Spring is big brown-trout time

Casey Richey (left) and his son Shane, with his former state-record brown.

All things are relative. A trophy brown when I was a kid was the 11-pounder that George Yontz of Wolverine caught from the Sturgeon River in the late 1950s.

Frankly, over many years of trolling Lake Huron and Lake Michigan for brown trout, I've landed many that were big enough to put a hefty strain on my rod, and would tilt the scales to weights from 11 to 19 pounds.

The brown trout is a mystery fish to many anglers. A five-pound brown on the Holy Waters of the upper AuSable and Manistee rivers is a trophy fish. Fish one of those back-of-beyond jump-across creeks, and catch a brown trout measuring 12 inches, and it too is a trophy.

Brown trout numbers have dwindled somewhat in recent years around the Great Lakes. Previously, browns of 20 to 25 pounds were common catches, and the current state record fish was caught two years ago from the Manistee River below Tippy Dam. It weighed in at 41 pounds, 7.2 ounces.

Big brown trout are around but they are difficult to hook and harder to land.

Big browns are where you find them. Most harbors on Lakes Huron and Michigan produce some big fish. For many years, Thunder Bay at Alpena was home to some of the state's biggest browns and the area continue to produce some big fish.

Some very nice fish have been caught trolling in Hammond Bay north of Rogers City, and the area near AuGres off Whitestone Point has produced some very nice fish as well.

Huron Bay at Baraga and L'Anse on Lake Superior also produce good numbers of brown trout in the past. Another Upper Peninsula hotspot for years has been along the Michigan's shoreline from Escanaba and Little Bay de Noc south to Menominee. Ten-pound fish were common catches here, and I've caught some 11 and 12-pounders near Escanaba.

Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay, including both arms of the bay, have produced some huge browns. My son David hooked a huge fish on a Rapala years ago, played it with a gentle hand, and lost it when the lure broke apart. Three of us saw that fish, and our closest estimate to its weight was 25 pounds. In higher waters of yesteryear, the Acme Reel along US-31 was a real hotspot.

Harbors at Frankfort, Onekama, Manistee and Ludington also produce big brown trout on occasion. Even some of the southerly ports such as Saugatuck and South Haven have delivered good numbers of browns.

Some key fishing methods for Great Lakes brown trout.

It's possible to cast spoons off breakwalls or piers at these harbors, and a blue-silver, green-silver, orange-silver, all silver, copper, brass, pearl or other color 1/4 or 1/3-oz. Devle Dog spoons work well. Experiment with sinking time, retrieval speeds and vary between casting straight out off the pier or casting parallel to the pier if no one is in the way.

Trolling produces very well, and the trick is to work in and out of shallow water during the spring months. Years ago, Jack Duffy pioneered this offshore fishery, brought me in on it, and between us, we pounded the big browns for many years. The methods that follow worked for us, and they continue to produce.

We always used 6-pound line, and trolled two types of lures: wobbling plugs (X-4, X-5 and U-20 FlatFish to be exact) or minnow-imitating plugs like the Rapala, Rebel, Long-A Bomber or FasTrac. Hot colors were silver, silver-black, chartreuse-orange and gold-black in the latter category. FlatFish colors were silver, silver with red spots or pearl.

FlatFish required a very slow trolling speed, and we'd test lures next to the boat to see if they tracked straight. If so, slowly release line until the lures at least 100 yards behind the boat, and put them into rodholders. Some anglers prefer trolling off in-line planer boards.

Minnow-imitating lures can be trolled faster than FlatFish, but tie a loop knot to the lure's line tie to open up its wiggle. Again, let two lures out at the same time and speed for about 100 yards, and put the rods in rod holders. Adjust reel drags so a brown can take line on the strike.

Big browns almost always rip off an additional 50-75 yards of line on the strike. Reel the other line in to get them out of the way, and play the fish gently. Often, browns will strike and run toward the boat. Reel fast and hard, and you may be pleasantly surprised when you catch up to the fish when it is about 25 yards behind the boat.

Great Lakes browns grow to be the largest but some big ones come from rivers.

Browns occasionally jump, and most often will roll on the surface. Once they get close to the boat, be prepared for one or more last-ditch efforts by the fish. Watch its head, and if the head cocks to one side or the other, he is planning another run. Let the fish go, and don't try to pressure them on 6-pound line. A big fish will break the line like sewing thread.

Try trolling near the edges and tips of piers, along the mud line where river water meets lake water, and off a river mouth. Gravel or rocky bars in six to 15 feet of water can be good spots, and the key to good brown trout fishing is an abundance of alewives or smelt.

Catching big browns these days is not easy but my nephew, Casey Richey of Frankfort, set a new state record a few years ago. His record was broken last year with a massive fish from the Manistee River. The big fish are around, but scoring means putting in a lot of time.

Fish smart, play big fish with a soft hand and good luck!

Tricks to bow-shooting deer

Know how, when & where bucks travel and figure out how to outsmart them.

How about you? Are you like most bow hunters who are always looking for a shortcut. They continually wonder: what can I do to make each trip more successful?

First of all, don't expect every trip to be successful in terms of killing a deer. It won't be, and besides, if such a thing was possible, deer hunting would soon lose some of its appeal and become rather boring and tedious.

I've come today with a list of things hunters can do to increase their success rate, but I'll probably forget a few and that will make for another blog on another day.

Several tips to increasing bow hunting success.

• Practice shooting every day if possible. Learn your bow, what it will do, and practice often with it. Everything else in these tips will fall apart unless you can hit what you are shooting at.
• Hunting isn't just from October through November. It should be a year 'round activity. Of course, you can only shoot in season, but scouting is often overlooked by lazy hunters. Spend time in the field every week, and especially from mid-August through the end of September. In early spring, as the snow melts, look for those seldom-used trails that bucks often use to avoid hunters.
• Pick ground blind areas and tree stand sites with the utmost care. Know why deer move to those spots, where they come from and where they are going. Learn their bedding and feeding areas, and how to get in and out without spooking the animals.
• Don't go above 15 feet in a tree stand. The downward angles become more acute, and missing or wounding a deer become more likely for many people. Those deer shot at nose-bleed elevations on the television could have been shot from 15 feet just as effectively. This hunter in a Summit (1) tree stand prepares for a bow shot.

Become scent-free with a Scent-Lok suit.

• Learn how to be scent-free. Above all else, hunt downwind of where deer travel. If the wind switches so you are not downwind of the deer, move before they get your scent. Wear clean, tall rubber boots to hunt in, and stay away from gasoline or cooking odors. My Scent-Lok suit goes on every day, and my tall rubber boots are sprayed daily to eliminate any odors. I dress outdoors away from any odors.
• Sitting still is so crucial, and yet many hunters fidget and wiggle around, making noise and spooking deer. Learn how to focus your mind and body into silence without movement. Make a movement only when deer are feeding or looking away, and move in slow motion. Herky-jerky movements are easily spotted by nearby deer and they tend to create more noise.
• Learn to see deer. Forget about those calendar photos of a big whitetail buck. Often, bucks are first seen by a flicking tail, moving ear, sunlight off antlers, but often the first sighting is just a piece of the horizontal body outline. Look as deep into thick cover as possible, and anything that moves in-between will be seen. Learn how to pick apart the cover in search of deer.
• Learn how to get to and from a stand without scaring deer. Each stand should have at least two entrance and exit routes, and mix them up. Go in one way and out another, and try not to use the same stand two days in a row. You must pattern deer; don't let them pattern you.

A deer’s body language tells you about it so to hunt accordingly.

• Study deer at every opportunity. Watch and study their actions and body language, and get accustomed to seeing deer at close range. Buck fever is a fear of failure, and the best way to get rid of that problem is to find a place where deer can be studied at close range. The more deer seen, the less often buck fever will occur.
• Pick a spot. Good deer hunters never shoot for the center of mass; instead, they pick an exact and precise place where they wish to hit.
• Always take high-percentage shots. This means taking only broadside or quartering-away shots. Wait for the deer to give you the shot opportunity you want. Don't take the first shot a buck offers. Allow them to move and turn, and present you with the optimum shot opportunity. Shoot once, shoot straight and don’t miss.

A hunter in a Summit tree stand comes to full draw & prepares to shoot.

• Always know what other deer in the area are doing. Don't get so focused on one animal that you forget that other deer may be looking around for danger. Keep track of the deer, and know that one with its head down and feeding or looking at other deer are preoccupied. If the animal is in the proper position, aim, pick the exact spot, and don't lift your head until the arrow hits and the Game Tracker string flutters out. Always use a Game Tracker because it will help you recover a wounded deer.
• Listen to your gut instincts. If you have bad feelings about taking a shot, or worry about missing, don't shoot. Your gut instincts are always right, and if you ignore them, a wounded deer may be the result.
• Hunters have five senses. Use them all if necessary. Use your senses of hearing, seeing, and smelling. Those three senses are what a deer will be using to try to stay alive once hunting season begins.
• Believe in yourself, your bow, and your shooting ability. Confidence is an important part of hunting, and if you feel confident, you will be. If you dither over choosing a spot to hunt, forget it.

There are many other tips, but these are enough to start with. Master these, and we'll think about a graduate course in the near future.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors