# Huron River report



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Fished the Huron last evening above Zeeb Road bridge near Dexter. Got an almost keeper sized bluegill and a feisty largemouth. Caught the bluegill on a crawler with a black 1/8 oz. jighead and the largemouth on the same jighead but with a 2 1/2" Powerbait grub in purple/green sparkles. Over the past week I have caught fish on anything I have thrown in the water:

- size 0 Mepps Aglia red/white w/white tail
- size 0 Mepps Aglia silver w/squirrel tail
- smallest size red Rooster Tail spinner
- size 5 original floating Rapala in shad
- black jig w/2.5" Powerbait grub in purple
- black jig w/nightcrawler

The water is a bit darker than tea colored. You can see the bottom in many places but not all. Water level seems down an inch maybe, even accounting for the weekend's storms. Current is fairly fast, but fishing sweepers and eddies is the ticket. Aluminum hatch on the weekends is prolific, but weekdays is almost on existent.


----------



## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

Kroppe, great report. The Mepps is a part of my arsenal that I had kind of forgot about until this past weekend when I drifted crawlers and caught nothing but chubs, but on the first pass with a Mepps, caught a trout.


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Fished the Huron above Mast Road on Friday night, in between and during the rain. The river was high, fast and muddy like chocolate milk. The water was totally opaque. Lost a Rapala in a maple tree and got no action on a Mepps. I called it quits as it was getting dark. I was feeling woozy from loss of blood due to mosquitoes.


----------



## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

I hear ya about the mosquitoes, I usually wear heavy long sleave shirt even on hot days and a head net (it sucks to breathe them). That way they can only get me on the hands.


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Fished the Huron again above Zeeb Road. Conditions were excellent. The water is down about 4-6 inches and is tea colored but clear. The river is extremely wadeable for significant stretches. 

Used a #7 Rapala Shallow Runner in Shad and hauled out a keeper bluegill and an undersize largemouth. Also hooked something very feisty that jumped and did a tail dance, but lost him as I was about to pick it out of the water. 

Weather was clear and 70 degrees, sun setting and the water was warm (I was wet wading).


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Fished the Huron in the Arboretum. I tried out my new fly fishing setup! I was really psyched as I have never fly fished before. I was using a 9 foot 5 weight rod with WF5F line and a 3X tippet. Also got some nice guide weight waders. I used small bass bugs and was casting to bluegill in the very shallow waters by the bank. I got two good bluegill this way. Then went to deeper waters and rustled up two small largemouth bass, again using the small bass poppers. Lots of fun. The water was high and very fast, and tea colored. If you lost your footing you would be 100 yards down the river in nothing flat. Virtually impossible to wade upstream against the current. Weather was clear and 75 degrees with a slight breeze. 

Canoes, at times, were prolific. 

I loved the obviously first time canoeing family who barreled down on me and would have dumped their canoe had I not been a nice guy and moved out of their way. Hey, there was only 75 feet of river, and my body was taking up 2 feet of it.


----------



## Erik (Jan 17, 2000)

Dude you should try the sections from hudson mills to delhi. Its all catch and release for bass now, and from what some are telling me, theres some nice small mouths. I use to goof around there on my lunch breaks when I worked in dexter. 


------------------
Phish


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Phish, 

I do have a secret spot in just this section. I plan on fishing it Friday a.m. when I play hookie. Funny thing though, that with all the smallmouth talk on the Huron, I have not caught a single one. Lots of largemouth and bluegill, with a pike or two, but no smallmouth. I am very keen to hook into one, though. I'll report on my results Friday.


----------



## Guest (Aug 11, 2000)

Stream flow levels. In looking at the stream flow levels for the Huron through links on this board, the Huron looks as though it will take months for it to get back down to normal level from last weeks rain. The flow looks to be an almost straight horizontal line.
Does anyone know how long it takes this river to get back to normal flows after a rain?
Thanx,
Jack


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

peddlerjac, 

About levels, the short story is that the Portage Lake dam is owned and operated by homeowners (not the State of Michigan) and they can manipulate the water level to their liking for Portage Lake. The result is that there is a seesaw effect on the Huron downstream of Portage Lake. Last Friday the level was very high and you took your life in your hands when trying to wade in mid-stream. I fished it again this evening and levels were down a few inches, which was good. Color on Friday was dark tea in the shallows, and almost mud in mid-stream. Tonight it was clear in the shallows and tea colored in mid-stream. In contrast, when we had the "dry spell" two weeks ago the river appeared to be drying up. Three days without rain and people think there's a drought on. 

Good news for my fly fishing setup. I am getting better at flycasting and landed two small bluegill, one on a Sneaky Pete bass bug, and the other on a genuine dry fly! I don't know what kind of insect my dry fly was. I'm a rookie at this. There was a great mayfly spinner fall happening and I could hear the flies getting sucked in by fish. I was using a 9 foot 5 weight rod with WF5F line. I couldn't find any holes with slower water where the bass usually are. Just slow water about 4 inches deep, which is bluegill heaven. The rest of the water was pretty fast. 

Last comment, the Huron River Watershed Council http://www.hrwc.org is a great Huron resource and the people at the office are really helpful. They emailed me a cool Excel spreadsheet with the gradients (slope) of the river at all of their observation points.


----------



## Guest (Aug 15, 2000)

Hey Kroppe, 
Was that you fishing At Delhi Sunday evening? If it was I stopped and talked to you. We tossed a can you netted in the river for you. Small world if it was you.
P.S. You're casting looked fine from where I was standing!
Looking at the charts, the river dropped quite a bit yesterday.


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Yo peddler, 

I was fishing just downstream of Delhi, above Wagner Road where there is a Huron River Drive Bridge and a Conrail Bridge right next to each other. A guy in a red shirt came up to talk to me about fishing on the side of the road as I was pulling on my waders and stringing my rod. I didn't net any cans, because I don't have a net and no one threw me any cans, but I wouldn't have minded depending on the can's contents! 

There were three kayakers banging the rocks above me, and while I respect people's rights to enjoy the river, they probably scared away any decent fish in the area. At least I landed two 'gills so the night wasn't a total loss. When I decided to head back to the truck it was almost pitch black and I had to wade across midstream, which was a pretty harrowing experience, owing to the high levels and fast current. I had to hope I didn't fall into any holes and get swept downstream a few hundred yards.


----------



## mtorzews (Jan 20, 2000)

Last night I tried fishing the Huron river for bass. I fished the dehli rapids area and also up the river at hudson mills park. I caught 2 smallmouth each about a 1lb on large spinners. The fish seemed to be in slower pockets near fast water. Didn't get a bite at Hudson mills, however the water here is very clear and I could watch several bass(all little guys under 12 inches) and suckers swimming around. I threw every lure I owned at these fish. The only thing they looked at were the spinners, but they only gave a half hearted chase for these. If the fish at Dehli were acting the same way then there must have been quite a few fish there. If it were fished during a feeding time it could produce well.

------------------
Michael T


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

Michael, 

Where did you enter the river while fishing at Delhi? From the MetroPark or from a bridge crossing on Huron River Drive or some other road? I've fished a half dozen spots in that general area and haven't seen a single smallie. Only largemouth, pike and bluegill, also a catfish or two.


----------



## mtorzews (Jan 20, 2000)

I was fishing the upper part of the park, but below the bridge. The main channel of water was moving along at a good speed. I was targeting the slower pools and eddys just out of the main stream flow. The lower part of the park looked good for largemouth and pike as the flow seemed slower there. 

------------------
Michael T


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

The smallies are on the bite! Fished one of my holes tonight and picked up a little smallmouth. Third cast brought in a bigger one, but still small. Both fish released. Fish had beautiful color and appeared to be very healthy. Went downstream and landed an 8 incher, foul hooked in the gills, and released. A guy upstream of me picked up an 18 inch pike. He said the pike was very good looking with good color.

It was a great night - Michigan football won, the Tigers won and the smallies are biting!


----------



## jnpcook (Jan 19, 2000)

My wife and I went on a canoe trip this afternoon with my parents, sister, and some friends from the Hudson Mills Metro Park to Delhi Metro Park (Skip's Canoe Rental). I threw in the fishing rod as I always do when I am near water. Started out canoeing mostly then I saw a good looking hole and cast into it. Caught a nice little small bass on the first cast. Tried a few more spots then my wife asked for the fishing rod. (I kindly handed it over since last canoe trip she did most of the paddling and I felt a little guilty for not helping her and fishing instead). I gave her a few instructions and before long she had a small bass that she landed. She kept the rod the rest of the trip and managed 12 fish including mostly bass, a sucker, a small pike and then her last fish she landed a real nice pike of around 24-26 inches. It gave a really good fight and gave her quite a surprise as she isn't used to catching larger fish. I had a great day watching her catch all those fish. All fish caught were on an 1/8 oz green and orange (with black polka dots) rooster tail. I have always had great success with rooster tails while fishing rivers. Mostly she just tossed the lure out to the side of the canoe and then let it drift back behind us at about the speed of the current without much reeling. The fish were caught mostly in the medium depth runs with moderate current although the large pike was caught in about 2 feet of water next to some lily pads about 3 feet off the bank in a rather slow moving current.

We may have seen you out there Kroppe. We passed one fly-fisherman on our trip today. We didn't talk to him but it looked like he was using streamers and was fishing near some downed logs.

It was a great day to be out on the river.

John


----------



## Steve (Jan 15, 2000)

Sounds like more fun than a barrel of monkeys. 

------------------


----------



## kroppe (May 7, 2000)

John, 

It wasn't me you saw for two reasons: my fly rod is broken (operator error) and I wasn't out that day. Good news is UPS left me a note on my door saying they have my *repaired* fly rod!

I went out on the Huron today, beautiful day by the way, and landed three 7 inch or so smallies on a Rapala. One of them I caught in a classic structure pattern -- the dead water in FRONT of a boulder. This is usually a low percentage "shot" for me, I usually stick to the obvious stuff like deep holes or downed trees, etc. I wanted to try this technique as I have read about it alot, so I spotted a fully submerged, but large, boulder that was clearly affecting the current as the water passed above and around it. I cast the Rapala downstream of the boulder and I worked it up the side of the rock and then in front of it and BANG this little guy hit it hard and scared the crap out of me, since this was about 6 feet in front of me. It wasn't much of a fight because he was only 6-7 inches or so but the strike was frightening. 

On another note, I seem to be foul-hooking a lot of fish lately. Also the fish seem to be striking short, catching only the rear treble of a Rapala. Is this typical for end of summer fish behavior, or is it something I am doing or are my hooks too dull? In the middle of the summer the fish would hook themselves real good in the mouth with both trebles (a pain to unhook) but now this is not the case.

Last comment, the river was gin clear (never seen this before) and low and very, very wadeable. As I was wading in midstream re-tying a lure I saw a school of suckers take up residence about 4 feet away from me in 3 feet of water. I was beating the banks and shallows for half and hour and the suckers never spooked. I dangled a bunch of lures in front of their noses and nary a bite.

That was different.

B.J. Kroppe


----------



## Guest (Sep 6, 2000)

Fished a Metropark area today and the grins wouldn't stop. Fishing downstream, I used a very simple bug I tie (cream or tan chenille with a cream or tan marabou tail over a lead base)and teased quite a few smallies into biting. I saw a few white flies come off and switched to a #16 epheron dry and the fun really began. I mus6t have caught two dozen small smallies with 2 hours. On a dry! What's better than that?
The water was low and clear and I didn't see another fisherman or any canoe's. Life is good!


----------

