By Ed McGlinn
The best fisherman I have ever known spent his last season on the Mainstream Au Sable twenty years ago. Mitchell Powell, who fished our river more frequently and with greater skill than any other person in my memory died unexpectedly at the age of sixty-two on a early gray winter day in 1977.
Since he most likely fished about a hundred days a season (during the seasons when he was feeling up to par), Mitch with his stiff-legged limp (caused by a childhood disease) was a fixture on the river. All the regulars who camped and fished at Keystone Landing knew Mitch, but few knew him well.
Keystone was his second home, and this lovely stretch of river was his favorite. But when the campground was "improved" for non-fishermen in 1974, he moved his camp across the river to an opening in the forest near a friend's cabin.
Mitch was shy and unassuming, not inclined to brag about the fish he caught, but indeed over the almost two decades I knew him he probably caught more large trout than any half-dozen other anglers. He became the cornerstone of a trout-tagging program, started privately in 1970 and taken over by the DNR in 1973-74, and then resumed privately thereafter.
I thought it appropriate on this twentieth anniversary of his last season on the river to report what we know of Mitch's tagging, to celebrate his life on the river using data from his journals, and to suggest through these records an idea of what the fishing then was like.
In his last year, 1976, Mitch's time on the river wasn't up to his normal stint. In but twenty days, he tagged thirty-two fish over ten inches. In 1975, in forty-three days, he tagged seventy-nine over ten inches. In 1974, Mitch was close to what for him would be a normal year. In fifty-one days he tagged 101 trout over ten inches.
His last three years are summarized by the following table. It shows he tagged 212 trout over ten inches, the average being about fourteen inches. There were 109 recaptures of these fish in the same period, many by Mitch.
| Length in inches | Number |
| 10-12 | 40 |
| 12-14 | 103 |
| 14-16 | 51 |
| 16-18 | 9 |
| 18-20 | 7 |
| 20+ | 2 |
The whole tagging crew, including Mitch, in his last three years tagged 410 trout with 189 recaptures. In his peak year (1972) Mitch tagged 160 trout in sixty-seven days.
A few things should be noted about the tagging. First, most of the fish were caught in the evening, at night, or early morning. (The canoes on the Mainstream and the South Branch were almost as bad as they are now.) Second, most of the fish were tagged between Keystone and Thendara, which was Mitch's "beat." Third, more fish were caught than tagged; it took great discipline to tag a fish in a heavy hatch, and Mitch didn't have any more virtue there than the rest of us. And fourth, though our records are rather complete regarding original tagging, they are incomplete in recaptures; we just didn't identify the person who caught an already tagged fish. (Some of these fish were recaptured many times.) And lastly, the number of days reported above are those where fish were caught. We did not keep track of fishless days. At the time we didn't think it important.
Although Mitch kept many fish in earlier years, he became a strong advocate of catch-and-release, and he stopped killing trout on the Au Sable in 1969.
Mitchell believed that trout fishing should be an art form and could be critical of those who would destroy its mystery and reduce it to a science. He often said "that ninety-nine percent of everything you see written about fishing is pure bull."
He was a kind and gentle man and he had two lives, the one on the river and the one at home in Detroit. The latter was very personal and those who enjoyed his company on the river rarely were part of it. After his death I learned he lived with two spinster sisters and a bachelor brother. Mitch was the youngest.
A retired machinist and tool and die maker, Mitch had invested his money wisely and was very knowledgeable about Wall Street, the drastic social changes in the Seventies, and the unforeseen and improvident political trends. He was truly a student of the times and could carry his weight in any discussion on almost any subject.
Though he fished for bass in lakes around Detroit, as far as I know Mitch only fished for trout in the Au Sable and Manistee rivers, at least in his later years.
Skip Favro, another good friend and fishing companion, and I could never get him interested in a trip out west. Occasionally Skip and I would get Mitch over on the Platte to fish for steelhead, and while he enjoyed these excursions that kind of fishing didn't become a passion.
Although the changes in the Au Sable upset him, Mitchell was very tolerant of the rights of others and trusted everyone. To my dismay at times, he never locked his car or closed his tent. Even on cold nights there was always a small opening at the bottom of his tent door so the animals could get in and out. A favorite story was how he was awakened one night by a skunk's tail brushing his face as it made off with his bread.
Often when I came to the river to fish I stayed with Mitch. I have first-hand knowledge of the wild critters that would visit us at night. I can't say for sure there was a skunk but there was often a raccoon or two. If you went fishing with Mitch at night there was a family of raccoons, a mother and three kits, who would come to him to be fed. They were never disappointed. I can't describe the beauty of sitting on the bank under a full moon at midnight while Mitch took care of his family.
John Voelker's poetic philosophy of fishing ends with "(I fish) not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant - and not nearly so much fun."
Mitchell lived this philosophy more completely than any other person we have known. He was our compatriot, a friend of all those who knew him, a true guardian of the river, and we miss him still and always will. We will never forget him. RWOL
Some of the above, written by the author and Skip Favro, appeared in the Northwoods Call shortly after Mitchell died. Excerpts are used with permission. - Editor
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