We fucking love you all. Have a Happy New Year too!

So far for the last 5 or 6 years we make a special trip to the river that we like to call “Mancamp”. The term “mancamp” is reserved for when the Texans come to town. For the last few years it has been an early fall/closing weekend deal. This year we postponed for a week or so b/c of the new regs. This year, b/c of scheduling and the fact that it should be stellar, we planned it for early October. Pre-spawn browns were the target. Bad weather was the hope.

You couldn’t have begged for better weather… for early fall color viewing. I mean really. We had perfect weather for anything you would hope to do on an early October weekend in Northern Michigan except target big, hungry, and horny pre-spawn browns on the Au Sable. It was sunny and 70 degrees every day we were there. Absolutely gorgeous weather to sit in a boat, cast your arm off, and consume many beers.

We did turn a fair amount of big fish which is always fun. Especially after a hot summer that had many concerned about a possible fish kill. The words we heard were that we turned more good fish than many of the other anglers that weekend. Nice to hear but boating a few of those that took more than a peek would have been nice. A fair number of teens were put in the boat but when you’re hunting the big stuff, small teeners don’t get in photos like they should hence the lack of fish pics in this post. Everyone caught fish but not everyone got a pic. Redundant is… well… redundant. Read the rest of this entry »

The dudes over at Lo Fi Fly need your help, go hate on them. Their recent “this season could use more hate” post got me thinking about all my new favorite blogs. So here is my short list of fly fishing awesomeness or assholeness. I will let you decide. Oh, its been rainy as fuck here in Ohio so we can’t fish for shit. So we just get drunk. Cheers.

Lo Fi Fly - funny fucks
Shooting Head – it has boobs, need I say more.
Frontside Fly – Sweeds make pretty videos
Gink and Gasoline – nice dudes

This year I was the proud recipient of a few new sticks that are worth writing about. The first one I purchased I believe I mentioned earlier this year with the promise of a review. Naturally, since that one was purchased first, I will go chronologically and start there.

Early this spring I decided I needed a 7wt. for throwing the bigger streamers. I have been fishing a TFO TiCR 6wt. for a few years and the bigger stuff was getting a bit cumbersome to throw with it. The 6 is a custom built stick that a friend put together for me and I think I mentioned in an earlier post how I feel about it. It still love it and I will still use it but I think it has to be re-purposed based on the performance of the new rod I picked up this spring. Being that I’m not a millionaire I decided that my highest price point was going to be around $250-300. After doing the shopping/research thing I settled on a new company, Rise, based on the simple fact that they seemed to have their sights set on the big picture (conservation) rather than their bottom line. That, coupled with the extra tip the rod came with, and some good pre-purchase communication (Amanda, one of the owners, is a VERY patient person… I can get a bit long in the tooth…) was the ultimate selling factor.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about this river. I do enjoy watching this sort of destruction. Awesome.

Best of all. I’m glad to see that the smoke monster from LOST found a new gig. One that really makes a difference. Pause the video at about the 25 second mark and see Smokey in action!

Streamer Punk

by: Will Rice

October 18, 2011

He is guilty.

He did it.

He confesses.

He comes clean.

He is a streamer punk.

Simple ideas turn to thoughts: Streamers in the fall—there are few things he enjoys more. 5X? No. 4X? Nope. 3X? Maybe… if the water is clear. 2X? These fish aren’t leader shy and matching the hatch is not exactly scientific.

READ ON>>>

A near and dear friend spent some time in southern CO recently. He’s the kind of guy that would travel from Dallas to wherever you needed help building a guest house, as long as you promised him some fishing. In this case he was in southern CO visiting a friend that, well, needed help building a guest house. Being that he is a friend of the Hatchless bunch, a very good friend, more like a brother of mine, I promised I’d share his reports from while he was there.

First couple of days… Built a guest house… BlAhBlaHblAH.

Here’s his reports, daily as requested, since we’re too lazy to get off the Au Sable and go elsewhere regardless of when and where else we’re invited.

Read the rest of this entry »

 I saw this article and could only think this can’t be good in the long run. Sure, there won’t be as many trucks (see, Megaloads) hauling stuff from way up north and that’s kinda cool. What scares me is that these things will make mining and access a whole lot easier. Read the article. Probably not good.

This post from the guys at Old Au Sable pretty much sums it up.

Here’s the soundtrack for those days when you are ready to settle in and commit to sticking with it.