The Betsie River flowed smoothly downstream toward Lake Michigan, and acted as if it was in no big rush to get there. My wader-clad legs had carried me into thigh-deep water, and the comparative coolness of the water felt refreshing.

There was a trout rising near a sweeper but I had to move six inches deeper in hopes of putting the fly just upstream from the current seam the fish was feeding in. One step, and another, and my boots put me into the sweet spot.

Some fly line was pulled through the guides and the river murmured around me. The sounds of river music began washing away the dog-day blues.

A silent and stealthy approach, and a well-placed presentation, was needed.

A No. 12 Adams, my go-to fly when I don't know what else to try, was knotted to my tippet after several frustrating minutes of trying to  push a 4X tippet through the eye of the hook. Tying the leader to the fly line is easy and could be done in the dark but tying tippets to flies is a major challenge these days.

The fish rose every few minutes, but he wasn't willing to take my offering. Meanwhile, in preparation to cover that fish, it was time to soak up the sounds of silence.

The river, in this location, made little noise. No audible gurgles, no hissing of water around the tip of a sweeper, and no rushing water sounds. There was a kind of hush all over the river as if even the birds and insects felt it was a time not to be very active, and they got no argument from me.

Hot summer days wear me out. High temperatures and high humidity combine to sap me of any excess energy. The same results occur with strong windy showers like we had today.

Casting in the wind wasn’t easy but most of the gusts were missing me.

My thought was to reach the river,  pull on my warm-weather waders, step into the knee-deep water, hitch up my waders like an old lady pulling on her girdle, and then put together my rod.

It was shady here, and it was a blessing of sorts. I stood, listening to the music flowing through my head, studied the stream flow, listened to the water dripping off the pines, and spotted a rising fish. A few steps closer and then I stopped.

A few more steps, and I stopped again to tie on the fly, and then I was within easy and accurate casting distance. I stood, silence wrapped around me like an invisible cloak, and made one false cast and the leader rolled over and the fly landed four feet above the riseforms I'd seen earlier.

The line was mended once, and the fly drifted past his feeding spot. Another false cast to shake a bit of water off the hackles and tail, and another cast was made to the same spot without a rumble.

Five casts were made, and it was unlikely that any wading noise had spooked the fish. A sixth cast was made, and again the fly was centered in the seam of current where he fed.

Too big, I  thought, thinking perhaps a smaller fly was in order. One size smaller to start, I thought, and a No. 14 was tied to the tippet after a 10-minute battle with a hand-held magnifying glass, my reading glasses and a lot of luck.

All the other paraphernalia was stowed in my fly vest, and then a 10-minute wait for my eye to regain its proper perspective for the scene in front of me,  and then a cast put the fly in the right spot. It was difficult for me to see the Adams, and it sat astride the surface in a perky sort of way.

Switching to a slightly smaller size proved to be the right move.

Nothing happened, a roll cast, once to dry the fly, and it was laid back in the same spot. The line was mended, and then the fish hit. Mind you, it wasn't a smashing strike but more of a sip of the fly off the surface. A soft salute with the rod tip caused the fly to bite home, and then came that old familiar  bend in the rod that felt the soft touch of an old friend.

The river brown wasn't big but he had been out-thought, and had responded to a quiet approach, a change in fly size when it became apparent the larger fly wouldn't work, and besides, in the  deep shade of the cedars and pines where I stood, the rain seemed a long ways away.

I tussled with him going at it mightily when my rod pressure was calm, patient and with just enough pressure to make him do all of the work. He came to me reluctantly, and it was a male of about 14 inches. Not a lunker but good enough for the present day.

I didn't want to work too hard with a really big fish. Calm, easy, and no sense in working too hard after taking a tumble in my back yard. Out came my hemostats, and they gripped and twisted the fly loose.

He swam off, free again, and setting him free made me feel  good. I stood for a few moments in the cool of the shade before wading ashore. One fish was enough to keep my hand in, and it satisfied any need I had to fish for trout on a soggy, rainy, windy day.

Many people who live around Traverse City know that when it rains hard, and the water level in the Little Betsie River rises, it washes worms into Green Lake.

The author (left above) plays a jumping brown trout,.

There have been times in the spring when the worms washed out of the banks of the swamp, and when they are swept under the little bridge on Diamond Park Road in Interlochen, there would be basketball-sized wads of worms drifting down to the waiting fish.

I'd wade down the tiny creek, reach down into the water for my bait, and hook the worm lightly through the nose. I'd cast it out on 4-pound line without weight, and as it washed over the steep dropoff into Green Lake's deep water, a brown trout would nail the worm.

I seemed to have had that secret spot to myself until more people moved into the Interlochen Arts Academy, and soon I'd have others fishing there beside we. We treated each other with respect, and if the browns were biting, we'd catch a bunch of fish.

I can write about that little spot now because browns are no longer being planted in Green Lake although some lake trout have been. I suspect it would still pay off with other game fish now, and a few years ago I caught a 5 1/2-pound smallmouth bass there along with several others of lesser size.

The West Branch of the Sturgeon River was somewhat similar in its downstream reaches, and it was a veritable gold mine for trout. I could catch brookies, browns and rainbows there during a soft rain. If it rained too hard, the shallow stream would be pelted hard and most of the trout headed back under the river banks to wait out the storm.

This hotspot was lost to homes & road improvement.

The upper part of the West Branch of the Sturgeon River, several miles south and west of Wolverine, was a hotspot for brookies. One would fish between their feet in the little jump-across creek. The small brook trout would hold among the root wads, and the water was gin clear and very cold. A rain upstream seemed to put the fish on the prod, and it produced some spectacular fishing.

That area is now all built up with homes and no trespassing signs, and although it may still hold a few brook trout, it's not worth the hassle of trying to stay in the creek and not trespass on someone's land.

There have been countless other days when a good rain put the trout on the feed. I remember one evening right at dark when I waded slowly down the upper Rifle River near Selkirk, and was fishing a four-inch Rapala on a tight line as the stream grew dark and closed in around me.

The Rapala was flipped up tight to the far bank and rain drops trickled down my back, and I closed my open-face spinning reel. I took two or three turns on the reel handle, and a brown trout of great length and girth inhaled the lure and the hooks were buried.

This was a fish around which legends are made and fishing dreams are made. It was well over 10-pounds, and even though I was using 8-pound line, it didn't seem strong enough. That fish rolled on the surface, and headed downstream.
Losing a big brown trout.
I'd been down through this stretch many times and knew where to wade. I stayed close to the fish, jacked him around whenever it seemed possible to gain some leverage, and we were still at it when we passed under a bridge in the darkness. Fortunately, I was able to steer him away from the bridge pilings.

We made it another 200 yards downstream, and by now the after-dark fight had covered nearly a half-mile of river, and the stream was barely lit by a quarter-moon. The wheels fell off this brown trout parade when he hung the line on a wood stob protruding just out of the water.

I eased out slowly. and had just reached the line on the wood, when the big fish made a thunderous splash near a shoreline brush pile. I knew he had woven my line around the drowned branches, and the line popped with a crack like a .22 rifle going off.

Me and rain have always been buddies on the trout streams. I knew that when the rain fell, worms and other critters would wash into the river, and it turns the stream into a smorgasbord of food for large fish. When it begins raining about dark, forget about watching sleep-robbers on television.

Grab a rod, some bait or lures, and head for the closest river. You might be surprised at what you might catch.

 

Thinking of George is always a pleasure. We shared so much as twins, and our mutual love of fishing and my thoughts of him, keeps his memory alive and fresh in my mind. Some favorite memories include:

*A day many years ago when we were fishing the Sturgeon River. I hooked a nice steelhead, and followed the fish downstream to the upstream lip of a deep hole. I tip-toed out as far as I could, and battled that fish to a standstill.

There I went, downstream in the heavy current, as George raced ahead to catch me.

Suddenly I could feel the sand washing out around my wader-clad feet, and knew I was going for a swim. I tried to back up but the current was too strong, and there I went, trying to swim with my rod hand. I hollered at George as I washed through the hole, telling him to grab me at the next shallow riffle.

He ran ahead while I foundered, and I hit the shallow gravel upside-down, and he grabbed my wader straps and hauled me upright. I was thoroughly soaked on a very cold day, and five minutes later I landed the fish and headed for the car for dry clothes and a warm towel. If any one cares, the steelhead weighed 5 1/2 pounds.

*Another time he was wading a soft place on the Platte River. I'd warned against it because of the soft marl bottom, but he got out and into the current, and then both feet got stuck. He was in waist-deep water, and if he fell over, he'd drown because the current would hold him under.

I dropped my rod, grabbed a long and limber tag alder limb, and waded out toward him. He wasn't panicking, but knew the consequences if he lost his footing. I was right on the edge of firm footing and soft, and still 10 feet from him. My branch was about nine feet long. I knew I could stretch out two more feet, and his arms would reach two feet without having to move his body, but I wanted him to get a firm grip.

One good turn deserves another as I pulled George from boot-sucking mud.

"All I can do is pull," I told him. "No sense in both of us being stuck in midstream. Grab hold tight, and I'll push slightly, and hopefully it will give you enough leverage so you can keep your balance while pulling one foot clear of the muck. Take off your wader belt and shoulder straps, because if you lose your balance I'll try to pull you out of your waders."

He got a death grip on the limb, as did I, and I pushed slightly to help him maintain his balance. He worked feverishly on the foot closest to me, and got it free and took a two-foot step. That foot went a foot down in the muck but landed on a submerged limb. He worked on freeing the other foot, and even though it took a half-hour, we got him up onto firm footing and to safety.

*One night we were fishing Manistee Lake at Manistee in August for big walleyes. Back then some big freighters would move up the lake, and throw a huge wake. I hooked a big walleye, and got it close to the boat, and this was bigger than any of the 12 and 13-pounders we had landed.

"He's huge," George said in an understatement. "I'll put the flashlight in my mouth, and try to net him." He did, and just as the net went under the fish, the wake from a passing freighter hit us. The lure hooks tangled in the net, and the fish lay delicately balanced across the net.

We missed a huge walleye of 15-16 pounds on Manistee Lake.

He did the only thing he could, and tried to keep the walleye balanced on the net frame. He got the net and fish over the gunwale before the walleye flipped once, tore the hooks free, bounced once off the gunwale, and I grabbed for the fish. It slid through my hands like a greased pig, and got away. We estimated his weight at 15-16 pounds.

*George loved fly fishing and tying flies, and I remember one of the last brown trout he caught was with the late  Frank Love of Frederic. They were fishing the upper Manistee River near the 612 bridge from Frank's riverboat, and George hooked the fish just after dark.

It jumped and splashed, and George was making the woods ring with his whoops and hollers. He fought that fish well, giving line when needed and taking line when he could, and several minutes later George landed a 22-inch brown.

He admired it briefly, leaned over the edge of the longboat, held the noble brown trout into the current until it pulled away and swam back to his home under a log jam.

That was George Richey. He loved life, loved trout fishing, detested crowds of people, and thought kindly of many people. He loved trout and trout fishing enough to release the larger fish, and many people should emulate his actions. He fished for fun, not for food, and that makes me miss him even more.

 

It was hot and sunny today, but after two hours on the computer and several hours on my food plots, I kicked back in my office chair and closed my eyes. I was tired workingof working most of the day outside .

The watering and weeding had taken its toll on my stamina. I nodded off, and for some reason was transported back to early November of 1967. There I was, brother George at my side, and we were catching coho salmon and steelhead on flies, one after the other.

Anglers who weren’t around in the late 1960s and early 1970s have no clue what good fishing is really like. There were fish than fishermen, and less fishing pressure meant the salmon and trout were more easily caught/

Tres Amigos (from left) George Richey, John McKenzie and Dave Richey.

The thought came to me back then that I was pretty good at catching these fish on flies. The next thought was a question that only I could answer: Could I make a living at this?

I owned two barbershops in Flint, made decent money, but the idea of running my fingers through someone’s dirty hair all day left me cold. I wanted and needed a change of pace, and guiding fishermen six months a year seemed to be more fun than cutting hair.

I had a few clients in 1967, but by late winter-early spring of 1968, I was taking phone calls constantly to book steelhead trips for February, March and April. I suddenly had more business than one man could possibly handle, and I began booking trips for George.

It helped, but we couldn’t keep up with the demand. One day early that spring I had to be home for some reason, stopped into the old Water Wonderland Sporting Goods store at the junction of Dort Highway and the old Dixie Highway, about three miles north of Mt. Morris. I’d worked for Bernie McKenzie, the store owner for two years, and went in to buy some hooks. Then I had to drop off several fish to friends before going home.

“Catching any steelhead?” asked John McKenzie, the owner’s son. I took him out to the car, lifted the cooler lid, and watched him drool. I told him they came from the Platte River. He’d been on the Platte that weekend and hadn’t caught a fish.

“Fishing in the wrong spot,” I mused. He wanted to know where the right spot was, and being pushed for an answer, I made up a name. “The hole where it never rains.”

A week later I returned with a few more fish for friends hungry for fresh fish, and John wanted to know where they were caught, and I told him the same place as last week.

I gave in and took him to another hotspot several days later that didn’t open until the last Saturday in April, and we waded into the Little Manistee River, and no one else was on the river. No one was there except for the steelhead and us. I taught John how to fly-fish that day, and once I knew he could catch fish himself, I asked if he’d like a job guiding.

So John came aboard to help in my guiding business, and Tres Amigos (Three Buddies) became a reality. McKenzie turned out to be a great fisherman, a patient and wonderful instructor, and he usually took out the men and women who booked trips.

That was in late April of 1968, and we stuck together for  nine years before John went off on his own. George and I stuck it out, but both of us were getting burned out. We both retired from guiding in late 1976, and I turned my guiding business over to our uncle. My writing business had really taken off, and by guiding and writing, I was burning the candle at both ends.

George returned to barbering, and I stuck with the writing, and as they say: the rest is history. But down through the years, John McKenzie and I would bump into each other on the river. Once, George and I were together when we met John at an old familiar hole.

“Hey, old-timer,” he hollered when he saw me, “jump in. There are a bunch of fish here and plenty of room for old friends. So we fished together for a couple of hours, and then the cold drove George and I back to the car for some heat. We hadn’t thought about fishing that day and weren’t dressed accordingly.

I’d bump into John almost every year on the river, and it was like old home week. We’d retell the stories about a big buck John shot that I drove out to him from a two-acre woodlot not far from Flint. We’d tell stories of fox shot at and missed, a few that were killed, and the center of attraction for all of us was the nine years we spent guiding spring and fall on a half-dozen different rivers.

We’d start talking and soon we’d be waist-deep in a river with a high-jumping steelhead on, or a heavyweight Chinook salmon sprinting downstream like a locomotive out of control. We’d be staring at one of our favorite rivers through a wall of falling snow, and the white stuff didn’t bother the fish and back in those days it didn’t bother us either.

We could remember people, places and events that happened while guiding, and most of them were tremendous memories of three men who shared a love of the river and of the fish, and still do, many years later.

 John McKenzie unhooks a Betsie River steelhead.

My eyes can close, and my mind’s eye and memory helps me recall those halcyon days when Tres Amigos were something grand and wonderful. We got along well, solved each problem as we encountered it, and never said an angry word to each other.

We were a trio of fishing guides, the first ones to fly-fish for salmon, steelhead and brown trout and do it for a living, and we were a force to be reckoned with. We occasionally would have an afternoon free when our clients would get pooped and leave early for home, and we would go fishing together. There was never any competition between us, and we worked together as a team.

Those were great times, and the fishing was wonderful. We operated on an “all for one, one for all” principle. Our friendship is a long and treasured thing, and now with George gone back in September. 2003. , we are down to the Two Buddies. We don’t see as much of each other as we once did, but if I close my eyes, I can still see John McKenzie with his rod bent, charging downstream after a great fish.

 It can’t replace seeing him in person, fishing with him as we once did, but my memories of John and our many years together come in a clear but distant second to spending time together as we once did. And for now, that has to be good enough.

R.J. Doyle of Mecosta was running his boat as we checked out Portage Lake. This lake, with access to Lake Michigan, is rich in game fish species and appears to have a strong forage base.

"What do you think," he asked, as we left the ramp and headed toward the channel leading out to the big water, and we followed a long flat out almost to a point, and the bottom dropped off. "Think there should be some fish along this dropoff?

I agreed there should be but wanted to see what the rest of the lake looked like first. I'd fished it several times many years ago in the early days of the salmon program, and for whatever reason, had not returned.

Check the lake's contours and structure before fishing.

The channel had 11-12 feet of water near Portage Lake but the water got shallower the closer we came to Lake Michigan. A guy in a big boat came churning into the channel, coming directly at us, and we moved to avoid him, and was almost herded into the rip-rap along the pier. The idiot finally spotted us, moved over to the other side of the channel where he belonged.

"There doesn't seem to be any cover in the channel," I said. "Let's go back into the lake again and move south along the shoreline."

We both wanted to try the lake, and had no great expectations, but hoped to come back in the fall and perhaps catch a few salmon. We left the channel, entered Portage Lake again, and headed south. R.J. had on a Vampire Rapapa, and I had on a small Shad Rap, and that allowed us to cover two different depths while moving at a slow troll.

The boat was just 200 yards from the channel when his rod started bucking, and it pulled the in-line planer board directly behind the boat.  There was a healthy splash behind the planer board, and gradually he worked the board close enough for me to release the line.

"I think it's a pike," he said, with no proof except a gut feeling. We'd been working the edge of a weed bed, when the strike occurred. Two minutes later the fish rolled to the surface and he was right.

"I've caught lots of pike and they have a particular style of fighting a rod, and this just felt like a decent pike," he said. "Slip a net under him for me."

The net was already in motion, and we quickly landed a gorgeous 8-pound pike with the beige kidney-bean shaped spots against a green background. It was our first fish of the day but it wouldn't be our last.

R. J. Doyle with a new brown trout from a new lake.

We soon discovered a strip of deeper water down the middle of the lake with weeds on both side, and soon I brought a undersize northern pike to the boat and released him. We sparred with dozens of rock bass, with a fish or two about eight inches long although the others were much smaller. All were quickly released.

We started to troll the edge of another weedbed not far from the boat launch ramp, and R.J. had let out his lure on a long line, attached the line to the in-line planer board and was running it out to the side, when he had another strike.

We both heard the line peel off the reel, and he was on the rod with great speed. A deep bend in his rod, and more line ripped off the reel.

We both looked up at the same time, and watched a silvery fish bounce into the air, smash back into the lake, and rip off on another short run.

A guessing game for a moment.

"Brown trout or steelhead?" he asked. The fish was 50 yards away, and as I thought about it, the fish went into the air again. This time it was a bit closer to the boat, and although it was a chrome-colored fish, we both said "brown trout" at the same time.

He fought the fish well, and soon I unhooked the planer board from the line, and the fish was still a good distance away. He headed off onto another run, wallowed on the surface, and with painstaking care, Doyle worked the fish to the net where I scooped it up.

"He's about eight pounds," Doyle said. "Look at how silver and pretty he is. He may have planned to summer here in the lake, turn a golden brown, before spawning during the fall."

The sky clouded up several times, and each time the potential rain fell inland from us. And then the sun would come out. And we worked a shoreline dropoff hard without a single strike. It seemed all of the fish were weed-related on this day.

We had a varied catch of brown trout, perch, pike and rock bass.

We hooked another fish we thought was another brown, but it was on and off, just that quick. Another pike was landed, another dozen or so rock bass were boated and released, and one yellow perch was caught.

The lesson here is to spend some time mapping out a lake before fishing. Look for sharp dropoffs, sand bars, shallow flats, weed-lined channels, and other structure that should hold fish.

It had been over 30 years for me since I'd fished Portage Lake, and I guess we did a pretty good job of figuring out where to find fish. If only all lakes were this easy.

"Trying for the big brown trout of yesteryear…"

The night was dark, the moon almost non-existent, as three of us stood quietly talking alongside the river. The water chuckled and gurgled as it swept under a big sweeper that formed a hole where my late twin brother George and I learned to trout fish back in the 1950s.

We listened for the slurp, splash, and sizzle of a broad-bodied trout trout hazing minnows in the shallows. A few small fish fed the first night but none of them were the big brown trout that nearby Burt Lake used to hold. These fish move up-river in July and early August, and hold in deep holes before spawning in October and November. For me, this trip was a reunion of sorts.

It's been said that a person can never go home. That's not true because I returned to my Home Stream — the Sturgeon River in Michigan's Cheboygan County– for two days. Well .. really it was for two nights of after-dark fishing for the brown trout I caught 55 years ago as a 15-year-old and hope to catch now.

I was joined by two Hoosiers — Les Booth and Ed Hauser — on this trip back to yesteryear when I caught brown trout to 11 pounds here, but the stream has changed, and Private Property signs are more common. Fortunately, a number of years ago, I was befriended by a sweet lady, the daughter of the late Russ Bengel, who was the last Michigan waterfowl market hunter of ducks and geese. This late and wonderful man also befriended me more than 25 years ago, and now his daughter has granted me permission to fish what is now her Home Water.

Russ was a kind and generous man as well, and donated large sums of money to Ducks Unlimited, paying back what he felt was a debt for the waterfowl he killed as a youthful market hunter, when such practices were still legal.

The first night of fishing meant more listening for moving fish than fishing but fly rods and spinning rods stood at ready. We just needed to hear some fish moving, and we'd start fishing. A few small trout splish-splashed around but not a big fish moved.

The next night was somewhat different. A cloudy sky blanked out the stars, and we began hearing a few fish working the tail-out of several pools. We used big flies that more resembled mice, huge moths or injured fish. We'd time their rises, and one whist-whist of a back cast and forward cast, and the fly landed like a small bird hitting the water. Les had three strikes, Ed had three and I had three hits that memorable evening

My vision problems prevent me from seeing well at dark, and I pitched a seven-inch Jointed Rapala in silver-black and a chartreuse-orange Rebel that also measured seven inches. I worked the tail-out of each hole with determination, and one big fish (it may have been a husky brown trout) slammed the lure so hard it nearly pulled the rod from my hands. Bing-bang, and it was gone, leaving me breathless. There's something about strikes from big fish once the sun goes down that takes your breath away for a few moments. The other two strikes were complete misses.

Ed, fishing a downstream pool from the bridge, hooked a big and powerful fish, and had him on for several long seconds before it too shook free. Les, like me. had three hits but no hook-ups. One might ask if any of us did anything wrong, and the answer would be no. Big trout trout don't hit flies or lures if the anglers makes a mistake with his presentation.

For me, this was a return home. It's where I sprinkled George's ashes in the river after his 2003 death from cancer. I spent hours both nights thinking of my brother, remembering his first steelhead from one of the holes we fished, and drifted back to yesteryear when life was much different than it is now. Most of all, it was a return to the river of my youth. Perhaps next time the fish will lose and we may win a round. One can always dream.

If you decide to go:

• The Sturgeon River flows north into Burt Lake. Try fishing the downstream end closest to Burt Lake. I prefer fishing from White Road ( the end closest to M-68) and on downstream. Much of the land along this water is private. Be courteous to landowners, and pick up your trash and that of others. The summer brown fishery is about over for this year based on my more than 55 years of experience on this stream.
• This river is extremely swift, and anglers should wade downstream through a likely spot during daylight hours to determine where they can and cannot wade. Some holes are line with clay, and an angler who gets caught on a clay ledge will go swimming. There are a great amount of stumps, sweepers and other debris in the river.
• A few big brown trout from Burt Lake move into the Sturgeon River in mid-summer. They are not easy to catch, as our two-night fishing trip would indicate. The fish move upstream in small schools and often can be heard splashing as they move up. Don't slosh around, make noise or shine a light on the water. A light flashing across your fishing spot will put the fish down.
• If a fog starts rising off the water, head for the sack. 
• The browns stop hitting when a fog comes off.
• Fish safe, and avoid the river during daylight hours if you wish to maintain your sanity. You may be upset by hordes of canoers, kayakers and tubers, most of whom are out-of-control once they start downstream. If local legends are true, there is one spot on the river where the current flows at 22 miles per hour. The current is swift and heavy, and log jams and sweepers are common. Use special care when fishing, and pay attention to where you wade.

All things are relative. A trophy brown when I was a kid was the 11-pounder that George Yontz of Wolverine caught from the Sturgeon River in the late 1950s.

Frankly, over many years of trolling Lake Huron and Lake Michigan for brown trout, I've landed many that were big enough to put a hefty strain on the rod, and would tilt the scales to weights from 11 to 19 pounds.

The brown trout has been a mystery fish to many anglers. A five-pound brown on the Holy Waters of the upper AuSable and Manistee rivers is a trophy fish. Fish one of those back-of-beyond jump-across creeks, and catch a brown trout measuring 12 inches, and it too is a trophy.

Brown trout numbers have dwindled somewhat in recent years around the Great Lakes. Previously, browns of 20 to 25 pounds were common catches, and the current state record fish was caught last year from the Manistee River below Tippy Dam/

Big browns are where you find them. Most harbors on Lakes Huron and Michigan produce some big fish. For many years, Thunder Bay at Alpena was home to some of the state's biggest browns.

Casey Richey's former state-record brown weighed 36 lbs., 13 ounces.

Some very nice fish have been caught trolling in Hammond Bay north of Rogers City, and the area near AuGres off Whitestone Point has produced some very nice fish as well.

Huron Bay at Baraga and L'Anse on Lake Superior also produce good numbers of brown trout in the past. Another Upper Peninsula hotspot for years has been a;pmg the Michigan's shoreline from Escanaba and Little Bay de Noc south to Menominee. Ten-pound fish were common catches here, and I've caught some 11 and 12-pounders near Escanaba.

Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay, including both arms of the bay, have produced some huge browns. My son David hooked a huge fish on a Rapala years ago, played it with a gentle hand, and lost it when the lure broke apart. Three of us saw that fish, and our closest estimate to its weight was 25 pounds. In higher waters of yesteryear, the Acme Reel along US-31 was a hotspot.

Harbors at Frankfort, Onekama, Manistee and Ludington also produce big brown trout on occasion. Even some of the southerly ports such as Saugatuck and South Haven have delivered good numbers of browns.

It takes a lot of fishing these days to catch big browns.

It's possible to cast spoons off breakwalls or piers at these harbors, and a blue-silver, green-silver, orange-silver, all silver, copper, brass, pearl or other color 1/4 or 1/3-oz. Devle Dog spoons work well. Experiment with sinking time, retrieval speeds and vary between casting straight out off the pier or casting parallel to the pier if no one is in the way.

Trolling produces very well, and the trick is to work in and out of shallow water during the spring months. Years ago, Jack Duffy pioneered this offshore fishery, brought me in on it, and between us, we pounded the big browns for many years. The methods that follow worked for us.

We always used 6-pound line, and trolled two types of lures: wobbling plugs (X-4, X-5 and U-20 FlatFish to be exact) or minnow-imitating plugs like the Rapala, Rebel, Long-A Bomber or FasTrac. Hot colors were silver, silver-black, chartreuse-orange and gold-black in the latter category. FlatFish colors were silver, silver with red spots or pearl.

Jack Duffy's earlier state-record brown trout weighed 31 1/2 pounds.

FlatFish required a very slow trolling speed, and we'd test lures next to the boat to see if they tracked straight. If so, slowly release line until the lures at least 100 yards behind the boat, and put them into rodholders. Some anglers prefer trolling off in-line planer boards.

Minnow-imitating lures can be trolled faster than FlatFish, but tie a loop knot to the lure's line tie to open up its wiggle. Again, let two lures out at the same time and speed for about 100 yards, and put the rods in rod holders. Adjust reel drags so a brown can take line on the strike.

Big browns almost always rip off an additional 50-75 yards of line on the strike. Reel the other line in to get it out of the way, and play the fish gently. Often, browns will strike and run toward the boat. Reel fast and hard, and you may be pleasantly surprised when you catch up to the fish when it is about 25 yards behind the boat.

Browns occasionally jump, and most often will roll on the surface. Once they get close to the boat, be prepared for one or more last-ditch efforts by the fish. Watch its head, and if the head cocks to one side or the other, he is planning another run. Let the fish go, and don't try to pressure them on 6-pound line. A big fish will break the line like sewing thread.

Try trolling near the edges and tips of piers, along the mud line where river water meets lake water, and off a river mouth. Gravel or rocky bars in six to 15 feet of water can be good spots, and the key to good brown trout fishing is an abundance of alewives or smelt.

Catching big browns these days is not easy but my nephew, Casey Richey of Frankfort, set a new state record almost three years ago. His record was broken last year with a massive fish from the Manistee River. Some big fish are around, but scoring means putting in a lot of time and patience in the key areas, but know this: There are no guarantees.

Fish smart and good luck!

Fishing guides are smart. If they stumble in the brains department, they often are out of business within a year.

Guides know when to make decisions. and then proceed with an action plan. That plan may not always produce the desired results, but I'd rather have a guide who is willing to make a sound decision based on his experience than fence-straddle all day while nothing happens.

Arnie Minka of Grawn and I had booked a steelhead trip with Mark Rinckey of Honor (231-325-6901) a few years ago. Fishing had been extremely slow, but it's been too nice of a day to reschedule a trip. We were committed to it even though we knew steelhead fishing had been unremarkably dismal for two weeks.

"We are going to try something new," Rinckey told us when we met in Honor at 5:30 a.m. "The water level flowing over the rivermouth where the Betsie River flows into Betsie Bay has been so shallow that few steelhead are moving upstream. We're going after them in Betsie Bay."

Rinckey has been guiding river salmon and steelhead fishermen since 1977 when I first started fishing with him. He's come up with some strange ideas in the past, but they often pay off. Minka and I would go along with this venture with great anticipation.

A hunch paid off with this steelhead for Arnie Minka (left) and Rinckey.

We got to a spot that borders the Elberta side of Betsie Bay, walked to the water, and stuck short sandspikes at the water's edge to hold the rods. Rinckey began rigging lines with a quarter-ounce pyramid sinker, a four-foot leader of four-pound test, and a No. 8 hook. Spawnbags would be used for bait.

The first bait hit the water, and Rinckey was rigging the second rod, when a steelhead rattled the rod. I grabbed it, set the hook, and held on as a fish powered off on a 20-yard run. Five minutes later an 8-pound steelhead was skidded up to shore.

Rods No. 1 and 2 was baited, and Rinckey was working on Rod No. 3, when the second rod dipped toward the surface, and Minka grabbed it and held on as another fish powered off on a short but determined run. That fish was soon landed, the line was baited again, and we soon had five lines in the water before the sun rose above an eastern hill.

Guides often have hunches and they often produce fast action.

"This is the first time I've fished this spot," Rinckey told us during a lull in the action. "It made sense to me because the fish often follow the dropoff as they move upstream, but I think these fish are stranded here because of the extremely low water just below the M-22 bridge. Very few fish are making it upstream through that skinny water.

Another strike, and this was a 10-pound male for Arnie. I hooked an 8-pound silver female, fought her and she was soon released. The strikes weren't coming too fast, but every 10 to 15 minutes, we'd have a bump or a hook-up and it kept our attention level high.

Boats were trolling the harbor but the action was slow for them. For us, we seemed to be in the right place at the right time. And frankly, folks, that is why people hire fishing guides to show us how and where to fish.

The fishing often slows about 8 a.m., but not today. A bright, sunny day, and the only thing that changed was the fish went slightly deeper. We'd make longer casts, allow the sinker and line to sink to bottom, tighten up the line, stick the rod in a sandspike, adjust the drag and wait for a nodding rod tip to signal another biting fish.

Rinckey with a nice spring fish.

Other steelhead were caught, and then Arnie landed a seven-pound brown trout. The fish fought hard, stayed deep, and was a lovely specimen. It was quickly unhooked, held aloft for a photograph, and quickly released.

"Hunches do pay off," Rinckey said. "I've had a few that didn't work, but often a hunch is based on fishing knowledge, an analysis of existing river conditions, and a small portion of good luck. I thought about this spot last night when I was trying to fall asleep, and it proved to be a genuine hotspot."

He said that tomorrow's fishing at the same location may not produce a fish. If so, then a good guide refers his clients to Plan B.

Rinckey doesn't need a Plan B very often. He knows spring steelhead, and is adept at helping clients catch them. A 10-fish catch and the release of six fish over a half-day of fishing should be good enough for anyone. It was certainly good enough for us.