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phishtix

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Everything posted by phishtix

  1. I know MI DNR said they weren't able to do the spring steelhead stocking last year, spring of 2020, due to the pandemic. Does anyone know what happened with other states like WI and OH and IN? I assumed they had the same thing happen. Just wondering what the different states have done, or are doing, to make up for it.
  2. Weather has been awesome. Sounds like you guys had a good time. Hopefully they stick around for awhile till I can get a chance to get out
  3. Wife and I just returned from a trip to FL. Got a much needed rest. It was my b-day on Feb 25. Turned 57. Her uncle took us out on a boat trip in and around the sound area. He doesn't really fish much so we just did our best to figure it out. Had to use some borrowed equipment. The boat trip was fun just seeing the sites. Managed to catch a few fish. Mangrove snapper, and sheapheads. They aren't like our sheep head in MI. Much prettier and good to eat. The locals told me they are highly sought after. Fun to catch. My wife got too much sun on the boat and that shut her down for fishing. Uncle got sick, we drank a lot of alcohol. I think he over did it. But it left me sitting in the house jonesing to go fishing. I studied up how to catch em by watching videos on the net. Talked my wife to taking me up to a tackle store were I stocked up on the "hot" lures. Then she took me up and dropped me off on a fishing pier up at Charlotte Harbor. I fished for like 7 hours. Got a bunch of Lady fish, some Jack Cravelles, a Bonnet Head shark, and from what they tell me a really nice spotted sea trout. The trout was pretty cool. Looks very similar to our Browns. Also made friends with a Dolphin. He would watch me catch fish and release them and then he would swim over and eat them. I tried releasing them on the other side so he wouldn't see but evidently they have good eyes. And they are really fast swimmers. At one point he sat on the edge of the pier staring at me waiting for me to release a fish. I could have touched his nose. Kinda cool. Had a great time. Hoping to make it down there again someday. Getting old and it sure felt nice to fish and be comfortably warm instead of freezing and hurting. KIMG0362.JPG.crdownload KIMG0364_2.JPG.crdownload
  4. Been on vacation the past two weeks. Spent some time with my family. Took the grand kids to mackinaw island and several other places. Family came home and left me and the dog up for the rest of the week. We fished all over the place. Literally. So I don't have a clicker that I carry around with me to count every single time I hook a fish. So can't say I went this many for that many etc... Suffices to say I hooked some fish. And I caught some of them. Didnt take a lot of pics. The weather was not nice. Periods of rain and occasionally the sun would come out. The pics some of them didn't come out very good. Seems like my best fishing was always right before dark. The big manistee definitely has the most fish. It also has the most pressure. The PM is a close second. My favorite part was the last night on the Ausable. Very peaceful. Not many fish but it was nice to fish in peace. The only steelhead I got on the entire trip came from the Ausable. Actually lost a couple others. One was pretty nice. God I love steelhead! Fish for days for them no biting nasty old kings and finally get bit by some steelies man can you ever tell the difference. Things should get better as it gets cold. I'm already making plans for another trip in nov. Till then I'll be the weekend warrior.
  5. My wife and kids bought me a really nice cart from cabelas. Its much nicer than anything I would have bought for myself. I like it mostly. But its alot to pack it up and haul everything out onto the peir. Comes in real handy though. Specially if I get fish. We are up in Bellaire right now. Rained all morning. Found some fish down at the Boardman yesterday. Nothing biting. Hopefully that changes! Going to hit the BM river tomorrow.
  6. Spent my Friday fishing below BS. Fished sun rise to sunset. Managed to get a couple I'm pretty sure they were Cohos on but they got off. Bites from Catfish kept me a little busy at times. Helps keep my hopes alive. Decent numbers of fish rolling here and there. Was hoping to find some steelhead. Thought some Skams might be in the system. I usually dont catch many Salmon on the Joe, but more often than not I am able to find some Skams. The water is just really low. Feels plenty cold, just very low.
  7. Fished thursday and friday on the BM. I originally planned to fish some lower stretches on the river, but there was quite a few trailers at the lower launches so I decided to go up river where there were less trailers. Turned out to be a good idea. Not a ton of fish, but enough to keep me interested. Probably spent too much time in one particular spot that had a nice pod of fish, but I think they were mostly stale. Thought some fresh ones would move in as it cooled off in the evening but didn't happen. Still had fun. Just probably shouldn't have spent so much time there and covered more water. I think the fresh ones are holding in the wood and undercut banks. Ended up with 2 males and 1 hen.. Lost a lot of other fish. River was perfect conditions. Loved the fog in the morning. The hen was a nice fresh coho. Kind of kicking myself in the butt, but I gave her away to a guy who was fishing with his son and watched me catching fish and wanted to know how I was catching them.. Explained how to care for the skeins. He'd never had fresh eggs to fish with before. So I showed him how to rig up and all that. Hoping they get some fish with them. Wish someone would have done that same for me years ago. Anyway I figured I would get another hen before my trip was done, but I didn't. Doh! Oh well. I'm not short on eggs. Just really like the fresh stuff. I know his son was really excited about having fresh skein to fish with. They said they had been there 5 days and hadn't caught a single fish.
  8. Hit the lower PM on wed afternoon and then BM on thurs from sunrise to sun set. PM water is nice and cold with good stain from recent rains. Fish are there but didn't get any biters. Lots of trees down across the river. Lots of people fishing. BM the water feels pretty warm still. But evidently cold enough cause I found decent numbers of salmon. Had a bad storm come through on thursday late morning. I was prepared for rain but the storm kind of made me nervous. I heard it coming from over the tree line. I kept hoping and praying it would go around me. By the time I saw the large anvil cloud from over the tree line it was obvious it was coming directly over me and it was too late to try to get out of its way. Doh! Lord watched out for me though and I'm still here to talk about it I ended up landing one nice hen. Lost 4 other fish. So I call it a good day. Trying out some new cure from Pautzkes. Sunrise on thursday was gorgeous. I tried to capture some shots with my good camera. I love mornings like these!
  9. Decided to make a trip up and check out Frankfurt and Manistee piers Thursday and Friday. Un able to fish the South piers at both locations due to waves. I suppose theres some brave souls that would be willing to try it but not me. I'm kind of bummed because my favorite spots I haven't been able to fish now for the 2nd year in a row. The lake levels are too high! I did not get into any fish at either pier, but there were "some" Salmon caught. Water temp seemed a bit warm. Cooler at Frankfurt. Still early I know. I'm just like you know, got the chance to go so I went. I also fished a few spots on the Betsie and BM rivers and mostly watched canoers and tubers pass me by. Did catch a brown on the Betsie. Did not see any Salmanoid type fish in either river. Upper rivers quite low. Lower rivers really high. Weird. I assume this is due to the high lake levels being backed up into the river mouth flood plains.
  10. Nice! Looks like he's got a plump belly. He must be eating good.
  11. Figured I would try one more time for some Walleyes over on Lake St Clair.. Theres not many in shore Walleye fisheries by me anymore. So I go over to Lake St Clair quite a bit. Rarely disappointed when I go. Other than the drive over from 275 to 696 and 94 sucks! This trip I caught a hole bunch of small Perch, but no Walleyes. Couple of the Perch were around 7 inches but most were about 4. Maybe 30 or more Perch? But nothing big enough to eat I found this one particular spot on the edge of the channel where the deep water meets the shallow water. Very difficult to fish due to the big boats going in and out. But man there were a ton of fish there. I tried to stay on it but just too many big boats pushing 4 ft wakes. Not very relaxing for sure. Did catch a really large Small Mouth Bass. Probably the biggest smallie I've ever caught actually. And if I remember right the next largest one before that was also caught on Lk St Clair. This lake has to be one of the best Smallmouth Bass lakes in MI.
  12. Thanks Ed, I'll give them a call.
  13. Feeling a bit low this weekend. My best fishing buddy that I've known for many years passed away. He was with me the day I caught my first steelhead. He keeled over from heart attack. Just returned from a bike ride with his daughter to go get ice cream. He sat down to relax and next thing his wife knew she looked out and he was laying face down on their back deck. He was on vacation and we were talking about getting together to catch some gills. I'm having a real hard time wrapping my head around it. Seems like I've been saying good bye to the people I love way too much these last few years! I've been searching old photos from some of our trips. But I don't have many that have been digitized. My old computer crashed a few years back and I lost alot of my old pics that had been uploaded. I did find this one.I uploaded it to my flikr account several years ago and fortunately it was still there. Probably nothing great about the pic but I can still remember it like it was yesterday. We had the weekend to ourselves. Rained on us the first day but the fishing was really good. The next morning we got up before the sun rise and when we arrived at our spot we were greeted by a rainbow that seemed to shine down right on the top of the hole were we catching fish. Its not just any hole. And its not exactly a secret hole, but every late august into early sept it literally fills up with fresh from lake mi salmon. I remember we caught so many fish that day. Our arms were sore. One of those trips where time seems to stand still and nothing else matters. I will never forget it! I know I've got more pics from that trip, just I can't find them. The pics were all taken on film and I had to scan them to be able to upload them to my computer. I'm thinking about maybe taking my hard drive from my old computer and see if theres a place that might be able to extract the files from it. Anyway, I don't mean to bore everyone. Just feeling kinda low. I don't have many people to talk to about these things. Seems like so many people that I grew up with are not here anymore. I sure miss them all!!
  14. Had a nice afternoon on Lk St Clair. Caught quite a bunch of perch in the middle of the day, biggest was 12 inches. Kept a few but let most of them go back. As the sun began to go down the Walleyes turned on. Got 5 in like 30 minutes. Nice afternoon to be on the water. Summer finally here. Enjoyed fresh Perch for breakfast and planning to enjoy Walleyes for dinner
  15. Last 3 weeks oct 4, 11, and 18th. fished manistee river once and st joe twice. Not much to get excited about. Hooked 2 Salmon on the manistee back at the beginning of the month, and lost both. Then completely skunked not even a bite on the joe oct 11. Finally yesterday got one nice fresh hen steelhead on the joe. Probably a lot of others doing much better than me. But thats how it goes for me.
  16. Fished the BM friday. Had a hard time figuring out whether to fish high or low. Decided there were too many trailers at high bridge so I went low. First hole I set up on getting ready to run some plugs. I was tuning on one, and just got it to track perfect ,when a big king grabbed it right behind the boat. Sweet! Took me into the logs 3 times and I still managed to get him back out into the current. Big male. IDK, maybe 20 lbs? I let him go, I'm honestly not real hungry for any more salmon right now. Thought wow this is going to be a killer day. Fished the whole rest of the day till dark and only hooked one more fish. Lost it in the logs. Doh! Hind sight maybe I should have gone up river higher. I think theres more fish to be found above high bridge. I might try up there next firday. We'll see. The plugs I had the two fish on were yozurri deep divers. Chartreuse was the big male and gold with a red bill and nose. was the other fish that I didn't get to the boat. Lots of guys using skein. I did not get so much as a bump on skein. And I fished a bunch of it. Good fresh stuff too.
  17. I just read on M-live that the Dublin Store by Welston has burned down. Pretty weird, I was just there last night getting some fudge and honey bbq turkey jerky. Guess they belive the fire started around 3:30am this morning and still under investigation. Hopefully they can re build. I always make it a point to stop there whenever I'm up in the area. I love that fudge they make with the crumbled heath bar on top. Used to love the hells fire jerky they make, but my stomach can't handle it anymore.
  18. Took the boat up and fished the lower Big M friday. Had a pretty good day. Found some fish and they were pretty aggressive. Had a young male actually chase my skien while i was reeling it in. Grabbed it right next to the boat and took off. I was shocked. Seen Steelhead do that but never a Salmon. Water was 61 first thing in the morning. I fished from day break till early afternoon. It was really good first thing and slowed down after the bright sun got up in the sky. I took some brakes to let the dog run around but while I was fishing I don't think I ever went more than 30 to 45 minutes without having a fish on. Ended up 5 to the net and quite few that got away. I kept a 2 for my friend that doesn't get to fish anymore and he asked me if I could save one for him. My biggest was a hen that weighed 20lbs on the hand scale. So yeah, pretty good day I'd say. My arms are really sore so must have been a good day
  19. Just got back from fishing the piers at Frankfurt and Manistee. First trip since last winter. The water is really high. Probably everybody already knows this but this was the first time I have been on the piers since last winter. I was shocked how high it has gotten. Manistee south pier pretty difficult to fish. Couldn't reach my sweet spots. Waves coming over the pier. Had one hit on the lake side just long enough for a couple head shakes and then it was gone. Green and glo KO wobbler. Pounded the spot after that but nothing. Frankfurt was much easier to fish. Temps are right and "some" fish are there cause they showed themselves, but no bites for me. Alot of "fuzzies" in the water kept fowling my line. That was annoying. Some good guys at the manistee cleaning station set me up with some fresh skeins. Thanks guys!!! Now at least I'm ready for some fall Steelhead. My favorite time of year is almost here :)
  20. Well technically winter hasn't officially arrived yet, but I'm considering the fall season done. I went back to the lower Ausable Friday. The weather wasn't horrible, but the fishing sucked. Had one fish on for the whole day. I didn't bring my boat so probably shot myself in the foot for that. One of my favorite spots I used to fish it alot, but now the bank has caved in with a big tree in the way, and one of the property owners adjacent ran a fence all the way down into the water so no way to get around from the bank. I just know theres fish in the hole but its a boat only fishery now. Got to say, this years fall runs were pretty dismal. I suppose for Salmon it would be considered fair. I sort of thought, maybe I'm mistaken, but didn't the state cut Salmon and kept the Steelhead plants intact? Seems like there was more Salmon than Steelhead the entire fall season. From the Spring runs, Skamanias, and mix of fall runs, I just didn't get into the steelhead like I usually do. I'm kinda holding out hope that the conditions just weren't ever perfect and theres a whole bunch of Steelhead to trickle up the rivers all winter. But winter fishing is getting tough on me. I can't take it like I used to. I have a lot of circulation issues with my hands and I literally have trouble just holding my rod when it get below freezing. My hand around my thumb and index finger go numb quickly. I get clumsy and drop things. Have trouble tying knots. It's frustrating. I used to love winter. Anyway hope everyone else did better than I did this fall. I'll be back out eventually. Maybe one more time before Christmas if I can find the time between work and family stuff, and the weather isn't completely atrocious. Good luck and Happy Holidays!!!
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