Those were the days … long ago

These are trophy brown trout. They were once plentiful here.

This is true confession time for me. Those years between the age of 11-12 and 40 are difficult to recall because I was such a gluttonous angler.

I was mired in the first two phases of trout fishing. Lots of fish and big ones, and the bigger the better. Bragging-size fish made me feel good, and I'm ashamed to admit it but that's the way it was back in those days 40-45 years ago. I never kept more than my limit but I’d keep a limit.

The first stage for me was to catch as many trout as possible. The second phase was to catch the largest possible trout. So, there I stood in my waders: wanting to catch bunches of big fish, and they were so plentiful in the 1960s and early 1970s that it became very easy to catch lots of big salmon or trout.

The first two stages is where most trout fish are found.

No brag, just fact: I was a very good stream fisherman. I could catch fish, lots of them and some very big ones, when no one else was doing as well. My methods were 100 percent legal, and the difference between me and 99 percent of the other fishermen on our rivers was I knew the river intimately, paid more attention to locations of holding fish, tried new areas and techniques as I learned to obtain the best drift to work my fly to big fish.

Mind you, most of those fish were visible in some of Michigan’s gin-clear waters. Often, the fish held in only two to three feet of water. The key was an accurate presentation every time.

The major reason for my success was I fished every day and missed only four weeks during the year, and most of that was during the winter or the miserable dog days of summer.

Spring and fall steelhead? No problem. Fall brown trout with fish to 15 pounds? It was as easy as laying back in an easy chair. Chinook and coho salmon? No sweat. Lake trout were even available in the Leland River in the 1960s, and until they shut it down during the fall spawn, it was possible in October to catch five big lakers (the limit then) without much of a problem.

There was a two-year period in the late 1960s, where if you hit it just right,, it was possible to catch some coasters (lake brook trout) by wading and fishing rocky areas near Northport. Very few people knew they were there during October but me and several buddies knew and we hit them two or three times a year.

Mind you, 35-40 years ago there were far more of all these grand game fish than now, and less you think I was a game hog by bragging about my limit catches, consider this. Ninety-five to 99 percent of the time I never kept a trout or salmon. All these big fish were released with only an occasional one to eat.

Everything was hooked, fought hard and fast, and was quickly released. The fishing seemed so easy, especially after fishing every day, that in many cases while guiding anglers, I'd go looking for more fish for my clients. It was an excuse that allowed me to look for the hardest fish in the river to catch.

Most of these limit catches were released on the spot. I rarely kept a fish.

My idea was to look for a salmon or trout buried back in under a log jam, behind a large rock, tucked under a nasty sweeper, and those were my daily challenges. Fish out in the open on spawning beds offered little challenge for me but I'd put my clients on them. I wanted my fish to have all the odds stacked in their favor, and then if it was possible to catch one, it became a feat that make me feel good.

This was the challenge. Going after the most  difficult fish in the river became part of every guiding day for me. That didn’t mean I forgot about my clients because I’d only be gone 15 minute.

The fish in those days, and especially before 1974 when the DNR put in their fish harvest weir on the lower Platte River, the runs of fish into the Platte were simply unbelievable. There was a bonanza of salmon and trout available to anglers that would stagger the imagination. I’m still in awe of those old days.

Today's anglers have trouble contemplating the vast number of fish available in most streams during that era. To say the rivers were almost awash with fish wouldn't be much on an exaggeration.

There were days in the late 1960s and early 1970s when a limit (five fish daily at that time) of big brown trout were possible for at least 30 days. The males were golden brown with great hooked jaws, and the big males were often mistaken for carp by clueless anglers. Seldom would they be set free because we were running a guide service in those  days, and the location of such fish were important to us.

The fish were important to our clients as well. If they wanted to keep a limit of fish to take home, they were free to do so.

One spot I never told people about featured a sweeper that had fallen into the river. The tip of that tree almost touched the far bank, and the current had dug a two-foot-deep hole under the tip. Every brown trout in the area wanted to spawn in that spot, and since it was so snag-filled, most people climbed the bank and walked around it. They didn't have the gift of being challenged that turned me on. It looked to snaggy but there was a way I found to fish it,  and it stayed productive until high water freshets in the spring washed it out. Then I had to find another hotspot.

This big-brown hotspot was a hotspot for several years.

Seven days in a row would produce a limit  of returned fish, and each brown ran from seven to 15 pounds. Still not convinced?

The Platte River had a run of fall-spawning rainbows. They spawned in only two spots, and I knew where both were. The males would be 22 to 24 inches long and they weighed 12-14 pounds. I tried to convince the local DNR fisheries biologist that they existed, and he told me they were salmon, not fall spawning ‘bows. That became another challenge – to convince him.

I caught a spawning male and female one day, carried them up to a 100-gallon cooler filled with cold river water in my car, and I drove both fish to the Cadillac DNR office. I had to shame the biologist into getting out of his chair and come out to my car where he was asked to pick them up, one at a time.

Any pressure on the hen's belly produced a stream of golden orange eggs, and the male would produce a steady spurt of milt. He then wanted to know where they were being caught and I refused to tell him. I told him it was his job to get out into the field, and learn what was going on. I felt I'd given him enough clues.

I once was hunting grouse near Otter Creek, just a few miles north of the Platte River mouth, and found that tiny stream full of salmon. It had been open to fishing for years but when I told the biologist about it, the creek was closed the next year. It was too small to fish but snaggers and spear-wielding slobs had  a great time once the stream was shut down.

The nearby Betsie River was amply supplied with big brown trout runs, as well as salmon and steelhead, and a favorite spot then was at the upstream end of the US-31 bridge south of Benzonia and on the north side of the river. Browns held there from late August or early September through November, and most people walked right past the fish as they headed upstream toward the old Homestead Dam.

It's not that the upstream area held more fish. It's just that this was where other people were fishing, and anglers, being gregarious folks, gravitated to areas frequented by other anglers.

We were always content to take the leavings: those areas that no one else fished because they didn't know that these tiny spots held fish. As a guide, it was my place to educate them ... after they paid the daily guide fee.

Big-fish catches came from early October through Christmas. It’s no longer true.

The fall months from early October through November provided a smorgasbord of brown trout and salmon and steelhead action. Most of my anglers in those days could care less about catching browns, fall steelhead that followed the salmon upstream to feed on free-drifting eggs, or the fall-spawning rainbow trout.

They wanted salmon, and there was no shortage of Chinook and coho salmon in those days. I could walk people into different areas every day, and they could catch a limit. In fact, some found this fishing too easy (which it was) and wanted a greater challenge. That's when I began sharing my passion for the ultimate fishing challenge with others.

Less anyone think I'm making all of this up there are still some photos in my files of those bygone days when salmon and trout were so plentiful that it sent a fishing guide looking for a greater fishing challenge.

I experienced something that was wondrous and exciting for 10 years, but when the allure of massive catches and 100 percent release began to pale, it was time to shift into the third stage of trout fishing: where the challenge and the evening of odds began to fall in favor of the game fish rather than a skilled angler.

Now, I still seek the ultimate challenge. And like those outdoor magazine art directors and editors I dealt with many years ago often said: "I'm not sure what I want but I'll recognize it when I see it."

I’ve seen it, and that fishery was an awesome 10-year experience that, unfortunately, most people of the current era will ever experience.

Title: Those were the days … long ago

Tags: ((Dave, Richey, Michigan, outdoors, guiding, experiences, brown, salmon, steelhead, limit, catches, fewer, anglers, superb))

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