upper manistee report , 7-3-04 to 7-6-04

[lonehunter]

let's see , FRIDAY I ARRIVED AT THE UPPER MANISTEE CAMPGROUND (DARN CAPS BUTTON ) just in time for a burger and hitting the river . The guys were already lined up as far as you could see in both directions . back to camp i went .
Saturday i spent the day spinner fishing and checking out the holes , got a burn , plenty of small brookies and browns and never set eyes on a bow .the spincast run of the afternoon had the drakes emerging from the mud . but that night the wind kicked up and not a thing landed on the water . switched over to a few nymphs and cought a few small browns , nothing to keep thou .
At about 6 p.m. i staked my section of the river out , good thing too , the line up was already undreway . got myself in a bend on the river with a medium sized hole near a fork in the river with a small log jam . the hatch was thick , plenty of brown drakes on the water , had one nice one on and that was about it .
sunday i spincast during the day , first the bottom strech , then the upper . while on the upper run some nimrod was blasting away with a shotgun off in the woods somewhere and i got peppered from the shot . took out the right lens of my glasses . i know it wasn't an intentional shot , i could hear the rounds discharging a couple hundred yards off in the woods . i was just glad i had the glasses on and my good luck was holding out .

went for a couple minutes for a spincast run and took a pic to show the average size of the browns i was getting . small huh ?

the weather changed all at once and the fish just shut down . thats the way it went into the night , cold rain and drizzle and gusty winds stood with me the rest of the weekend .
monday morning i checked out the backwashes for husks and found one drake . found a small brown belly up too . opened it up for a look see at it's last meal . it was full of the flys and had choked itself on a worm .
now there was a conversation a while back on a fishes size in relation to it's age . gotta tell you there's no truth in it . this carcas was not more than 6" in length and was pretty darn close to dropping her eggs . that's right , loaded up with eggs already . i guess this will be a short summer for sure . the dnr co i talked to said fish of that size in these watters are between 4 to 6 years old , heck in the cedar river a 4 year old is close to 18 " already .
the river is just to cold and there's too much pressure to get a big one on the dnr said . sure you get the great grand daddy once in a while , but there too far and inbetween .
monday it was still cold and rainey with less wind .i'm guessing the action on the lower near tippy would be heating up soon , those lil' ladys are going to be on the beds soon .
not a fish to keep but , plenty of practice time in thaTs for sure , gotta love the holidays .
howed you guys do ?
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[davetclown]

that bend looks almost identical to a place I fish on the huron [shocked]

that site would make a pretty picture[]

that sure was an idiotic thing for some one to do, In every hunter's saftey corce I have attended, the dangers of firing rounds in the air could not be impressed enough.

that was to close of a call for comfort. hope the his gun was taken and he was arrested.
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[lonehunter]

the dispatch said it would be a few days before they could have anyone out there to investigate , most of there officers were out patrolling the lakes .
i'm just chalking it up to a close call and counting my blessings on the whole matter , it could have ended up pretty nastey .
that river goes on for miles like this , some of the man made undercuts are up under the banks a good 20 feet . the big fish hide right up under there and only come out when it's pretty dark . all the tubers and canoers have them spooked thruout the summer months but, in the fall they sure come out hungry . the water temp stays a constant 55 degrees year round .
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