Steelplugger
04-10-2006, 10:52 AM
I Decided on Saturday night that since my local river is all stirred up, and the Muskegon was high again and probably loaded with people, that I would give the lower Ausable a try... Although I have fished a few sections of the Ausable, I had never fished the lower Ausable before and after reading a few doom and gloom reports about how the fishery is crashing and all I didn't expect to catch anything except for some sun rays and some relaxation...
My friend had told me before I left to watch out for mean locals who hate boaters:rant: :dizzy: , so my plan was to put in at whirlpool and go down the river, away from the Boy Scout camp.
I arrived at the lauch at 6:15 and was surprised to see nobody there..good start indeed. I was happy to see that the water looked perfect for plugging and i was excited to say the least.
For obvious reasons I usually avoid starting at the launch, but the water looked perfectly untouched, as there was also a beautlful mist coming up off the water coupled with a nice sunrise...(took a nice pic).
I deployed my plugs just downstream from the launch into a nice wooded area of good looking depth... I started to drop down with the jet (sliding) and in about 5 minutes I had a nice fish on...holy crap what a fight and about 10 minutes later I had landed a nice 10 pound(weighed) double stripe spawned out Buck. It was the only fish I hooked, but it was definetly the biggest and prettiest fish I have landed this season....I get the feeling the river isn't loaded with Steel yet, but it would be hard to tell since they were probably hiding from the intense sunlight that insued. Anyway, I wish I knew how to post the pic, I was alone but mangaged a couple of photos....I only fished until about 2:30, as the sun was very bright and I had a drive ahead still, but all in all a great day to be out and the scenery was excellent :)
My friend had told me before I left to watch out for mean locals who hate boaters:rant: :dizzy: , so my plan was to put in at whirlpool and go down the river, away from the Boy Scout camp.
I arrived at the lauch at 6:15 and was surprised to see nobody there..good start indeed. I was happy to see that the water looked perfect for plugging and i was excited to say the least.
For obvious reasons I usually avoid starting at the launch, but the water looked perfectly untouched, as there was also a beautlful mist coming up off the water coupled with a nice sunrise...(took a nice pic).
I deployed my plugs just downstream from the launch into a nice wooded area of good looking depth... I started to drop down with the jet (sliding) and in about 5 minutes I had a nice fish on...holy crap what a fight and about 10 minutes later I had landed a nice 10 pound(weighed) double stripe spawned out Buck. It was the only fish I hooked, but it was definetly the biggest and prettiest fish I have landed this season....I get the feeling the river isn't loaded with Steel yet, but it would be hard to tell since they were probably hiding from the intense sunlight that insued. Anyway, I wish I knew how to post the pic, I was alone but mangaged a couple of photos....I only fished until about 2:30, as the sun was very bright and I had a drive ahead still, but all in all a great day to be out and the scenery was excellent :)