Missing my twin brother

George Richey (both photos) landing and holding a big king salmon
photo c. Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

September 10 is a day I won’t likely forget. It’s the first day of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula black bear season, but that’s not why I remember it even though I’ve shot a bear on that day on several occasions.

Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of my twin brother George’s death. It happened nine years ago. He was taken ill and learned he had seven different kinds of cancer, and four days later died in Traverse City’s Munson Hospital.

He faced his impending death bravely, didn’t quibble about the outcome he knew was coming, and greeted death on an optimistic note. I lay in his hospital bed, clinging to him while staring at the heart monitor. The flat line seemed meaningless because of the gravity of his various cancers. It simply spelled an end to a great life.

He didn’t fear death but embraced it

You see, George and I began steelhead fishing many years ago in the early 1950s, and we traipsed all over the Upper and Lower peninsulas in search of steelhead once we became old enough to drive. We were always together in the early years, and we could read each other’s mind. He could start a sentence and I could finish it. Twins often have such gifts.

We both loved the same things. First it was steelhead, and then jumbo brown trout in numerous locations, and then salmon came along in the mid-1960s. George jumped on the lure bandwagon by manufacturing a wide variety of Michigan Squids, Michigan Sparkle Flies and other trolling flies for salmon.

George’s son – Casey Richey of Frankfort – has taken over the fly business, and has expanded on many of his father’s ideas. Casey held the brown trout state record for a short time before it was beat by a larger fish caught in the Manistee River.

George had a long run with his lure business, and lived to age 63. He died just five months after I retired from The Detroit News as their staff outdoor writer-photographer, We made plans for countless fishing and hunting trips, and we both looked forward to retracing our earlier study of Lake Superior tributaries for steelhead.

We’d planned a more leisurely assault on such rivers as the Big Two Hearted, Huron, Middle Branch of the Ontonagon, Mosquito, and many others that we’d fished in the late 1960s. We’d planned a pilgrimage to the Rock River for pink salmon as we’d done in the early 1970s.

He had caught more than his share of Chinook and coho salmon during our 1967-1976 guiding career on Lake Michigan tributaries, and during his lengthy career in the lure business. He also tied fishing flies for added income, and came up with several flies that he formulated to work on clear and dark-watered streams.

George had a great deal of fun with big salmonids but he and I shared a secret love for back-of-beyond jump-across creeks and silt-laden beaver ponds for brook trout, and wee little ponds and lakes for bluegills.

He loved small fish as well, and loved bluegills and brook trout

He didn’t share in my love of big game hunting, but he would go on such trips just so we could share another memorable event together. He shot mule deer and whitetails in Texas, was on a one-shot big whitetail hunt in Quebec where we saw only one whitetail over a four-day hunt. He shot two caribou in northern Quebec, and one was a cow caribou, which he proclaimed, as “having a bigger spread than any whitetail he ever shot. That netted him a good razzing from others in camp, but George didn’t care.

“If they are picking on me,” George said, “they are leaving someone else alone.”

That was George. Many people knew him, everyone liked him, and those who knew him through his lure collecting, admired the depth of his research for his books Made In Michigan Lures and Made In Michigan Lures II. Both editions are available from me, and the first edition is rare and very collectible.

He was a picker. He could look through a mountain of old lures, often a pile that had been picked by another collector, and find the proverbial diamond in a coal mine. His skill at uncovering old Michigan-made fishing lures was legendary. His skill at identifying old Michigan-made lures was an enviable one.

In many respects, George was a legend in his own time. Not only as a fly tier, fishing lure maker, fishing guide, angling and lure historian as well as an outdoor writer.

George Richey had many loves and most of all were his old lures

Brother George and I grew up in a little town north of Flint (Clio) and moved north after years of barbering in Clio and Flint. He was a well-known hunter and angler, and many people came to pick his brain on a variety of topics.

He liked people, people cared for him, and he made a lasting impression on others. Readers often write me to ask if George and I were related, and when they learned we were twins, they didn’t know how there really could be two of us.

We were proud of being twins, and we each praised the other when such praise was needed. He’s gone now, but will never be forgotten by me or those who knew him, and I guess I may now  have to do the steelhead assault on the Upper Peninsula streams alone. It just won’t be the same without him but it will give us something new to talk about  when I meet him again up yonder.

I still miss him and that empty hole in my heart is where he lives.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

A lifetime of steelhead fishing

A buck steelhead hovering over a spring spawning bed
photo c. Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

A friend stopped by the other day with a buddy of his. The other gent wanted to meet me, and have a discussion about steelhead fishing.

It began mildly enough when we shook hands, and we made small talk for a few minutes. Then, in a burst of what seemed like pent-up anger, he questioned me about my steelhead fishing.

"You've written that you have caught 100 steelhead in one day, and another time you wrote that you'd probably landed nearly 10,000 steelhead in your life," he said. "I think both statements are a crock. No one can catch that many steelhead these days."

Mind you, this dude was a guest in my home. I didn't take kindly to his ranting insults, and that I might be lying.

I agree that he was probably right. It would be most difficult, if not impossible, these days to catch 1,000 steelhead in a lifetime. I also added that he must have missed something from both stories he had read. I learned long ago that people read what they want to read into a story, and then want to argue their mistakes when they are wrong.

"First of all, Bud, I wrote that two of us caught 100 steelhead in one day, and will gladly introduce you to the other man who has a much shorter fuse than mine," I said in an even voice. "Call him or me a liar, and you'll find a rocky time ahead."

"But ... but," he stammered. And I then told him it's not polite to interrupt someone when they are speaking. He quickly shut up.

I explained that the 100-fish day happened over 25 years ago, on a cold and snowy day with lots of wind, and most steelhead fishermen were home or working. We happened to find a big school of fish, and it seemed as none had eaten in a month. Every orange-colored fly we pitched to them resulted in a strike.

We quit fishing once with nearly 60 fish that we had caught and released unharmed. We went for breakfast, checked another stream, and headed back to the hotspot for a second round. We were up to about 85 fish when my buddy fell, got soaking wet and headed for the car and some welcome heat.

I envied him but there were more fish to hook

I stuck with it, caught what it took to hit 100 fish, and kept only one small male steelie that inhaled a fly through his mouth and was hooked in the gills from the inside. The fish was bleeding heavily and would die so I kept it.

And then, catching approximately 10,000 steelhead. I'm 73 now, and began steelhead fishing at age 11. By the time I was 15, I was catching between 100 and 200 steelies each year, and that was from the Sturgeon River between Indian River and Wolverine. Mind you, that was back in the early to mid-1950s.

By the time I was 18 in 1957, I was fishing even more often, and the fish numbers shot up to about 300 steelhead per year. Some of those fish were caught during a "temperature run" caused by Burt Lake fish seeking comfort in the cooler river water. Competition? There wasn't any.

By my mid-20s, I was fishing steelhead along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Favorite streams were the Betsie, Little Manistee and Platte rivers, and those rivers held lots of fish and very few anglers.

It was really amazing, and seldom would I keep a fish. I would have six or eight 30-fish days each year, and always put the fish back. A quick, hard fight, and a swift release and no harm to the fish.

I began guiding salmon and steelhead fishermen in 1967 when the spawning runs first began, and my clients cared nothing about steelhead. Everyone wanted salmon, so I'd give them lessons and once they learned how to cast, I'd "go check for other hot-spots." I always carried my Black Beauty fly rod, and I always looked for steelhead holding downstream of spawning salmon where they gobbled free-drifting salmon eggs.

Those fish were always caught and released, and I'd return often to check on my people and lead them to new batches of salmon. I guided for 10 years, spring and fall, and not once did my clients go home without a limit of fish. Not only was I the first fly-fishing wading guide in the state for anadromous browns, salmon and steelhead, but I pioneered this fishing and developed many of the tactics in common use today.

Whenever I had a free day, I would check rivers to keep track of the runs, and the best way to do that was to fish. There were countless days, especially in November and December when the rivers were full of steelhead and everyone else was deer hunting, working or at home, close to some heat. Those months can be brutal on a steelhead stream.

I could easily say I personally landed 400 to 500 steelhead each year during my guiding years, which would mean 4,000 to 5,000 fish during those 10 years. One also must remember the limit back then was five fish daily, and seldom a day passed without catching a limit. Again, perhaps 99 percent of those fish were released.

Steelhead laying on a spawning bed
photo c. Dave Richey Outdoors ©2012

Fish only for male fish

One also must remember that the big push by the Michigan Steelheader’s group really didn't get underway until the mid-1970s. Back then, people who had caught three or four steelhead in a lifetime were introducing their friends to the sport.

High steelhead numbers held through the early 1980s, and although I no longer was guiding, I was still fishing hard in the spring and fall. It was great: I'd fish for steelhead in the morning, and bow hunt for whitetails in the afternoon and early evening. It was great fun.

Do I know precisely how many steelhead I've landed? It was well over 8,000 steelhead by 1976 when I quit guiding. I know I've caught well over 2,000 fish since then, and if it hasn't reached 10,000 by now, I'd be very surprised.

I'd consider myself a fish hog and poacher if I'd kept everything I caught, but nearly all fish were released after a fast, spirited fight. Most spring steelhead are soft-fleshed and not tasty, and they don't freeze well. I only fished for male steelies in the spring, and never bothered fishing for the females. I avoided hooking the hens.

Nowadays, with my vision problems, I don't fish steelies as hard or nearly as often as I once did, and that is a good thing. Bowlers become expert by rolling 20 games or more each week, and steelhead fishermen become better anglers by fishing daily.

I courteously ushered the head-shaking gent to the door and on his way. I don't know if he believed any of this or not, and it really doesn't matter. All I know is that for many years the numbers of river steelhead far outnumbered the anglers who were qualified to fish for and catch them.

Those who could, did. Those who couldn't, bad-mouthed the hot sticks. There's nothing new about jealousy among anglers.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors

Taking a crippled old dog out fishing

Mark Rinckey (with net) lands a Platte River steelhead for David Richey.

I was dreaming the steelhead dream, and my world was one of rushing river water, a jumping fish hanging in the sky with droplets of cold water hanging of its hard body, and there I stood: looking like a big doofus, with a broad grin on my face, and loving the experience.

Then I came out of my mid-day reverie, shook my head once, and the steelhead tugging me downstream was just a good dream at a bad time. The older I get, the more that some of the mistakes of my youth come back to haunt me.

Forty-one years ago, I fell off a fire escape, caught myself on one of the supports, and hung there 30 feet above a paved parking lot. I managed to climb hand-over-hand up the support to the edge of the fire escape, and pull my sorry butt up to safety.

Injuries have caused a weak left leg and weak lower back for me in past few years.

I'd broken two vertebrae in my spine, ruptured a disc, and when I slammed sideways into the brick wall after catching the support, the impact really messed up my back. Three months after back surgery, I slipped on some ice, fell on a piece of fire wood frozen in the ground, and broke the vertebrae above the first break.

That laid me up for a year, and even though I was writing magazine articles at the time, I had to do some from bed. I spent two or three months in a full-body cast, and finally, I was able to walk around. There's an old adage about outdoor writers having to be tough.

I finally got back to work, fished and hunted while traveling all of North America for magazine articles. My back always hurt, but like is true with hockey players, football players, I had to play with pain - day after day.

Then some joker in a BATA bus pulled out in front of me, and although I had my lap and shoulder restraint on, I had no time to stop. The impact as the car T-boned the bus, banged up my chest and ribs. You guessed it: this car didn't have an air bag. Some broken and fractured ribs happened even though the hospital originally told me there was nothing broken. It just took a couple of days to develop.

So, the last 10 years have had its way with me. My left leg has never really worked right, and was always weak. I compensated for the injury and weakness, and most people never knew there was anything wrong.

I knew, and hid the constant pain, and worked despite it. I retired from The Detroit News in May of 2003, and considered spending the rest of my life doing exactly what I did while working as a full-time staff writer - fishing and hunting.

Two years ago, the pain really started to increase. I had to take the occasional days off to rest my body, and then back I'd go again. Gradually, in the past two years, my left leg got very weak and wading rivers became nearly impossible. There has never been any "give up" in my vocabulary, but river fishing became more and more difficult for me.

I was at the point of forgetting about something that had been a part of my life for more than 60 years. I began trout fishing in rivers at 11 years of age, and now at 72, I was facing the grim prospect of never fishing a trout stream again because of bad legs and a bad back.

Here comes guide Mark Rinckey and my son David Richey to the rescue.

Well, I'm more than delighted to write and tell you that my steelhead fishing trip came true two days ago. My son David, of Sitka, Alaska, came home. I'd talked with guide Mark Rinckey of Honor, Michigan, (231-325-6901) and he felt they could get me out on the Platte or Betsie rivers. Frankly, they were a far more optimistic than me.

Rinckey says the warm autumn and little snow, has put a number of steelhead into the Betsie and Platte river. In the past 10 days, Rinckey's methods for other anglers had produced limit catches some days and only a couple fish on other days. However, during those 10 days, they had landed one 18-pound steelhead, two at 17 pounds and numerous fish up to 15 pound. Me, I'd be more than delighted to catch any steelhead.

You see, my left leg doesn't work well. For 41 years, it has been considerably weaker than my right leg. But, oh how I wanted to go, to catch one more steelhead, a game fish that I've fished for quite successfully for 61 years. I'd come to realize how much I missed the hiss of river current flowing around the end of a sweeper, and the sheer determination and dogged fight with a big steelhead was burning a hole in my heart.

We got to the river, and I pulled on my waders, took a few tentative steps on dry grounds, and I felt "I can do this." I walked at my pace, and they helped me down a short dropoff to the water's edge on the Platte, and we got into the water. Mark walked in front of me, David behind me, and we slowly crossed the river.

Mind you, it was the last day of November but the weather had been balmy. It was a bit cool but we were dressed for it.

He we go, getting The Old Man & his creaky bones into the river.

We got to a wide sweeping run against the far bank. Mark gave David some spawnbags, and he'd been here many times before, and hooked a steelhead right away and landed an 8-pound hen steelhead, all bright silver and glistening in the current. He fought it well, and soon the hook was twisted out and the fish was given its freedom.

We cast and cast, and Rinckey left me in the water near shore, and floated back and forth between my son and I. Eventually, it dawned on us that David had probably caught the only steelhead in that run or all the splashing had put the other fish down.

We crossed the river again with Rinckey leading and David following, and me in the middle. I got up and made my way back to the car, and felt great. I was fishing again, doing what I'd done for most of my 72 years. It was a wonderful feeling.

We drove to the Betsie River where Rinckey guided a client to an 18-pound buck steelhead a week before. He said this is where things will be tricky because the water was up, and the current strong.

"I'll be on one side of you and David will be on the other," Rinckey said. "If you stumble or the current sweeps your leg out from under you, we'll have you."

So, in this manner, we waded across the river in near chest-high water, got up on a shallow sand ridge, and walked downstream. Rinckey gave the instructions.

"David, go downstream 30 yards and cast right up next to the opposite river bank, and let it bounce downstream. This is where Ray caught the 18-pounder a week ago. He also caught two 15-pound here the day before yesterday. There are lots of fish in the river."

He pointed out to me where to cast, and cast the spawnbag out to show me where the spawnbag was supposed to go. I'd fished this hole many times before. I could feel the splitshot bouncing along bottom, and suddenly the line stopped.

I snapped the rod tip back and was into a good fish. The fish ranged about 40 feet, stopped and Mark and I eased down through knee-deep water. I'd eased back the rod, moving the fish inches closer, and he responded by making another short run and a half-hearted leap.

"He's hooked good in the corner of the jaw," Rinckey said. I'd pump and reel, and then the fish would take back the six-pound line. We fought a back-and-forth battle for 10 minutes before I could sense the fish tiring. At just the right moment, I eased the fish across the surface to Mark's waiting net.

The fish came to the net and my guide didn't miss this fish.

"You got him!" Rinckey roared in my ear as David yelped with joy to see The Old Man do again what The Boy had seen done hundreds of times before.

The steelhead, a buck weighing 11 pounds, was lifted from the net and held up for me to admire. It was sleek, with that pinkish-red blaze of color along its sides, and I drank in its beauty before asking him to gently release it.

We fished that hole relentlessly for another hour, and Rinckey asked how I was doing.

"My left leg is really getting weak," I said.. "I know we have to wade upstream, and I suggest we do so while I can."

He whistled up David, and we began the upstream trek, one on each side of me. Sheer determination showed on their faces, and I suspect on mine as well. I climbed out of the river like an arthritic hippo, wobbled a bit on my unsteady legs, and then we walked through the woods and up the hill to our vehicles.

I was choked up with emotion as I profoundly thanked both men for making this trip possible. Who knows what the future may bring when it comes to my lifelong passion of steelhead fishing, but this trip was one of the greatest thrills of my angling career. I also want to give thanks to the steelhead for giving me another thrilling battle on light line. It was a day I will never forget.

Give Birds A Helping Hand

I feed the birds all winter. My belief is it is a great and wonderful thing to do.

It also helps me give something back to the birds that provide me with so much enjoyment all year. Food plots were planted, and they feed deer and other animals and birds from the first green-up until winter.

The birds get fed every day at the feeders. There are sunflower seeds and thistle seed feeders. The woodpeckers get a big chunk of suet, and some of the other birds peck at it a bit.

Pileated woodpecks are large birds and often much larger than this one.

Seventy-five yards behind my house is one of my food plots. There's not much to it now that deep snow has covered the ground although deer occasionally paw through the snow and nibble at the old clover. It becomes a major source of nutrition during the spring months.

It satisfies all the rules that pertain to winter feeding. I no longer can distribute carrots, corn and sugar beets over the once-prescribed 10 X 10-foot area, and each day when I went out, there would be deer tracks everywhere but adding some corn to the winter deer diet is now illegal because of the Chronic Wasting Disease scare.

So far there is no sign of wild turkeys near us, and I seldom see them until the winter weather turns harsh. Right now, our area seems to be inhabited by a few does and young fawns from last spring although it's possible  a buck that has lost his antlers may be coming in, but in all honesty, since the no baiting, no-feeding law went into effect late last August, the deer have not been coming to my food plot.

Mind you: before our brief warm-up two weeks ago, the snow had been too deep for easy deer travel. We seldom see deer once the snow gets knee-high to a human. The deer vacate such upland country and head for traditional low-lying deer yards.

Frankly, I'm not 100 percent sure what comes to dine on the food plot behind the house.  Deer are common in early and late winter, and so too are rabbit and squirrels. On a warm sunny day we occasionally see a 'possum or raccoon waddling about in the melting snow.

Seeing an occasional wild turkey is great fun.

We've enjoyed having wild turkeys stop by in the past, and one winter we helped feed a flock of 40 birds. One, a bird with a 12-inch paint brush for a beard, brought his harem of hens and little ones in every day for a feeding visit.

The birds would fly up onto the deck of our house and try to eat seed from the bird feeder, and they would walk up and down the deck. They usually roosted in trees behind the house but often would roost on the peak of our house roof or the peak of the garage roof.

The big gobbler was having a bad time of it, and a ball of ice as big as a golf ball covered his middle toe. He quit coming for a few days and I was afraid a coyote had pulled him down, but when he showed up, the ball of ice and middle toe were gone. The toe had frozen and broke off.

Hosting a flock of turkeys  was great fun.

The birds came in January and were still here in April. One day, some idiot poached that big gobbler from his car window, ran onto my land, grabbed the flopping bird, threw it into the trunk and rapidly drove away. Those birds never came back to my land.

Birds will come to the winter handout, but once it is started, it must continue. To abandon feeding, especially during a bad winter, will cause irreparable damage to our wildlife.

The largest bird that visits our bird feeders (primarily the suet feeder) is a pileated woodpecker. We have both the male and female of that species, and see them almost every day. Flickers also visit, and they are a fairly large bird. We also get chickadees, goldfinches, grosbeaks, juncos, nuthatches, sparrows and a raft of the smaller downy and hairy woodpeckers.

We feed to help give something back to the wildlife community. It can be a major expense, but I've found that it makes me feel good. And watching the birds as they feed is far more entertaining than watching the soaps on television.

But then, that's just one man's peckish wintertime opinion.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors