After a week of activities as part of the annual Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers conference, I may have to call Gaylord, Michigan, the perfect family getaway town.
There were places to hike, bike, paddle, ski and get outside. For our family, and for this group of outdoor communicators, the great outdoors were the draw to the area. Whether it was visiting the local restored elk herd and hearing September bull bugles far from the Rocky Mountains, the trips to nearby Lake Michigan or Lake Huron, going on a stroll through acres and acres of public forests for grouse and woodcock, or a rafting trip down the Sturgeon River, there was something to satisfy every individual’s unique interests outdoors.
My first day in Gaylord found me up early and heading south down Interstate 75 in the pitch black of the early morning with AGLOW president and Virginia-based outdoor writer Ken Perrotte. Ken and I used the hour drive to catch up since our last telephone conversation and talk about trips to come and the excitement for events during the weeklong conference.
With a fishing guide meeting us at a popular Civilian Conservation Corps campsite, we did our best to be not just on time, but early, especially since the minutes might be invaluable with Ken needing to return to Gaylord for presidential duties.
This was as close as this scribe may come to Secret Service duties. My assignment was to get Ken down and back safely and on time.
We wove through red pine and jack pine in the Pere Marquette state forest. As we neared our river rendezvous, a black shadow crossed the road, medium in size but distinctly feline in appearance. We slowed to a halt, rolled down windows, and strained our eyes into a stand of trees near a small cottage on a lake.
A small bobcat glanced back, symbolic of the wilderness that surrounded us.
We continued on a few more miles until we found the campsite. Three vehicles with drift boats on trailers were dropping their loads into the Manistee River, preparing for a day with six outdoor communicators. Leading the trio was Tim Riley, owner and operator of River Valley Adventures.
“You guys my writers?” Tim asked. “Yes sir,” was our response.
Being first to the access has its advantages. With a pair of clients ready to fish, Tim took Ken and I and we proceeded upstream to get an early start. The float should take around four hours, but Tim could speed up things with some oaring through slow stretches.
We loaded Riley’s fiberglass Hyde drift boat and prepared to shove off. With the nights cooling off and fall settling in, aquatic insect hatches had slowed and the peak of the grasshopper bite was long gone.
Streamer and wet fly stripping on nine-foot, 5-weight rods would be the morning order, and not just any flies but those which rose to prominence in the Great Lakes state.
Sitting in front of the boat, I’d get first crack at fresh water with a popular articulated streamer, the circus peanut. Originally designed and popularized by Traverse, Michigan, fly anglers Russ Madden and Kelly Galloup, the circus peanut’s marabou body and rubber legs ripple through the water.
On the stern of the boat, Ken would throw Earl Madsen’s Michigan Wet Skunk, a wet fly true in color to its namesake and whose pulsing rubber legs on a chenille body would look like a stonefly free floating downstream.
Tim oared us to mid-channel, and we began working our flies into cover. Fallen trees, occasional rocks and submerged vegetation edges held brook and brown trout as the sun rose and the morning’s fog burned off.
A few undercut banks held fish near alder overhangs or at private canoe put-outs, and Tim pointed out a few CCC era cedar bough revetments that were still holding fish against their dark, stained exteriors and were holding banks up nearly 100 years later.
It didn’t take long for the first fish, a plucky brown trout, to latch on to my circus peanut. With fish in net, Ken and I rushed to snap a few photos while Tim held the fish in the water until we were ready for the pictures.
Tim seemed surprised at our scramble for photography, so I explained. “In our line of work, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It’s always the kiss of death to release the first fish unphotographed on a trip; that seems to guarantee you won’t catch another. What if this was our last fish?”
Tim smiled and understood, then responded. “But in my line of work, what kind of guide would I be if this was the only fish you caught?”
The rest of the morning, each fish was Tim’s running joke; we’d best get some more pictures as who knew if that might be the last fish we caught!
It didn’t take much conversing to learn that Tim is a prolific Michigan outdoorsman. He’s an avid waterfowler with a passion for decoy collecting, an ice angler and darkhouse spearer, handy with a double shotgun behind his dogs guiding clients to grouse and woodcock, and had just finished taking his daughter on a successful youth deer hunt where she harvested a gorgeous spike buck.
The morning ticked away with Tim helping retie a handful of flies from writers’ wayward casts, cheerfully unhooking fish, picking out tangled rod tips, and spinning yarns of past trips with clients and cherished time with family and friends outdoors.
He slowed the boat through prime waters, oared through some pedestrian straightaways, instructed casters on right and left bank and the best-looking lies, and dropped the Hyde drift boat’s rolling anchor on in-floor pulleys when we needed a moment to get unsnagged, change out who fished up front, or to make a plan.
If we weren’t spoiled enough in such good company and with such good fishing, Ken and Tim spotted a giant 10-point whitetail deer buck feeding lazily on an upcoming bend.
It was a public land giant standing on the near bank of state forest land. We whispered to each other to get cameras ready as we approached slowly in silence.
The buck eyed us cautiously, but stuck around, alternating between watching us and ripping up mouthfuls of fresh grass. Eventually he became disinterested and wandered gradually out of sight, but not without leaving a lasting impression of the remarkable bounty of Michigan public land resources.
We pulled into the take-out spot on schedule but up against the late morning clock and the harsh high sun slowing down the bite.
“Everybody wants to fish the holy water,” Tim explained, speaking of the famous Au Sable River nearby that used to have a native grayling population and is the birthplace of Trout Unlimited, “but this is where the guides go. I do think the fishing is a little better here.”
Squared away with Tim, Ken and I wished him well, before I resumed Secret Service chauffeur duties and turned the car north, back through the winding pines.
President Perrotte was on time to deliver his opening address.
Scott Mackenthun is an outdoors enthusiast who has been writing about hunting and fishing since 2005. He resides in New Prague and may be contacted at scott.mackenthun@gmail.com.
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