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Lone fly fisherman wades against the current in the AuSable River near Stephan Bridge.

FISHERS BUGGED: Late Hatches of Mayflies Cause Streams of Frustration

May 5, 2014       Leave a Comment
By: Dave Rogers

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I got interested in flyfishing again, after hearing about the new movie, "The River," that played to a packed house in Grayling recently.

My mind raced back to my high school days when I spent many long summer days in Grayling, and tried my hand at flyfishing on the Manistee River.

My stepfather, Howard Andrew Smith, a former World War II Seabee who fought in the South Pacific, had a cabin on the Manistee and was a flyfishing zealot.

He could even hand tie his own flies, and the complicated tying apparatus he used still baffles me to this day.

"It's easy," he would say, "just hold the feathers next to the hook, wrap the thread around it, and -- bingo, you have a caddis, or a mayfly, or a ...... (whatever)."

I have been searching the house for a framed collection of trout flies I bought in Ireland (a real fisherman's paradise, plus the place where you may find a pot of gold if you're nice to the leprechaun).

I can't forget walking into a hotel lobby in County Mayo maybe 10 years ago and seeing a silver platter with freshly caught trout, still shiny, cleaned and tagged with the fisherperson's name. One of them had a tag that said "Rogers." I wisely decided it was another Rogers (Scots-Irish--they're all over County Mayo) and passed on by. I never encountered the lucky Mr. Rogers from County Mayo, but his fish on a silver plate still intrigues me.

I may have given the framed flies away, and I won't sleep until I remember where they are, or who ended up with them. Maybe they were foolishly given to a relative who is a fishing nut, or maybe I donated them to an auction? Who knows, my memory not being what I always thought it was.

The business of flyfishing is much more than just amateur wading and casting; you really need to be an entomologist to know when the right kind of bugs are going to arrive and which flies to use during a particular period.

My wife Mary Dolores (lovely Irish lass that she is) stopped by the AuSable fishing hot spot, Gates AuSable Lodge, to pick up a copy of a DVD of "The River" on Sunday. Fishing cronies from far-flung streams loitered inside, chatting up the locals about the cold weather (42 degrees) and the lateness of the Hendrickson Hatch.

There even is a picture on the lodge wall of the inimitable Robert Traver, aka John D. Voelker, Judge of the Michigan Supreme Court, a flyfishing aficionado who wrote the classic "Anatomy of a Murder" and even had a cameo role in the iconic story filmed in Marquette and Ishpeming (supposedly the only Hollywood production filmed entirely on location in its original setting).

Dr. Duke Elsner, MSU Extension educator in Traverse City explains: "Bugs in the nymph stage store warmth in their bodies, gaining what's called a 'degree day' each time temperature reaches a specific point. Once they hit the appropriate degree days, insects emerge. Each species of insect has a different temperature range that causes them to hatch."

So now you know.

Obviously, the Hendrickson nymphs (sounds almost like pornographic dancers) have not reached their 'degree day' and are restraining themselves from hatching, keeping the fishermen at bay.

"It's the water temperatures that really rule them, and water temperatures don't change as radically or quickly as air temperatures go," Elsner told Morgan Sherburne of the Northern Michigan Review last year, when the bugs were a lot earlier because of warmer weather at this time in the spring.

Sherburne explained: "Mayfly hatches tick through a fairly typical schedule: Hendricksons, blue-winged olives and mahoganies start hatching in mid-April, marking the beginning of dry fly season. Usually, that beginning coincides with Michigan's trout season opener -- the last Saturday of April."

Hoping to take pictures of scads of fishers in the AuSable at the Stephan Bridge, I found none -- too cold I guess. Next door at the campground there were several cars, one with a boat trailer, but the fishers had disappeared.

Aha! here comes one now, already togged out in olive drab and waist high waders, carrying his casting rod. He gets in the water, which is rushing with the spring freshet, and -- NO -- he starts walking upstream, not casting at all so I can take the picture I want.

But I do get a shot of a fisher in the stream with a fly rod before he wades out of sight. Where is Ernest Hemingway when we really need him???

Speaking of Papa, "In Hemingway's Meadow" is an award-winning collection of flyfishing stories, edited by Joe Healy, available on the web from Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Someday, maybe someday, if I can find Smitty's old flyrod.... ###

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Dave Rogers

Dave Rogers is a former editorial writer for the Bay City Times and a widely read,
respected journalist/writer in and around Bay City.
(Contact Dave Via Email at carraroe@aol.com)

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