With trepidation normally reserved for public speaking and tax audits, I looked forward to my first adult fishing trip--four guys and a black lab heading up to the North Branch of the Au Sable for opening day. I was, at thirty-three, to be a fairly aged debutante due primarily to performance anxiety and an inclination to figure things out through research rather than trial and error.
My fishing skills, supplied amply and early by my father, however, were not the source of my trepidation. What I lacked was confidence in my fella skills--the ability to posture, boast and thrive in a testosterone-laden environment. Again, owing to a rather bookish nature, I embarked on a spring cram session in Traver, Hemingway, McLean, Lyons, Dennis and other assorted trout pundits that I hoped would supply the necessary bravado.
That research convinced me that I needed to reform my ideal. I always thought fishing had nothing to do with banter and competition, laughing and drinking, and everything to do with reflection and reverence because my father--my only real fishing companion--and I rarely spoke on the stream. I knew exactly how Hemingway felt when he wrote that Nick Adams "did not like to fish with other men on the river." I now had an urge to learn otherwise and Traver’s "Dancing Fly" convinced me that such a trip could do the trick.
My uneasiness grew, though, as I contemplated the foolishness of debuting on opening day rather than during the Hex hatch or some other trout orgy. As any stream lasher worth his neoprenes knows, the Hex hatch with its big bugs and big fish is the perfect time to wallow in guydom. Opening day, on the other hand, with no bugs, no fish and a better than even chance for horrendous weather offers no ready-made stag events. I would be on my own.
Although I hoped to rely on my research to come off as a jovial swell, what I desperately wanted was to avoid some huge breach of decorum and I figured thorough preparation would be key. So I made at least two trips to every fly shop in the D.C. area proudly informing the proprietors that I was taking in the opener on the famous Au Sable. This boast failed to elicit what I considered the requisite awe and I got the same hollow feeling I’d gotten when these East Coast snobs failed to recognize the Boardman as birthplace of the Adams fly.
Despite a new found confidence in my equipment, fishing skills and working knowledge of fishing lore, both general and local, I still had that same queer feeling I used to get on the first tee when playing golf with strangers. I didn’t know "how good" my companions were and whether, despite all my preparation, I might still make a colossal blunder.
Fortunately, I had been invited on the trip by my oldest and best friend, Chief, and if I haven’t completely embarrassed myself in front of Chief yet I’m never likely to. Besides, despite years of arguing over inconsequential subjects, everyone Chief has ever introduced me to is, in the argot of our generation, cool. He had assured me that the other members of our party were indeed cool.
My flight from Washington National to Detroit went off without a hitch and by 4:00 on Friday we were at Chief’s suburban Detroit home. By 6:00, I had met our host Ace and his pal Buddy and we had finished packing the fish car. It was once these preliminaries were completed that the guy-fest began in earnest. Initial posturing and equipment scoping is one thing--Buddy had two Sages!!--but the rutting really took off when we stopped to provision ourselves.
At the local Kroger, we performed a drill not unlike a group that had won a 10-minute shopping spree. We grabbed steaks and chops, eggs and bacon, doughnuts and bagels, corn and potatoes, and all manner of spices, sauces and seasonings until someone won the checkout tape bet at about $180 (and in full disclosure, by Sunday we had made three more trips to the bait shop for supplementary victuals).
Finally, about 6:30 we headed up I-75 towards the Au Sable. Then the real BS-ing started. Chief told stories that I’d stopped laughing at the 25th time I’d heard them, but in this testosterone-drenched atmosphere they were suddenly revitalized not the least because some of them made me look good.
The weather in Detroit had been mild yet overcast, but as the pallid and grimy cities of mid-Michigan gave way to flat and featureless soybean farms and finally to the sand rooted CCC pines, the creeks and ponds, and the hills and dales that foreshadow true Up North, the horizon featured a dusky scarlet that bled into an incredibly rich purple--the type of breathtakingly natural hue that I hoped to soon see displayed on the sides of bright Au Sable trout. Best of all, this welcomed meteorological display appeared suspended directly over our destination on the North Branch.
We finally rolled into the cabin around 10:30 and in an inexorable reaction dating back as far as my earliest memories on Silver Lake, I hurried down to look at the water. I watched its swirling eddies and more informatively, at that hour, listened to its gurgling banks while the scent of pine and the smell of puckerbush triggered a flood of old trout stream memories.
Now nestled into the cozy cottage hard by the North Branch with our gear unpacked and the river observed, we cracked a couple of beers and began to consider the evening’s entertainment. The suggestion that we play a little poker rekindled an uneasiness that had largely dissolved on the trip up. I think most guys can navigate life fairly easily on three good stories, a decent jump shot and a tacit knowledge of poker. While I have been blessed with the talent to tell stories and have occasionally been known to knock down the J, I stink at poker and the thought of getting into an all-night card game dredged up painful memories when pride and bad gambling skills conspired to cost me dearly.
Fortunately, the poker suggestion failed to turn out the vote and we somehow settled on Monopoly. Now, although I am no better at monopoly than poker, I felt it would be more difficult to look foolish playing a child’s game. As indicated by the dog-eared board and Ace’s encyclopedic knowledge of rule and strategy, I was given to believe that Monopoly must be the "house" game at Ace’s. Although I went bankrupt first, I didn’t look particularly foolish and as I peered out the window into the darkness, I engaged in a self-indulgent reverie that Monopoly was to this cottage on the Au Sable what I had read cribbage was to John Voelker--a means to size a man up before fishing and a method for de-constructing him afterwards.
I awoke to an absolutely glorious morning, especially for northern Michigan in April. Not wanting to proceed unscheduled, however, I lounged in the cabin while the sun-play on the Au Sable teased me cruelly. After a morning that started late and seemed designed more to continue the bonhomie of the previous night than to catch fish, we headed out to the stream about 10:30. We were a little light in the stomach owing to Buddy’s midnight decision to devour the 12-pack of doughnuts we bought for breakfast. He insisted that once the packaging had been breached he considered them fair game--an explanation or excuse my stomach could not adequately parse.
Ace led us on an information-packed 40 minute walking tour that led up a dirt road, along a ridge, through some sand barrens, and back to the river. He then indicated that we had about a three hour fish back home.
Ace waded in first looking confident on his home water as he cast a weighted nymph efficiently making long drifts against trouty cover and through runs. Buddy, to be honest, I never saw fish much the entire weekend. He entered the river, made a few casts, took the lead, and went around enough bends that I didn’t see him again until he came back upstream an hour and a half later sans vest and rod wondering about lunch. Chief had a rough morning with the equipment and had become frustrated by the time Buddy came back upstream.
So we decided to kick back at a deep pool and take turns dredging it with weighted nymphs. What followed was one of the most raucous bull sessions I’ve ever participated in. Only Ace’s fiancée and Chief’s wife avoided coming under scrutiny. Finally, after an hour of lounging on the bank and story telling, we decided to break for lunch without any fish and only a few sloppy rises to our strike indicators to provide hope for the evening.
After a lunch again somewhat dented by Buddy’s late night grub-fest, Ace and Buddy took naps while Chief cracked a dusty history of the Au Sable nabbed from a cabin bookshelf. I just sat on the dock and stared at the water. What mysteries lay below its glistening, swirling surface? I had spent a lot of time in northern Michigan, a lot of time on trout streams and a lot of time simply mesmerized by water, but to have all these facets wrapped in one serpentine jewel was too great a bounty to resist.
Then as Ace and Buddy slept and Chief got deeper into his book, I began to notice some Hendricksons fluttering about followed not too long after by some splashy rises. Since I had an Adams tied on from the end of our morning session, I grabbed my rod and tried to reach the far bank from the dock, but without sufficient room for a backcast, I couldn’t quite reach the feeding lane. Slightly dejected and not relishing the proposition of putting on a pair of difficult stocking foots, I headed inside. Chief piped up and said "Hey, why don’t you put on my waders."
I did and waded to the middle of the stream. I made five, then ten, then 15 casts underneath an overhanging birch and over the old DNR log jam where the fish had been rising and got nothing. I gave myself five more casts--then five more. Then a splash and a 10-inch brown and I had thrown what Norman Mclean called the horse collar.
With a confidence bolstered by the lunch fish and the increasing number of Hendricksons coming off, we set out again around 5:30. From another hopeful start, we again returned fishless and puzzled. Puzzled that despite a fairly steady hatch, we saw not one rise the entire time on the stream. I stayed out until 8:30, confident that some action lurked around every bend and in each degree the sun set.
Buddy had left, with, no doubt, food on his mind, a full hour before I gave up to join the helter skelter supper drill. Ace had fires started in both the fire pit and the fireplace. Buddy mixed drinks and marinated steaks. Chief and I shucked corn and baked potatoes.
About 10:00 we finally sat down to a killer meal. Grilled trout might have been more apropos and Hemingwayesque, but then rare whiskey and thick steaks are tough to beat. While that rare whiskey warmed my spine, we had few fishing highlights to review, but I did slip into contemplation about the qualities of such a trip and the urgency with which strangers can become lifelong chums if the chemistry is correct.
Standing by the river after dinner, Ace surprised me by excusing his utter lack of decorum and dumping half his drink into the stream. He then genially blamed our poor luck on his failure to bless the river and solemnize that blessing with a decent sized whiskey dram. Somebody, half-drunk and half-serious, then suggested that we all quit our jobs, move up to the Au Sable, and fish for a living. Demonstrating that the half-drunk was beating out half-serious by a mile, he said, "we’ll use worms if we have to." He also forgot that Michigan in April isn’t in the habit of doling out the crystalline gems we had just enjoyed and that more often than not the weather is as bad as the fishing.
On Sunday we had another late morning and my dad came over from Traverse City to fish with us. Ace worked with Chief to straighten out his casting problems and Chief caught a glistening beauty on a nymph. I got a couple pocket water denizens to play with a beadhead hare’s ear. Dad picked one up on a streamer and Buddy cruised up stream and out of sight. We got back to the cabin in the mid-afternoon and had the last of the food for lunch then dad and I headed back to Traverse. My head buzzed with all the fun I’d had and what I’d learned both about the Au Sable and going fishing with the fellas.
I fished the Boardman and the Platte morning, noon and night over the next three days without once getting skunked and often landing over a dozen fish. Were the conditions better? Maybe. Was fishing my home waters the key? Probably. Was fishing alone and stealthily more productive? Certainly.
I didn’t care because those were just fishing days, pleasant days for sure, but days nevertheless. I had, however, spent the opener on the Au Sable as the guest of an entertaining new friend that exuded an incredible love, knowledge, and appreciation for his special river. I hoped one day to be nearly as fine a host. With another guy who I’m certain I’ll never see again, but who made me bust out laughing about a dozen times over the weekend. With my best friend and with my dad.
"So what if we hardly caught any fish," I thought until the local paper headlined "Trout Opener Best in a Decade" citing anglers reporting prolific hatches and aggressive fish on all local streams, including the North Branch of the Au Sable. I read the article a second time and got angry, then disdainful, then sad. Then, I thought, what about Chief, Ace and Buddy? What about Ace rolling the window up on Buddy’s hand? What about the taunts and the bragging? What about the baseless Monopoly arguments fueled by nothing more than boasts and bravado? What about the beauty of the Au Sable and the perfection of the weather?
Those fishermen quoted in the paper couldn’t possibly have had as much fun as Ace, Buddy, Chief, and me. Besides, I am confident that I’ll be around for plenty more openers and when I reflect back it’ll be the faces and the jokes and the antics and the comradery that really stick in my mind. I am confident, too, that someday it’ll be me or Ace or Chief that winds up in the paper saying "this year’s opener was good, but it wasn’t anything like the one we had in ’99." RWOL
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