Water, Water Everywhere

Spent some time on the Pere Marquette river over the past couple of days with buddies Dan and Mike. A huge volume of recent rain made for some interesting conditions. We fished a few hours on Wednesday night with a TON of water in the river. Some very careful wading was necessary. Oh, and it was SNOWING on us the whole time.

Thursday got off to a better start -- I had a nice buck in during the first half hour. Unfortunately after a couple of acrobatic jumps he threw the hook, gave me the fin and went on his way. We fished several holes, all day and this was pretty much the story of the day. Between three of us we went 0 for 4 on hook-ups.

I took this as a good opportunity to practice spey casting with my switch rod. If you're going to not catch fish, this is way more fun than Chuck n' Duck. A good opportunity to play with casting and fishing my swing rig. Also, got to put a couple of the steelhead streamers I tied over the Winter to work Very cool.

The high water was fascinating. Though I've probably fished the PM more than any other river and generally know my way around decently, much of the river was unrecognizable due to high water.

One good lesson learned to pass along. I brought both my studded and unstudded boots. When I asked our guide on Wednesday night about studs in his boat. Upon learning they were the bad ass Simms HardBite cleats, he asked me to go unstudded. These cleats are awesome - I think I could walk up a tree - but they look like they'd leave a fiberglass drift boat in shreds. If you're fishing guided from a drift boat, ask first!

-Sean-