upper Man, up North?" 
"Nope,"  I answered to each in rapid succession.  He was getting desperate.
"C'mon, man, why won't you tell me where were you at? You were on the Main weren't you?"
"Yup."
He knew I was lying.
"Man, that's really kind of weird that you won't tell me what river you were on."
"I don't know who is standing behind me."  I said and laughed, knowing full well there was no one else in sight.
"There isn't anyone else out there." he said through the window.

I walked away feeling bad and proud at the same time, all the while wishing the conversation had taken place after he made my sandwich.

June is a great time to lie to your friends.  I talked to one person who showed up at their favorite spot to see 11 vehicles parked there.  11, on a stream 50' across!  I don't even understand how a guy could stop the car after pulling up and seeing another car or two already there, let alone, get out, gear up and go try fishing amongst the masses.  How the 11th guy did it, I have no idea.  The only thing keeping that place worth going back to after is the fact that 10.5 of the 11 don't know what they're doing. 

But sometimes, you aren't being secretive to protect good fishing, you're doing it to just have a pretty place to yourself.  Because having a beautiful place to yourself is really what its all about.  I could lose my job today, and it would be ok, because I could go sit on the side of a river and remember that life would go on.  My dog could get hit by a car, and it would be ok, because I could go reflect on the side of a river, and remember that life would go on.  My car might take a crap, and it would be ok, because I know that I would forget all about it on the side of a river, and life would go on.  I couldn't do those things in a combat fishing situation.

While waiting for the evening rise one night, I posted a photo of the fog moving over a gorgeous stretch of river I was on.  It was beautiful, despite the poor fishing that would follow.  The next morning I got a text from a friend asking if I was on the Main.  I told him I was, even though it was a bold faced lie.    

I love it when people try to guess where I was fishing and give up a good fishing spot I didn't know about in the process.  They'll ask if I was on river x, and then before I can lie to them, they will tell a story of how they really love that stretch below some bend where all those big trout pile up.  I'll just agree, replying that I love it, too, letting them think that's right where I was, even though I'd never had any interest in fishing there until that point in time.  And even though I never answered the question, they walk away thinking I had.  Its like a two for one deal, I keep my spot a secret and get a new spot to check out in the process. 

Traver wrote that you should, "never show a favorite spot to a fisherman you wouldn't trust with your wife."  I'm not sure that goes far enough.  I have four or five friends I trust enough to speak openly about my fishing spots at that level.  Though I'm not 100% sure as one lives 1500 miles away, two are much, much older than me and physically can't get to many of the places I'm usually talking to them about.  Older guys are usually more fun to fish with anyway, they have nothing to prove and all in all, just get it-- and they're not interested in your wife. 

The downside of all this secrecy is that I truly enjoy fishing with other people, and since I can't trust 99% of them, I'm forced to fish with them on water I would rather not be fishing.  You know, tourist water.  Tourist water is the water everyone who has been around already knows about.  Its in all the local fishing guides, its easy to get to, and while its generally not the best place to fish, it gets the job done. 

New fishing buddy candidates must prove they can keep those types of places a secret before I will take them to the next level of fishing spots, the spots that aren't in the guide books, but are still on the rivers everyone knows about.   If they talk about it to anyone else, or if they go back there with someone else after you introduce it to them, they fail.  I'll still fish with them, but will never again take them to a new spot or a spot without 11 vehicles in the parking area, but they're welcome to take me to theirs. 

A good example of this happening recently was when I took a guy who I've known for some time out on a little known piece of tourist water, you know, to see if our fishing buddy relationship might be worth taking to the next level.  Not a day after we fished, we were both with a large group of people when he blurted out how awesome the fishing was the evening before and named the spot.  He had potential, so in a fishing buddy kind of way, it was heartbreaking.  But that's why I took him someplace marginal for the first date- not someplace that needed to be kept a secret.

A marginal fishing spot is better than one in pressured, pristine trout water if you're the only one who fishes it.  Spots in pristine trout water you have to yourself are sacred and shouldn't be shared with even immediate family, even if that means, someday, you break a leg and die a slow death, exposed to the elements because no one knew where to look for you.  The even bigger conundrum comes in for the guy that finds your pile of bones on the bank and has to decide if he wants to report the find to authorities and risk that spot to the world, or leave your remains, and his secret spot, a secret. 

The catch-22 in all of this is that when the time comes that your secret spot is threatened by something-- oil/gas drilling, mining, a dam, etc.-- you're going to have a tough time trying to save it by yourself.  That's why there is hell and lawsuits to pay for anyone who even breathes on the Au Sable without brushing their teeth first.  It might be the epitome of tourist water, but it gets 300+ people to show up for it at a river cleanup. 

That said, I think fishing needs more liars and more guys keeping secrets. 

If You're Not Eating Trout, You're Doing It Wrong

I recently came across a post on the Trout Unlimited facebook page where someone got all worked up over TU sharing a video on how to debone trout.  I believe the comment went something like, "This isn't what TU is about!"  For the sake of protecting his identity, we'll call him stereotypical trout guy (STG).  This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that I've seen this type of reaction to anything associated with keeping trout versus always releasing them.   There are a lot of STG's out there. 

I used to be a STG.  Wait, let me say that again.  Hello, my name is Alex and I used to be a stereotypical trout guy.  I was all about the catch and release.  I loved trout, why would I want to kill one?  And then I realized the inherent hypocrisy in my outlook and practice of 100% C&R.

The act of hooking and fighting a trout causes stress on the trout.  That stress manifests itself in the form of lactic acid build up in the fish's bloodstream.  Once a fish reaches acidosis, or a point where the lactic acid buildup is so high that the trout's bloodstream can't get rid of it, the fish will die whether it swims away or not.  And that death often occurs hours after being released due to issues created during the fight and release. And that's all before that killer instagram photo session takes place.

Maybe stereotypical trout guy should be more concerned with guys practicing C&R with light rod weights and tippet?  Maybe stereotypical trout guy should be more concerned with social media feeds full of hero shots?  Maybe stereotypical trout guy should be more concerned with people practicing C&R with conventional tackle rigged with treble hooks? 

Maybe stereotypical trout guy should be more concerned with fighting and stressing trout out for his own amusement only so they can swim away and die?

So I could be a hypocrite, or I could fish for the same reason humans have fished for thousands of years...food.  I don't keep every fish I catch, and still have plenty of fishing trips where I don't keep any fish.  But I keep enough for dinner just often enough that I don't feel like a hypocrite anymore.

The crazy part?  Trout taste awesome.  Brown trout not so much, though I've heard a particular strain of lake runs on one of my local trout streams are pretty good.  Rainbows are ok, but I don't run into them very often.  Brookies are delicious, one of the best fish I've eaten and right up there with whitefish, walleye and salmon. 

The first thing I do as soon as the decision has been made to keep a fish is bonk it on top of the head and gut it wherever I am.  Two brookies in the 8-12" range are what I'm after.  Smaller or bigger fish will be released.  If I'm not going to eat them right there on the stream, they go into a container of some sort that will keep them cool until I get home.  I never freeze fish, they taste a million times better fresh. 

My favorite way to cook brook trout is nothing fancy.  If on stream, I cook them unseasoned over an open fire.  If I take them home, they'll get fried in butter, hopefully with morels if I have any. 

On Grayling Reintroduction in Michigan

Its no secret that the Michigan DNR and local Tribes are in the midst of arctic grayling reintroduction efforts in the northern lower peninsula.    I'm a native species guy.  I'm a staunch supporter of doing whats best for native over introduced or non-native or invasive species.  I feel robbed that grayling were extirpated before I was born and I never got the chance to fish for them on my local streams.  I wish they were still here, I really do.  But I have a really hard time supporting arctic grayling reintroduction efforts in northern Michigan streams, starting on the upper Manistee. 

The reason is pretty simple, I'm a brook trout guy, brook trout are also native to many northern Michigan streams, and I learned Gause's Principle in college ecology-- no two species can occupy the same niche.  They can share the same habitat, but eventually, one will go extinct. 

While logging and overfishing tend to get most of the bad wrap for the extirpation of grayling in northern Michigan streams, what really did them in was the natural expansion of brook trout, whether brookies naturally colonized new waters that grayling previously dominated, or if they were stocked in them by man.  Grayling were in decline before logging and overfishing.  I know this from reading historical accounts, but was recently reminded of it while doing some research on an unrelated subject.

I was reading a paper written by RE Vincent in 1962, "Biogeographical and Ecological Factors Contributing to the Decline of Arctic Grayling, Thymallus arcticus pallas., in Michigan and Montana."  In it, Vincent writes:

"Exotic trouts were early introduced into grayling waters.  In some streams grayling populations were already low; in others they were still high.  In nearly all grayling streams, exotic trouts flourished and grayling declined. 

Accepting Clements and Shelford's (1939) definition that competition is a demand by two or more organisms for the same resources or conditions in excess of immediate supply and realizing the validity of Gause's Rule (Gause, 1934), which states that an ecological niche cannot be occupied simultaneously and completely by a stable population of more than one species, it is apparent that trout introduction into grayling communities would necessitate community adjustment.  As trouts and grayling are in many ways ecological equivalents, when the introduced population reaches a high enough density both species would be utilizing the same environmental resources.  The eventuality that one of the species will become extinct is shown by Frank (1957), Gause (1934), Park (1948), and others.

Competition may be direct, as active antagonism, or indirect, as a species monopolizing a given resource needed by another.  The more closely ecologically related the species, the more intense the competition.  Degree of competition changes as environments fluctuate to favor one or the other competitor.  Along an environmental gradient whose extremes favor two species, there would theoretically be a point on either side of which each species would be superior (Crombie, 1947). 

Competition has been repeatedly suggested as the major cause of grayling decline (Brown, 1938a; Creaser and Creaser, 1935; Henshall, 1916; Thompson, 1925; and others).  According to Brown (1943), the absence of competitive trouts seems absolutely essential to grayling survival.  In nearly every watershed it is difficult to separate effects of competition from other simultaneous influences.  In many places where exotic trouts have been introduced, the grayling has declined, but often other changes were involved."

In 1841, Hubbard wrote that there were no brook trout until you crossed the Mackinac Straits.  I find it questionable that he fished every northern Michigan stream extensively enough to make such a claim.  I doubt its validity even more when you consider that just 15 years later, Lanman (1856) reported an abundance of large trout in the tip of the northern lower peninsula.  Around the same time and even in accounts written a few years earlier, others reported abundant brook trout populations in the Traverse region-- not in every stream, but some.  The streams where brook trout were abundant, grayling were not, and vise versa.  (Starting to notice a pattern here?)

Still, there is no doubt that brook trout were rapidly expanding their range into northern lower peninsula streams.  By 1869, it is documented that they inhabited streams as far south as the Manistee flowing into Lake Michigan and as far east as the Ocqueoc which flows into Lake Huron.  This is all before brook trout stocking got going in the northern lower around 1879. 

There is a great table in Vincent's paper (Table 6) that documents historical accounts of both grayling and brook trout populations in the Jordan River until grayling were extinct.    It goes from the Jordan being a grayling stream with a few trout in 1857, to trout being the primary species caught in 1875, to grayling almost being gone in 1877, to grayling being nearly extirpated in 1879.  Similar timelines exist on the Boardman and Boyne Rivers.  In the Au Sable, logging might have played a bigger role in the decline of grayling than what was happening naturally on other northern Michigan streams.

Whats my point in all of this? 

We can't bring grayling back without killing all of our trout.  Gause's Principle says so.  It all comes down to survival of the fittest, and if grayling can't compete with brook trout, how are they going to handle 25+" brown trout that are thriving where the State plans to reintroduce them in the upper Manistee?

It all boils down to this:  we are either wasting our time and money for a "feel good" story that will eventually fail.  Or we are going to have to kill all of our wild trout in the upper Manistee to help grayling reintroduction permanently succeed (and even then, it might not succeed).  These are trout that government and conservation groups have spent bajillions of dollars and volunteer hours conserving and protecting for the last 125 years.  Are we willing to throw that all away for a fish that by most accounts isn't as good to eat as trout or as fun to catch, ? 

And what happens if I'm wrong (and over a hundred years of science are wrong) and grayling reintroduction efforts are successful, but they gain classification as threatened or endangered, and say, my local TU chapter wants to add some large woody debris in the Deward Tract on the upper Manistee or maybe plant some cedars or take out a beaver dam there to help trout?  Will the government let us? 

What if its determined that streams with reintroduced grayling need to be closed to fishing to prevent accidentally catching grayling-- will they close trout fishing on the upper Manistee? 

What streams are next on the list for grayling reintroduction? 

Why are we doing this again?

About a Girl

Summer

Last weekend I picked up my Au Sable Riverboat, "Summer," from winter storage.  There are few things in life better than hooking your boat trailer up for the first time in the spring and seeing that all of your trailer lights still work.  Driving her home, I got this feeling of completeness every time I looked up and saw her in the rearview mirror.  Patsy Cline's late 60's country hit, "Back in Baby's Arms," playing on the radio.

I got home, backed her up my driveway, manually pulled her off of the trailer hitch and walked her into the garage.  This means I'll be parking outside now, as my wife's car gets the other half.  And I'm ok with that.  After all, its the least I can do for her for letting me spend so much time with another girl. 

Yeah, I really love my Au Sable Riverboat. 

Its kind of funny how boats are usually feminine-- though I'm not sure I've ever heard a boat referred to as a woman, they're always girls.  Even more experienced boats aren't called women, but instead, "old girls."  If a boat isn't a girl, its neither masculine or feminine, but an "it," and usually named something funny or clever. 

Deep Ship

She Got the House

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

 

 

My first boat was a Clackacraft 16' LP.  Right away I could tell she was a bad ass and needed an appropriate name to reflect her personality.  I named her Lagertha, after a famous viking shieldmaiden who "had the courage of a man, and fought in front among the bravest with her hair loose over her shoulders. All-marvelled at her matchless deeds, for her locks flying down her back betrayed that she was a woman." 

I took that Clacka places a 16' driftboat had no business being and had a ton of fun in her, but sold her and purchased a Stealthcraft Hooligan raft, another boat with a biker chick vibe which I named, "Lagertha II," who I sold to purchase my dream girl, an early 90's pinup Au Sable Riverboat I named, "Summer."

Summer was built in 1992 by Lacey Stephan in Grayling, MI.  She was his 13th boat built.  Some find that number to be bad luck, but I think its just more proof that we were fated to be together as my wife's lucky/favorite number is 13. 

Lacey built her for the Mason Griffith Founders Chapter of Trout Unlimited's banquet that year, where she would be raffled off to someone who purchased a single $20 raffle ticket.  That lucky someone turned into a client when I was guiding a couple years ago on the Black.  Ironically, I remember him mentioning that he had an old Au Sable Riverboat on the first trip I had him on, and that he was thinking about doing something with it as he preferred to be the one fishing, not steering the boat. 

He must have told the same thing to another local fishing guide who is wiser than myself, as he ended up trading him 10 guide trips for the old girl.  Fate stepped in just hours after this deal had gone down when I messaged this other local guide and asked him if he knew anyone looking to buy a raft.  A little back and forth took place, and next thing you know, I'm picking up my first Au Sable Riverboat.

My close friends think I will turn around and sell Summer after this season, but I'm not so sure.  Our relationship is special.  There is something magical about going down the river in her.  Its so slow motion, you feel like you're moving back in time.  Her quietness occasionally interrupted by the ticks and scratches of the push pole contacting subsurface rocks and gravel, or the drag chain, which sounds like distant bells, intermittently whispering in the wind. 

When it came time to name my Au Sable Riverboat, "Lagertha III" just didn't fit.  This boat wasn't going to be getting portaged through backcountry cedar swamps, or over log jams, or raced down the Sturgeon to heavy metal.  No, she would be used in the quiet waters of the upper Au Sable, and other similar streams, mostly to rising trout and bird music.

I still need to put a fresh coat or two of spar varnish on her, but its still too cold for that.  We'll hit the river for the first time of the season this morning.  I'm not planning to fish, but just want to go down the river for a few hours.  But I'll bring a rod and a few flies along, just in case.

The first float of the year is a pretty happy time.  One year, we mocked elitist fly anglers everywhere by anchoring the boat in the middle of the Au Sable, just downstream from the put in, and played Ave Maria on a Bluetooth speaker while we smoked cigars and drank cheap blackberry brandy. 

I don't fish through the winters anymore.  There are better things to do, like trap beaver and snowshoe and tie flies.  Though the last few years, the snowshoes weren't really necessary.  Trout fishing is a summer thing for me now, so when it came time to name my new boat, Summer seemed appropriate.