September 2005 Upper Peninsula

"It had been years since I had driven up 45 into Michigan. Its a little over an hour from our house to the border but one of the "downsides" of living near good trout and bass water is that a person doesn't really feel the need to search for fishing opportunities. Also, if I go a distance and miss a hatch its no big deal. But if I miss a hatch on my home water for that year I feel that I've forgone something of real importance. So I tend to stick close to my home and my Rivers. Also, perhaps, there was lurking in my mind the fear that the U.P. would have undergone the same yuppification that I've seen degrade other areas in the Northwoods. The huge "Summer homes"... the fast food franchises... the people in their casual clothes that look too forcedly casual... the whole list of old codger complaints about the state of the outdoors in 2005 C.E.. I remembered the central U.P. as being big and empty and, quite frankly, behind the times. Which suited me just fine. So there was a degree of trepidation as we approached the border through the growing sprawl of Eagle River as to what we would find.

What we found was a stark transformation at the border. To the south it was Modern Tourism. To the north was something else. The forest composition changed. The habitation patterns changed. With the exception of the Casino near Watersmeet and a few other modern "conveniences" there, the country looked little changed from what I saw 30 years ago, when I first traveled that road towards the dark Porcupine Mountains and the big lake beyond. The long, almost western, vistas were still uncluttered. The woods were different. Trees are a bit bigger, more meant to end up as planks and 2X4s and fewer meant to end up as Kleenex. The biggest single difference though were the number..."

And it went on (and on) from there. . .

(LARGER IMAGE) Agate Falls	(LARGER IMAGE) John B. (Asadi) below Agate	(LARGER IMAGE) Wolfgang below Sturgeon Falls	(LARGER IMAGE) Asadi and Wolfgang on the Sturgeon
	(LARGER IMAGE) Cosmo, our Jack Russel puppy, exploring the Sturgeon River shoreline	(LARGER IMAGE) My wife, Jacci, casting soft hackles below the falls on the Sturgeon	(LARGER IMAGE) Asadi fishing below the Sturgeon River Falls
(LARGER IMAGE) An overlook of the first ledge of the Sturgeon River falls on the hike out

Asadi's mini-TR:
I had a great time in the great nort woods with Wolfgang. It was a pleasure to meet George C. and Jackie.

I liked Becky the first time I met her but was much more impressed when Wolf and I returned to Milwaukee.

All I can say is Jackie and Becky are both troopers.

Wolf and I did a lot of fishing and a lot of sightseeing, he a great person to travel with and tolerates my drunken ignorance very well - I'd do it again in a heartbeat, probably will next year.

No real special reports or prose but I will tell Jeff Miller he 'does not' want to fish the Sturgeon river any farther up. Jeff, you want to go down to the falls. A really spectacular falls and gorge with some really nice fish.

I lost as big as I caught on the Madison and George hooked one we could only estimate it's size as somewhere around twenty inches. A definite day hike with a pack full of food. And maybe a bottle of brandy. Like I said, Wolfgang tolerates me well.

I tried to make a photo album of some pics on my yahoo page, we'll see how it works. Here's the link:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/blarney234@sbcglobal.net/album?.dir=/38e7

Wolfgang's report (Autumn in the U.P., Part I):
Technically, the second week in September isn't Autumn.....and 95 degree (F) temperatures do nothing to foster the illusion that it is. But the fall colors come early to the trees and the brookies of the U.P. And 48 degrees on driving back from the stream to the trailer at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday evening and frost bitten plants on Thursday morning did much to restore faith in seasons and latitude in the great northwoods.

Earlier.....

John, having successfully (if narrowly) escaped the sucking black hole that is Chicago rush hour traffic, arrived around seven the previous Thursday. Keeping pleasantries and libations to a bare minimum, we managed to get to bed early (and undamaged) enough to drag all my shit from its various hiding places and hit the road before 8:30. I had planned a scenic route to show John the wonders of the Lake Michigan shore, but he was having none of it....."northwoods fishing or bust." Nonetheless, we did make a couple of stops....gas and groceries in Sheboygan.....pasties in Niagara (John's first....and he liked it, Jeff!).....sunglasses and fishing licenses in Iron Mountain, finally arriving at the Sturgeon River campground in the Ottawa National Forest in the late afternoon. Setting up the trailer took about half an hour. The river was low.....very low.....ominous!

Disclaimer: From this point on, no warrantee (express or implied) is made as to the accuracy of either timeline or historical detail.......um......things got kinda foggy sometimes.

I thought it would be nice for John to begin his U.P. fishing adventure near where he had left off after our steelheading venture 4 years ago, in a magnificent swirling pool at the foot of Agate falls near Bruce Crossing. As I was sure that water levels would be low, I suggested that we head over toward Fisher's shack and work our way up the middle branch of the Ontonagon, a section of stream that fishes well under low, clear water conditions.....a fairly rare set of circumstances due to controlled outflow from the dam at Bond falls and high intervening clay banks that cause the water to cloud up nearly instantly after even the slightest rain. We stopped en route at Bret's trailer, adjacent to which he is building a fine new house, to pay our respects. Worked out well for us because he offered the use of his four wheel ATV to ease the pain....the CONSIDERABLE pain....of hiking down and, especially, back up the gas line right of way leading to the river. This is water I've fished many times before. On numerous occasions it has produced fish in such profusion as to leave one bored after a while. Such was not to be the case on this outing.....or at any time during the following week for that matter. But, we caught a few fish, despite the amazing and annoying heat. Plainly though, we weren't going to slay them there in the middle of a sunny day in what was for all practical purposes mid-summer.

After returning Bret's vehicle we headed over to Agate, assured that if we weren't likely to catch many fish, we would at least stay cool in the perpetual mist at the bottom of the deep gorge. Approaching the base of the falls on the steep and ever more badly eroded trail, I could tell just from the sound that there was a lot more water than I had expected. The drought that has held the upper Great Lakes region all summer hit the U.P. hard and Upper Peninsula Power Company which controls the outflow (much of the water is diverted via a 20+ mile ditch to the hydroelectric dam at Victoria on the west branch) has historically been stingy with what it allows to flow on the middle branch. The Bond flowage (the reservoir from which the west branch and the diversion both get their water) has been low for several years and I'd already been told that it is now exceptionally low. Unless some new legislation has forced a greater release on the middle branch.....and I've heard nothing to indicate that such has happened.....the relatively high volume is inexplicable. Whatever. We were there and so was the water and, as I knew from experience, so were the fish. The fished remained.....mostly undisturbed. After half an hour or so, John, admirably pliant, agreed to my suggestion that we should hike upstream for a quarter mile, a plan devised to show him how radically the nature of the stream changes above the falls. I promptly proceeded to scale the rock face at the edge of the falls and, looking back, saw that John, despite a rather dubious countenance, soon followed.

Inspired by success in a similar situation on a stream in North Carolina, John paused about half way up the falls to walk out and fish a pool on a shelf. Anyone looking from downstream would have been convinced that we were absolutely crazy (as well as some sort of supermen) cavorting in the middle of a 40 foot wall of cascading water. In fact, the ledge is a good 40 feet wide and at least fifteen deep. From the bottom it is clear that this is really a series of falls rather than a single unimpeded plummet but , the view being foreshortened, it looks as if the water merely touches briefly on small lips on the way down. Not so. Did John catch a fish? Not so.

We hiked up along the river for a bit. John managed to refrain from fishing here. Not surprisingly and not unusual at the top of a waterfall, the streambed here is all bedrock with very few boulders and virtually nothing smaller on the bottom, everything being flushed out periodically in the spring runoff and after heavy rainfalls. A quarter mile up, at the end of the roadside park that boarders the river, the character of the bed suddenly changes. Lots of rocks, gravel, and sand. The banks are lined with a tangle of alders that reach out five feet or more over both banks. There are lots of brookies in here. Come at the right time, and they ooze out from under the alders to take just about anything that is offered. We were there at the wrong time.

Back in camp, we began to make plans for the next day.....explore the Sturgeon!

Wolfgang's report (Autumn in the U.P., Part II):
Mr. Miller's gracious endorsement and nearly forty years of playing in this particular field of the Lord notwithstanding, I've barely scratched the surface of what the U.P. has to offer to the outdoor enthusiast. The Sturgeon river is a case in point. Little more than twenty miles from the base from which I've operated in the U.P. since 1968, I first crossed the bridge just above our campground on this trip and stopped to fish about fifteen years ago. At that time, I'd guess that the flow was roughly in the "normal" range, based on the evidence provided by the bed.

This, the middle reach of the Sturgeon, is a boulder and cobble strewn jumble of moderate gradient. When I first fished it in the company of a couple of friends, it would probably have been possible to wade the thirty yards across it in mid-thigh deep water, but it would have been a reckless act of bravado. We caught a few fish.....smallish browns with big shoulders and bigger attitude.....on streamers in spite of the water's disconcerting resemblance to chocolate milk being whipped in a food processor. When Jeff, Cyli and I fished here last year the mid-calf water presented no problem to wading, though a bowling ball bottom always carries with it a certain challenge, of course. As I recall, Jeff had a couple of hookups. This surprised me a bit, despite my earlier experience, because in low water the Sturgeon, with its lack of sand and gravel and its scoured bottom, looks even less like a trout stream than it did in its chocolate frappe stage. Last week, wading across this reach would have been child's play for......well, a child. We made a desultory show of casting out behind the campground (because we were there, and that's what we do) but it was plain to see that there could be no fish there. There was simply no place for them to hide in clear ankle deep water. They must all have moved upstream.....or down.

Common sense says go up.....find the cool water and the shade of overhanging trees. The map (strangely fuzzy in the evening light in the trailer) says there's a waterfall downstream.....and a small lake a few miles beyond that.....and L'Anse Bay on the big lake a few miles beyond that. We had kayaks. We listened to the map.

Bypassing the falls in our eagerness to paddle, we headed further down and stopped to take a look from a bridge crossing the river. Low and slow, with a sandy bottom. Not promising. It looked navigable downstream for as far as we could see but, with only one vehicle, paddling down to the lake would have meant paddling back up two miles at the end of the jaunt or hiking up seven miles of dirt road with only a slim possibility of catching a ride.....in blistering heat. We opted for driving down the seven miles and putting in at the boat launch on the lake.

Prickett lake is a four mile long impoundment on the Sturgeon backed up behind a small hydroelectric dam. Oddly.....VERY oddly for a land in which any vegetative growth above eye-level has traditionally been viewed as a natural disaster whose only possible remedy is clearcutting on a biblical scale....nobody bothered to harvest the trees from what would become Prickett lake upon completion of the dam. The surface of the lake is studded with thousands of slowly rotting stumps up to 24 inches in diameter. In some places the stumps are so closely packed that navigation is tricky even in a kayak. The hazard is compounded by many hundreds of floating and partially submerged logs. The latter are doubtless washed down by the river periodically from the sometimes gargantuan piles of jackstraws that form upstream.

On launching we found that the wind, barely noticeable in the deep forest, was blowing hot out of the south at about 20 mph. Paddling upwind with a view to drifting back down was hard work with whitecapped wavelets breaking over the bows of the boats. Trolling while en route was out of the question with so many snags around. I found a small cove more or less out of the face of the wind but even here eddies swirled the boat around making any more than two or three quick casts impossible without having to paddle back into a good position and orientation. After 20 minutes or so of futility I looked around to see where John was. He had beached his boat on a small spit of land projecting out into the lake. I joined him near the top of a tall wooden staircase with a commanding view of the lake. We agreed that it was time to look elsewhere. Back at the launch we talked to a couple of good old boys who informed us that there are plenty of pike in the lake. A later discussion with Bret confirmed that Prickett is also reputed to have a good population of bluegills and big crappie. John is convinced that it must also have a resident populations of browns that migrate upstream to spawn in the fall. I agree that this is possible, though it strikes me as a pretty warm habitat for trout.

Moving another 5 miles (as the eagle flies......considerably further either by road or river) we stopped at the hwy. 38 bridge for another look. Broad and flat, with a mixed sand/gravel and cobble bottom, the river is much slower here. Looks like smallmouth water and like it would probably be popular among recreational canoeists and kayakers. So much for the Sturgeon. Well, almost.

As it turned out, the best was yet to come......but that was to be the next day. The rest of this day (after a much needed cold refreshing barley-pop) was to be devoted to reconnoitering the Keweenaw peninsula.

Wolfgang's report (Autumn in the U.P., Part III):
The Keweenaw (pronounced KEE-w-naw.....sometimes spelled Keweenau, along with various other permutations) peninsula is the largest geographical feature in Lake Superior, jutting up some 65 miles to the northeast from the south shore. Technically, I suppose, the Portage river, which runs between Houghton and Hancock and roughly bisects the peninsula, makes the upper half an island. Thus, the unnamed (as far as I know) 281.89 acre island in Schlatter lake near the extreme northeastern end is probably the world's largest island in a lake on an island in a lake. Hm.......

Anyway, arriving at Baraga, we decided that the nearly 5 square mile expanse of L'Anse bay didn't look all that inviting on a hot, sunny and very windy day. Having toured the Keweenaw a couple of times myself, I suggested to John that it was worth the time to make the drive all the way up to the northern terminus of U.S. 41 in the eastern suburbs of Copper Harbor. John frequently takes his time to carefully consider a question and his answer before offering the latter to the former. As he pondered, I whisked us up the road in a roiling cloud of dust, clattering van contents and squealing tires before he completed the process, thus rendering the whole issue moot.

Our first stop was at a roadside park along the shore just a few miles up the road. Someone had (wisely) put up a chain link fence at the edge of the "beach" which had risen by what I estimate to be at least 80 feet in this short span. Even with the fence there it's kind of spooky.....trees, shrubs, grass, picnic tables...then nothing; a sheer vertical drop to God knows what below. Couldn't get close enough to see over the edge. Shouldn't want to. Wouldn't be the first to die of doing what one shouldn't.

Next stop was on the shore of Portage lake near Chassell for lunch. John had brought some brats (short for bratwurst.....for those benighted souls to whom they are unfamiliar as a result of living in underdeveloped parts of the nation) all the way from Dayton (to Milwaukee!!.....how's that coals and Newcastle thingy go? :). We were carrying a small propane grill, a ready made salad with John's secret firehouse dressing (or maybe that was the next day, over on the Presque Isle......oh well, whatever) chips, olives, and all the requisite condiments. No sooner was the grill set up than a forty foot sailboat came racing up the channel. As we were soon to discover, this boat was the winner of a race that had just taken place (was STILL taking place, as the losers didn't arrive till nearly half an hour later) out on the big lake. One has to assume that winning a race implies both a good boat and a good skipper. This one may have good out on the open water but he needs practice near the dock. They came in on engine power but with the jib still up. The crew were struggling to lower the sail as the boat approached the dock. A gust of wind caught the now loose sail, nearly knocking two of the crew into the water, and the captain, his attention divided between the mayhem on deck, a rapidly approaching dock, and a boat that wouldn't respond properly to the helm because of the half lowered sail, was forced to pull away and make a second shot at it, by which time things had sorted themselves out pretty well. Out of pity, I offered to catch and make fast the bow line in an effort to forestall some hapless fool falling between the fenders and the dock in an effort to jump ashore.

They (and we) were soon joined by several other boats as we cooked, swilled beer, and stared stupidly. They looked splendid in their regatta regalia. We were scruffy, and probably already smelled bad. Nevertheless, the natives turned out to be friendly and we chatted briefly with a few as we ate and drank, and they prepared to do the same. They even let us use their garbage can for our refuse. Finishing our lunch, we paused long enough to take pictures of the sailboats and the few traditional great lakes commercial fishing boats (operated, so we were told, by a local Indian tribe) tied up behind them, and then continued north.

The Keweenaw is commonly referred to in the rest of the U.P. as "Copper Country". Rich deposits of copper, as well as significant amounts of other precious metals, are scattered throughout the western U.P. but are especially prevalent in the Keweenaw and the concentration seems to be greatest smack in the middle at the twin cities of Houghton and Hancock. Houghton, the home of Northern Michigan University, is a thriving metropolis (well, by U.P. standards, anyway) with a vibrant downtown of multistory brownstones....incidentally, the same brownstone of which so many buildings in New York, Philadelphia and other points east were constructed, and which is still quarried a bit further west near Ashland and Bayfield, Wi......or so I've been told. Hancock, a much smaller town, is separated from Houghton by the Portage river and connected to it via a huge vertical lift (meaning that both ends of the center span rise simultaneously, thus allowing greater strength for the passage of ore-filled railroad cars) bridge. On the north side of Hancock one finds the remains of a now defunct copper mine which is open for tours. Copper mining in this region is unusual in that the copper exists as the pure (more or less) metal in veins shot through the surrounding bedrock rather than as a mineral ore in combination with other elements. As a result, the native peoples have been mining it for millennia without the need to learn smelting, and their is strong evidence of their trading scattered through much of North America. In modern times the metal was separated from the surrounding rock by enormous steam operated stamping mills....essentially giant hammers that crushed the rock. Then it was simply a matter of picking out the solid copper. These days, there is only one copper mine still operating in the U.P. There is still plenty of copper, but the availability of very cheap copper from South America has made U.P. mining unprofitable. The exception, White Pine, remains in operation only because enough silver is also extracted to tip the balance into profitability.....or so I've been told.

Somewhere in the deep woods along the last 45 miles of road leading to Copper Harbor (the northernmost town in Michigan) stands a peculiar sign. Well over thirty feet tall and very narrow, it looks like nothing so much as a giant thermometer, an effect enhanced by the wide vertical red stripe running up its center and the fact that it is ruled off in feet from ground level. It is, in fact, a sort of snow gauge or, more accurately, a boast of sorts. According to the accompanying text, the record snowfall for a season here is just a bit over 390 inches......thirty-two and a half feet!

Copper Harbor is actually less a town than a loose collection of a general store, a restaurant or two, and a couple of other businesses catering to tourists. Its sheer isolation, the presence of a state park next door, the picturesque harbor, a ferry to Isle Royale, and gorgeous autumn colors all conspire to assure that it gets its fair share of tourists throughout the brief summer and fall. Since the advent of snowmobiles, the abundance of snow ensures that traffic continues even through the long winters. This is where the pavement ends, but there are thousands of acres of near wilderness beyond, to the east and south for those with a sense of adventure.....and a vehicle with good ground clearance. Just outside of town on the west, a steep road heads up Brockway mountain, whose peak rises some 700 feet above the Lake Superior shore. The first scenic overlook turnout just a mile or so out of town offers a lovely view of the town, the adjacent harbor, and good bit of the lake beyond. The road to the summit offers a mini-course in plant community succession. At the bottom, there is a mix of various hardwoods and conifers which quickly gives way to a near monoculture of stunted oaks. The winter winds coming off the lake are harsh. Only the very tough survive near the top.....and even they don't fare very well.

On a good day, the view from up here is magnificent. To the east lie lake Fannie Hooe and a couple of others nestled in the forest, with a couple of tall peaks beyond. To the west is the lake Superior shoreline receding to the horizon. To the south is a series of ranges, still immense corrugations that must have been stupendous before being ground down by a two mile thick ice sheet (this frozen tectonic plate was so massive that it depressed the Earth's crust to such a degree that the south shore of Lake Superior is still recovering....that is, rising.....by about half an inch per year in a process known as "isostatic rebound") ten or twelve thousand years ago. This wasn't the best day......a bit hazy. But we did get to see one of the giant ore ships (up to one thousand feet long, they are nowhere near as common a sight as they were a few decades ago, but are still being built in the shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, Wi.) that ply these waters.

Back down the mountain, we drove back down along the northwest shore of the peninsula on Michigan hwy. 26. The towns of Eagle Harbor and Eagle River punctuate a wild shoreline that looks just as it must have in pre-Columbian times. Even on such a sunny and warm day as this there is a desolate grandeur to this shore that makes it easy to forget.....if only briefly.....all the bizarre and complicated shit that we have heaped upon ourselves over the past few centuries and continue to wallow in day to day as if we actually like it.

Continued back more or less the way we came and ended up back at camp in the dark.

Wolfgang
who is beginning to wonder what the hell all this has got to do with fishing.

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