I can see in front of me again, thanks to your story, my first trout of intelligent metal, caught in a 4-foot wide side channel of a Michigan River in March. I had devastated hundreds of bluegills at this point in my fishing career- 3rd grade?- but the carmel to yellow then cream sides with haloed red spots and the most perfect skin of any non-woman creature was an absolute alien. In fact it was an alien, a German Brown though possibly arrived with Loch Leven ancestry.
I just stared at it, until my father came from the main River and I asked him breathlessly if I could “keep” it. Not like a puppy but so much as a long buried and potentially dangerous enchanted archeological artifact of incalculable value but that would never be sold. He admired my barely legal fish and said yes, knowing full well what I had gotten myself into.
I was warm all over, as they say, not just from this moment of moments but also because dad had brought a change of late winter clothes just in case, and “just in case” had happened perhaps an hour earlier. I had changed to dry clothes in Orrin Cutler’s warm but no longer mobile home in the grass just in an about 50 yards from a big bend of the Big South. (Yes I grew up when people still had Andy Griffith show names).
How I came to be wet:
In typical fashion Dad had decided my first trout fishing trip with me would be a high water late winter Steelhead trip- Like learning to swim by being dropped off a bridge. Crossing the river in these conditions required my 6’-3” Dad (also “Wade” by the way) who would have been in his mid thirties at the time to get “to the top of his waders” as we used to say. I had my own first pair of waders and briefly enjoyed the feeling of water pressing the “rubber”tight around my longjohn and corduroy clad legs before the first crossing, cool and smooth inside and barely unfrozen out. I thought I was walking pretty good but after 3 steps with Dad the waders were useless and I found myself fluttering alongside with his downstream hand holding me like the stringer we later got to put my trout on. I don’t think he said anything and I was not afraid at all, thinking “oh this is trout fishing”. Safely deposited on the far bank he showed me how “the rig” worked for steelhead fishing. I was a pretty good spin caster already due to the bluegill dock work among boats and ropes, but moving water was a mystery. No bobber, braille fishing. “Feel it (a “Spring’s Wiggler”imitation) bounce along bottom” he said, shortly after which the bottom ate my fly and we rigged up all over again. At some point in this cast, snag, re-rig and repeat cycle, the bottom moved. Dad had found some of “his own” water elsewhere so when the “bottom” started moving heavily downstream I had to go with it trying to stay out of the deep part of the run. Then it picked up speed and the reel started to make a sound I had never heard (bluegills don’t engage your drag). Just at the point of bewilderment dad’s voice was above and alongside: “Your gonna have to chase it”.
Yes sir, and I was determined catch it. I careened downstream over rocks, tipped over in the shallows and felt the ice water fill my waders now rubber balloons up to my thighs. but I was immediately back up and slogging, not gaining any ground or line on the pulsing heavy thing. Then, the bottom was in the air. Bright silver floating ingot, way downstream, higher than my head and as long as the part of me that was above the water.
Then the rod was light again, lifeless. I asked my dad why the steelhead jumped like that, and was that thing what I had on my line?. It seemed too far away to be what had been connected to me in any way. “Yeah, that was what you were chasing. You would be the one to have hooked the biggest steelie we’ve seen here, and on your first day. Try to hook something in the 4-6 pound range next time”.
Cold wet wonder. Dad dragged me back across but I was already wet so I don’t recall the crossing. I was experiencing joy and loss and near hypothermia at the same time. A short time later came the brown. I chased that species, mostly in the dark with a fly rod for 20 years before i went steelhead fishing again, also on a Michigan winter day, and landed an 11-pounder. I have never caught a small one.
Fantastic fish story Clark Stevens! Another prodigious ghost fish rising unexpectedly from the bottom. It's amazing to me how creatures that evolved in one place and set of circumstances can be moved (intentionally, by people in this case) to completely different ones and not only thrive, but set up new, complex ecologies and patterns with people. Fishing for North Pacific steelhead in a Michigan river in March.
I remember Dad had an ambiguous relationship with steelhead. All his stories of Place were of Brook Trout, and the “introduced” (salmon, meet the Great Lakes) steelhead and salmon wrecked his favorite native char streams. It’s the main reason for a two decade gap in my steelhead trips. But all my places always had Brown Trout, and the upper reaches and tiny creeks that still had Brookies were elevated from story to myth. Natives were rare but the brownies were no less wild and indigenous to their Michigan creeks
Remember Troutdale well. Many unsuccessful fishing trips to Lake Sherwood were salvaged by a trip to Troutdale on the way home. Excellent research on the Steelhead
Yes, as a dad of a 5-year old who didn't catch anything on his first fishing attempts at the beach, Troutdale made up for it—with a goggle-eyed, Dog Chow-fattened, dull gray fish, which we agreed didn't look appetizing and so put back in the gray water.
I can see in front of me again, thanks to your story, my first trout of intelligent metal, caught in a 4-foot wide side channel of a Michigan River in March. I had devastated hundreds of bluegills at this point in my fishing career- 3rd grade?- but the carmel to yellow then cream sides with haloed red spots and the most perfect skin of any non-woman creature was an absolute alien. In fact it was an alien, a German Brown though possibly arrived with Loch Leven ancestry.
I just stared at it, until my father came from the main River and I asked him breathlessly if I could “keep” it. Not like a puppy but so much as a long buried and potentially dangerous enchanted archeological artifact of incalculable value but that would never be sold. He admired my barely legal fish and said yes, knowing full well what I had gotten myself into.
I was warm all over, as they say, not just from this moment of moments but also because dad had brought a change of late winter clothes just in case, and “just in case” had happened perhaps an hour earlier. I had changed to dry clothes in Orrin Cutler’s warm but no longer mobile home in the grass just in an about 50 yards from a big bend of the Big South. (Yes I grew up when people still had Andy Griffith show names).
How I came to be wet:
In typical fashion Dad had decided my first trout fishing trip with me would be a high water late winter Steelhead trip- Like learning to swim by being dropped off a bridge. Crossing the river in these conditions required my 6’-3” Dad (also “Wade” by the way) who would have been in his mid thirties at the time to get “to the top of his waders” as we used to say. I had my own first pair of waders and briefly enjoyed the feeling of water pressing the “rubber”tight around my longjohn and corduroy clad legs before the first crossing, cool and smooth inside and barely unfrozen out. I thought I was walking pretty good but after 3 steps with Dad the waders were useless and I found myself fluttering alongside with his downstream hand holding me like the stringer we later got to put my trout on. I don’t think he said anything and I was not afraid at all, thinking “oh this is trout fishing”. Safely deposited on the far bank he showed me how “the rig” worked for steelhead fishing. I was a pretty good spin caster already due to the bluegill dock work among boats and ropes, but moving water was a mystery. No bobber, braille fishing. “Feel it (a “Spring’s Wiggler”imitation) bounce along bottom” he said, shortly after which the bottom ate my fly and we rigged up all over again. At some point in this cast, snag, re-rig and repeat cycle, the bottom moved. Dad had found some of “his own” water elsewhere so when the “bottom” started moving heavily downstream I had to go with it trying to stay out of the deep part of the run. Then it picked up speed and the reel started to make a sound I had never heard (bluegills don’t engage your drag). Just at the point of bewilderment dad’s voice was above and alongside: “Your gonna have to chase it”.
Yes sir, and I was determined catch it. I careened downstream over rocks, tipped over in the shallows and felt the ice water fill my waders now rubber balloons up to my thighs. but I was immediately back up and slogging, not gaining any ground or line on the pulsing heavy thing. Then, the bottom was in the air. Bright silver floating ingot, way downstream, higher than my head and as long as the part of me that was above the water.
Then the rod was light again, lifeless. I asked my dad why the steelhead jumped like that, and was that thing what I had on my line?. It seemed too far away to be what had been connected to me in any way. “Yeah, that was what you were chasing. You would be the one to have hooked the biggest steelie we’ve seen here, and on your first day. Try to hook something in the 4-6 pound range next time”.
Cold wet wonder. Dad dragged me back across but I was already wet so I don’t recall the crossing. I was experiencing joy and loss and near hypothermia at the same time. A short time later came the brown. I chased that species, mostly in the dark with a fly rod for 20 years before i went steelhead fishing again, also on a Michigan winter day, and landed an 11-pounder. I have never caught a small one.
Fantastic fish story Clark Stevens! Another prodigious ghost fish rising unexpectedly from the bottom. It's amazing to me how creatures that evolved in one place and set of circumstances can be moved (intentionally, by people in this case) to completely different ones and not only thrive, but set up new, complex ecologies and patterns with people. Fishing for North Pacific steelhead in a Michigan river in March.
I remember Dad had an ambiguous relationship with steelhead. All his stories of Place were of Brook Trout, and the “introduced” (salmon, meet the Great Lakes) steelhead and salmon wrecked his favorite native char streams. It’s the main reason for a two decade gap in my steelhead trips. But all my places always had Brown Trout, and the upper reaches and tiny creeks that still had Brookies were elevated from story to myth. Natives were rare but the brownies were no less wild and indigenous to their Michigan creeks
Remember Troutdale well. Many unsuccessful fishing trips to Lake Sherwood were salvaged by a trip to Troutdale on the way home. Excellent research on the Steelhead
Yes, as a dad of a 5-year old who didn't catch anything on his first fishing attempts at the beach, Troutdale made up for it—with a goggle-eyed, Dog Chow-fattened, dull gray fish, which we agreed didn't look appetizing and so put back in the gray water.