Fishing the Au Sable, Manistee, Rifle and some creeks

[Boardman Brookies]

I am this morning for a four day long fishing trip with some good buddies from high school and college. This is our annual camping/fishing weekend. We stay at my buddy's place south of Rose City off M33. Everyone is getting up there late tomorrow night but I am going to leave in the morning and fish the head waters of the Manistee and some smaller creeks in the area.

Friday we are going to fish the South Branch and main river of the Au Sable and some other smaller creeks in the area as well. I am very excited as I haven't fished here since 2006. Hopefully we catch some big fish.

Saturday we will fish the Rifle. We plan to float from the Rec area to Sage Lake Rd. This is more of the party time for most of my buddies but there will still be some good fishing. At night I plan on fishing a nice feeder creek to the Rifle that I caught my first trout on when I was a little boy.

I will post how we did on Sunday when I get back. I broke my digital so I have disposable camera the hopefully I can get developed onto a CD and post pics.

[NickAdams]

looking forward to your pics, good luck!

[1wildchild]

Sounds like a great time. I look forward to the story and pics when you get back!

[bullydog324]

Good luck to ya! Sounds like a great trip!!

[HarleyDHawger]

Good luck on the float down the rifle, Say hi when you float bye.

Dave

[Boardman Brookies]

I just got back from a very nice weekend of fishing. My buddies and I had a blast! I left Traverse City early Thursday morning and fished the upper Manistee for a few hours. I wadded the river at a few of the bridges for a few hours. The fishing was pretty good for the 3 hours I was there. I caught six fish with the biggest around 15 inches. They were 5 browns and one brookie.

I then drove over to the North Branch of the Au Sable. I didn't have a fly rod with me but used my spinning rod with some hoppers and woolly buggers. I fished for and hours or so and had a few fish rise but no takers. I drove down the road to another creek close by and fished it for about another hours and did manage to catch 3 more small browns on small Panther Martins. I ended the night fishing some good size creeks around the Luzurene/Mio area. The fishing was slow here I caught 2 more browns but took about 3 hours to do so.

Friday was spent fishing many small creeks off of M33. This was my favorite part of the trip. There is a very nice creek that I grew up fishing and I was able to spend several hours there. My dad was doing some workj on our cabin and met me for some fishing. We waded a creek that has some very nice holes. I caught about 8 fish that afternoon and my dad caught about the same. The biggest fish was 16 inches and the average was around 10 inches. This was the first time this year I kept and limit and they were very tasty!

Saturday was the day that we were going to float the Rifle, but the cool temps and rain spoiled that. When the rain stopped for a few hours in the afternoon we took the small fishing boat out to Sage Lake. We fished here for a few hours and caught a bunch of sunfish and blugills for dinner. They were very good. Everyone was tired after dinner but with clear skies I wanted to fish the Rifle. I had a buddy drop my car off and then dropped me off at a bridge. I waded down to the next road...which took longer than expected. I managed 3 browns and a rainbow in that section. All of those fish were around 8-10 inches.

This was a very fun trip and I ended up catching around 20 trout. I was able to fish in places that I haven't been able to for years. I do have a bunch of pics, but I ruined my digital camera and have one of those one time deals that I have to take in and get developed. I'll try to get these posted.

[Ralph Smith]

Sounds like a great trip.:D Haven't done much river fishing since I out grew my waders :lol: I sure miss it. Thanks for the story, looking forward to the pics.

[lytemup]

sounds like great weekend, thanks for the report. enjoy reading the stream reports and seems like they are few and far between anymore.

[StroutW]

great report, those are some of my favorite rivers, I fished the NB of the Ausable last weekend. Weather was cold and rainy but terrestrial, and night fishing was solid.

[wyldkat49766]

I have learned to get a waterproof camera when taking it fishing.