Hey guys, just a quick little update as it’s been a while… We’ve continued to struggle with water temperature issues quite a bit since last report but have also seen some much longer spurts of acceptable temps, particularly further upstream and the long-term forecast looks pretty good.
We’ve actually had good temps thru the system since late last Thursday night right up until now. It looks like we’ll probably be above 68 in the lower mid-river today again and probably for a while tomorrow also, but at least the moon and stars aligned enough for us to pull off the annual Cast for Conservation event that was held on Friday!
Water temps were a big concern going into it, but mother nature decided to do her part by giving us a little cooler air temps, overcast skies and even a little rain on Friday allowing all 9 teams to spread out and fish from 4pm till midnight without issue.
The actual “fishing” part wasn’t on fire by any means, but everyone had a great time and most caught at least a few fish while having fun and donating time, effort and/or dollars to the conservation efforts of the Pere Marquette Watershed Council. (One team just had too much fun and didn’t even turn in a score card! 😉🤣🎉)
The way this tournament works is that we have a picnic lunch with all of the teams and guides on Friday afternoon; during that lunch each team blind draws a guide from a hat and each guide then blind draws a “beat” (or section) that their team will fish.
Fish are then scored from 4pm until midnight on Friday during the trip by measuring your trout rounding up to the nearest inch (Or at least the ones you think will be in your top 4.) and you get one point per inch of the team’s combined top four fish. Winning team is the highest score and there is a separate prize for the biggest.
For example, my team on top of the score board shown here actually caught 8 – 10 fish in total but our “score” of 53 came from our best four. (A 16″, our biggest, a 14″, a 13″ and a 10″) So you see on the score board 53/16″ our score/largest fish. Turns out that was enough for second place this year (Did I mention that it wasn’t on fire…🙄😅) and third as far as largest goes. (Sorry, no fish pics. We went with the super quick release after just a quick lay down on the measuring board for a few of them.)
We fished from MacDougall’s to Rainbow pulling off at five minutes till midnight (Just beating the thunderstorm that rolled in.) but all of our action was in the afternoon anyway. The winning team, our buddies Joe and Sean, drew Walt Grau as their guide, fished from the mouth of the Baldwin River to Gleason’s Landing and all of their action was from 9pm to midnight… (Exactly the opposite of our experience. 🤪🤷♂️️)
They won the tournament with a score of 64 and Sean also took big fish with a 21″! They had planned to fish for a while after midnight just for fun and no score, but wound up with an hour’s row out in heavy rain instead… 🤣⛈️
Anyway, congratulations to Joe, Sean and Walt! The event raised $9,000.00 (less a few expenses like food, car spots, etc.) and was a great success once again. A big shout out to all of the guides for donating their time and expertise as well as the teams that make it possible. Looking forward to next year already!
The annual banquet/fundraiser was held on Saturday night at the Wildlife Center at Legends Ranch once again and was a smashing success as well! It was great to see so many people together in one place catching up with old friends and making new ones while enjoying drinks, dinner, some great presentations and a really fun auction! If you haven’t been to one you should consider it for next year!!
There may be some Trico action in the morning right now, but I haven’t actually spoken to anyone doing it just yet… Other than that, Nymphing is almost always productive if you’re into it, but terrestrials and attractor type patterns on the surface are a little more fun and a small, twitched streamer can be explosive as well. (That being said, waking flies at night is still amongst my favorite things to do and I’d love to show you why!)
We have guides open pretty much daily right now and lodging available if you need it. Give the shop a shout at (231) 745-3529 from 8am to 6pm daily to check on dates or to make a reservation, we’d be happy to have you and maybe recuperate just a little from all the trips we’ve had to call off this summer…
I don’t have much more for ya right now, but I do plan to get out more often now soon and when I do, I’ll be sure to post again!
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Have fun, be safe and we hope to see you soon! -Steve-
P.S. A big shout out to Dennis Greenwood for the gift that arrived in the mail yesterday! Dennis and I served together in the 22nd Maintenance Company, (Double Duce Baby!!) Heilbrönn Germany 1985/86. It was great catching up a little the other day and thanks for the coin!
