The Night Of The Brown Trout Moon Dance
By
John McKenzie

The late-October day had passed all too quickly. The thrill of fly fishing northern Michigan streams during the peak of the fall salmon and trout spawning runs had been a mesmerizing experience.

The setting sun had brought to a close an award-winning episode on Michigan’s famed Platte River. Longtime friend, guide, and outdoor writer Dave Richey and I had been guiding clients from Iowa. That day had found us in the midst of a heavy run of chinook and coho salmon and some huge brown trout.

We had put our clients into a mind-boggling number of fish, and it had been a truly legendary kind of day. We fished a stretch of river that looked yellow-orange because of the spawning colors of lake-run brown trout.

One of our clients with a trophy brown trout.

I witnessed savage runs of these powerful fish, and watched them break 10-pound test line like it was sewing thread, leaving clients drop-jawed and speechless. But now the day was over, and our clients had returned to their cabin.

They were sated from numerous struggles with big fish. They complained of sore arms and wrists, but their smiles stretched from ear to ear. They had brown trout, Chinook salmon and coho salmon carefully wrapped and padded for a taxidermist, and they would be frozen solid as they headed for home in the morning. Their salmon and trout fillets were packed away in the deep freeze.

Our waders, rods and tackle all rested in their proper places, and we were on our way to dinner. We were lean and mean in those bygone days, and one meal a day was normal for us. Now, after all the day's work was done, we were on a bee-line for some hot grub.

After a great meal and one sundowner, we talked about the numbers of big brown trout we had encountered that day. Dave and I couldn’t shake off the intensity of that outing, and the number of big bronze colored and silvery brown trout we had found.

Perhaps, deep down inside, we knew the odds were very strong in our favor that we'd never see a river filled with browns again during our lifetime. Some of the gravel spawning beds had held 10-15 male and female browns, and more kept nosing their way upstream in their continuing search for a spawning site.

It was 10:30 that night as we left the restaurant and the night sky was filled with the energy and light from the Rutting Moon. We looked at each other, and then I said: “Lets go back after ‘em. They will still be there.”

Dave put the car in gear and we were heading for the Platte River. I'd noticed that his Black Beauty fly rod was all ready to go, and knotted at the end of the leader was a No. 6 Dave's Favorite that had been tied by his twin brother George.

The big browns were still there.

We found a crystal-clear river, filled with trophy-sized spawning brown trout. The night sky, energized by the light of the full moon, provided great lighting, and we were as giddy as school girls.

We soon reached the river, parked the car and walked slowly and softly down the bank. The shallow gravel beds, fanned hard and shiny with overturned white stones, glistened in the moonlight. The river was choked with big browns.

A pathway, clear of obstacles, lay alongside the spawning trout, and it provided perfect casting opportunities. I tied on one of George’s Platte River Pink flies, and the first cast retrieved across the gravel bar triggered a strike that sent a huge brown trout tail-walking in a moon dance of silvery spray across the shimmering Platte River. Two fishing guides had arrived at Fly Fishing Heaven.

I hooked a big fish, a male with a kype as big as a crooked little finger, and the fish took me down the river. Dave shook out line through his fly rod, shot a cast across the river, and as it swung in the current, another brown trout hit.

It was nonstop fly fishing action.

For two hours we danced one brown trout after another across the moon-sparkled river. We were deep in our individual thoughts during this piece of time. Just us and the fish that took us there.

Dave then worked a big brown down the river, and I sat on the bank, unable to cast again. I was shutting down alongside the river that had given us the greatest single night of brown trout fishing either of us had ever seen.

I awoke to Dave’s voice: “Hey, partner, I almost stepped on you! You had enough magical fishing for one night?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “let's pack it in. We need some sound sleep before meeting our new sports in the morning.”

We walked back to the car, stowed our rods, and as I looked up into the night sky, I knew we would never forget the Night of the Brown Trout Moon Dance. And you know what? We never have forgotten that one night in our shared lives when the brown trout fishing was twice as good as anyone could ever want.

Editor's Note: John McKenzie was one of my fishing guides from 1968 to 1975, and this is another of his stories based on an event that happened almost 40 years ago. He loves river fishing and whitetail deer hunting, and he, like I, remember the old days with great fondness because they may never happen to us again.