Upper Fox River, Michigan

A few thoughts....
There are many points to access this stream, but unlike any other stream I've fished, once you're in, you are separate from the outside, so much so that I took to tying a bandana on a branch at every point I went in so I could again find my way out and not be swallowed up by the river. There is a forest canopy. There are thick tag alders. There are log jams. At times the river is remarkably deep, close to the tops of my chest waders, yet there are long stretches of sandy shallows as well.

I took to probing downriver with a small streamer, and casting attractors back upstream. There was no hatch that I saw, although there may have been some drakes that came off after dark - I saw a very small number of green drakes, and some other big brown mayflies as well. I mean one or two or three. If there was a hatch it was after dark, and I was always out before it became too dark to find my way back.

Not once did I come upon another fisherman while on the river. I saw trucks at different access points and I know guys were in there, but I didn't meet anyone while I was on the river. I like that.

UP trout streams

Each day was hot and clear during my time on the Upper Michigan Peninsula, not exactly the idea conditions I had hoped for. Some rivers turned right off in the heat and others only turned on a little bit in early morning and late evening. I caught my share of trout, but no big ones this trip.

I did see three big trout though, in the Fox River above Seney. The first I scared up walking downstream, and it swam past me perhaps four feet away, a very big brookie, certainly over 16 inches. Then later the same morning, approaching the same area from below, I was trudging upstream across a shallow sandy flat - I hadn't imagined any trout in this water - when I saw movement ahead. There were two trout swimming almost side-by-side in a foot of water. I would say the smallest of the two was 14 inches and the larger18+ inches long. I watched them for a long time. I threw dries over them which they ignored. I ran a streamer past them and they drifted back a little. Finally, the pair of them bolted upstream and disappeared.

UP trout streams