Mission Accomplished

Awesome "Nick Adams" weekend on the Pere Marquette river. Drove up Saturday morning, camped at the Clay Banks campground, cooked all my meals over an open campfire! Very relaxing after an insane week at work last week, and an even more challenging one this week.

Fished nymphs Saturday afternoon, no luck. But enjoyed the area around the Green Cottage access. The Pere is such a pretty river - remote, but still accessible. Knocked off around 5 to chillax at the campsite with a couple of beers (took a growler of Original Gravity IPA, yum!) and the new Beretta catalog while waiting for the sulphur hatch to get rolling. Chatted with a nice guy in the next campsite. I like that about camping in primitive campgrounds. The people are great.

Wandered down to the river around 7. On the way down, chatted with two guys from Ann Arbor, one of whom turned out to be a former client of mine! I'd never fished the Clay Banks, but it's a great area. Nice bottom structure, easy wade. Got a nice little brook trout on my third cast! Another about an hour later. Funny, with a whole box full of nymphs and dries, I only had luck with Sulphur emergers. Knocked off about 9 to get the fire going for dinner (more on that in an upcoming post/rant).

Sunday morning was beautiful with puffy clouds and high 60s. After stoking up the fire for bacon and eggs, I headed down to the river again. Got two solid takes, but didn't close any deals. After a couple of hours, broke camp and headed back to Gree Cottage. Pretty wade, but no success. Threw about every flavor of nymph I had with me to no avail. Clearly a sign to head back downstate.

A great getaway and was fun to camp and be self-sufficient!

-Sean-