I'm going to go ahead and post a couple.. I hope you enjoy them too. First up is an excerpt from good fishing friend John H from 05-16-2009, fishing the Upper Manistee River.
Pic of John during some night time mousin.
"I came up last night and stopped on the upper. At first, I thought I was going to hosed with the weather. Light rain fell for a minute or two. Luckily, the weather cooperated and I started to see some bugs. I guess there were black quills, the larger mayfly sipiloplection basilae (which is a about the size of brown drake), hennys , mahagonny's and bwo's. Time was going by and no fish were feeding. Finally, one nice rise. It was just below the *****, below the log pile and in front of a small sticker. I'm sure you know exactly where I'm talking about. Anyway, the fish fed two more times and wasn't interested in my henny comparadun. I tied on a henny spinner and after a handful of casts, wham! Game on.
I should first say I was using a 4wt with 4x suppleflex with my sage reel which has turned out to be my go to reel now. I love it. The fish immediately took off and found the main seam and started up river like it was chrome. I thought to myself this might be interesting. Then the fish stopped, shook it's head several times and stayed planted mid river. I thought this could be easy and maybe the fish is a healthy 18". Well, just as I started put a little muscle in it, the fish responded with a long run downstream with me following. I was literally running mid seam in high water after this sucker without regard for all the shit on the bottom and the water being up and that section is loaded with a lot debris and troughs. The fish made it into the shoot briefly and for some unknown reason came back up stream. Finally! I thought wrong. The fish promptly wrapped itself around some major wood and there I was thinking to myself this can't be happening. At this point I knew this special fish and really wanted to land it. I could feel the fish still on, but in the back of my head I was thinking I was fighting a log and the fish pulled a drive-by and lost the hook. I worked as delicately as possible to get the fish free, but figured I was hosed. Then, after a minute of so and just seconds before breaking it off, it freed itself and shot downstream into the shoot with me high-stepping all the way. I figured I was going to get wet...thankfully I'm tall 'casue I had about an 1" to spare. The minute or so the fish was tangled gave it time to re-energize and I didn't think was going to be able to land it. At this point, my hand was getting pretty sore. The Winston doesn't provide much leverage especially with reel with no drag and fighting a large fish in a pretty respectable flow.
I finally managed to get the fish to shore and net it. It didn't fit into my net! It twice jumped out with me both times catching it mid air. After all that, I laid it on the shore and admired my catch. I though I was going to be longer...it was 23"... but I have never caught a fish as heavy. That was the thickest river brown I've ever seen let alone caught. Unfortunately, my camera was in my truck that was less than 100 yds which I was looking directly at with utter contempt. Oh well. No pic can replicate the fun that was had. Once I got the fish on shore, I quickly got the hook out and put him back in the water. I revived the fish for 2-3 minutes as I knew it was really tired. I wish I could have brought it in quicker, but that wasn't going to happen with him wrapping up in the wood. It swam away with lots of energy and I feel confident it's going to be fine.
Three more fish were rising, two dandies and one nice one. I went to the biggest fish and he wouldn't come up. The smaller fish, just up was making some noise, so I cast to it and wham. That was a quick battle and a nice 18" or so was in the bag. I went up to the last fish rising and got two really late refusals. If I'm right, the last fish is bigger than the 23" I caught. Right where the shoot starts, there is a birch clump and beaver work river right. In that stuff is a dandy. I've never been able to get it, but not for a lack of trying.
The light got low and the fish shut down. Just one of the those nights that keeps me coming back and makes me take those am trips back home."
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