# A good day fishing (maybe)



## Fishing 24/7 (Feb 4, 2010)

So a buddy and I drove over to oscoda yesterday to fish the pier and river for the day. What we didn't look at other than the temperatures was the winds. We tried to brave the pier but only got splashed with water. So we came in and fished near the parking lot just trying to land a walleye or anything at that point. So we were packing up to leave and someone left a net behind. Figured I'd pick it up, put a post on here and take it over to the bait shop and leave it there. On the way to the truck someone asked if it was mine. Of course it's not so I said no. Long story short the guy knew who it belonged to and the guy came and got his net.

My buddy and I decided it was time to hit the river so we started at the dam. Waters were high and fast (no surprise there). He was able to catch a sucker right off the back but not what we were targeting. There were huge carp swimming everywhere so we went down around the first bend and I was able to catch a few small Brookies. Still we wanted to hook into some steelhead so we moved down again to the (high banks)?

Saw fish in the river and watched one guy hook up a few times. Myself and buddy hooked up several times on some of the biggest baddest rocks and stumps the river has to offer. We did each hook into a fish but neither were lucky enough to land it. So at one point I had waded down the river a short distance just past a tree/log that had washed in this year and fished for a bit. The guy fishing just up from me on said tree, had set his pole on it and turned to light a cigarette. So I'm fishing and all of a sudden everyone in the area hears ****!!!! Needless to say he bumped his pole and with the heavy currant who know where and how fast it would go. I saw nothing pass me while I was fishing. He went walking down the bank yelling over and over. So since I didn't see anything pass me I decided to walk up the river to where he was and as luck would have it I found his pole only about 30' from where he was fishing in about 4' of fast water. I was able to retrieve it and return it and the guy was thankful.

So even though I wasn't able to bring fish home for dinner I was able to reunite two pieces of fishing equipment to their owners in one day and that was rewarding in itself.


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## Duckman1 (Oct 14, 2004)

Crazy story. Never now what's going to happen when you go fishing. Brook trout in lower AuSable ?? Probably not.


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

Nice story! I agree, steelheading was slow. I landed one nice hen on a bead. Didn't see many around at all. 

Walleyes are there, but the bite isn't always. Sometimes though, ya just have to stick it out...


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## Fishing 24/7 (Feb 4, 2010)

Brooke?


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## hunt-r (Jul 2, 2008)

Fishing 24/7 said:


> View attachment 254936
> 
> 
> Brooke?


Rainbow


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## bigmac (Nov 28, 2000)

Not Brook trout, cool story


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## MapleRiverSalmon (Aug 19, 2007)

Tryed fishing the Ausable on Sunday but caught 7 planter steelhead and atlantics in about 10 minutes so I pulled out. Man I miss March. Next stop, August kings.


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## Fishndude (Feb 22, 2003)

If you are fishing, and catching lots of planted Steelies, Atlantics, etc; please pinch down the barbs on your hooks, so you don't kill the planters. Anything that makes them bleed is likely to kill them. With the adult Steelhead spawning, and the pellet-heads being hongry (no more pellets), they are pretty aggressive on eggs.


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## MapleRiverSalmon (Aug 19, 2007)

I agree. I thought I would fish some holes for drop backs on Sunday but every drift was bam bam bam... Switched from bags to a crawler and every drift the crawler got shorter, lol. Oh well. I just left rather than risk hooking them.


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## ausable_steelhead (Sep 30, 2002)

MapleRiverSalmon said:


> I agree. I thought I would fish some holes for drop backs on Sunday but every drift was bam bam bam... Switched from bags to a crawler and every drift the crawler got shorter, lol. Oh well. I just left rather than risk hooking them.


Huh? I barely caught any smolts. They planted less than 60k in the AS this spring. Atlantics were also considerably lower, at 28k+. Looked like the entire East side had their steelhead plants reduced.


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## andyotto (Sep 11, 2003)

ausable_steelhead said:


> Huh? I barely caught any smolts. They planted less than 60k in the AS this spring. Atlantics were also considerably lower, at 28k+. Looked like the entire East side had their steelhead plants reduced.


Wow! I just checked the database and you are correct. What's the story there. Hatchery issues?


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## MapleRiverSalmon (Aug 19, 2007)

Sad, they didn't even plant the tawas. That's too bad. Would like to hear the reasoning for this


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## MapleRiverSalmon (Aug 19, 2007)

Last year for comparison.


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## andyotto (Sep 11, 2003)

MapleRiverSalmon said:


> View attachment 255068
> View attachment 255069
> 
> Last year for comparison.


OK. I talked to a friend of mine who was there when they were dropping steelhead into the Tawas River. I wonder if the database just isn't up to date yet.


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## summer_doug (Dec 30, 2016)

andyotto said:


> OK. I talked to a friend of mine who was there when they were dropping steelhead into the Tawas River. I wonder if the database just isn't up to date yet.


From what I've seen on the database, sometimes there is a lag of about two weeks in updating.


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## SJC (Sep 3, 2002)

Yeah, I know they planted the Tawas and about double what they show in the AS.


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