"Hold-Over Trout"

OK, I’m a pretty bad BLOGGER, I only write every few weeks now, but then, nobody responds very much either, oh whoah is me…In any case, it’s ok if I’m just writing into my own journal anyway, I enjoy re-living my days in the U.P. The fishing has been awesome this spring. Last Thursday Dan and I caught 13 pike in two hours on Millicoquins Lake. Then, my friend Mark and I went out a few days later and caught some bass and more pike. Better than that though, is that the hold-over trout in the planted lakes have been amazing!!!! I couldn’t believe it!!!! I had heard about the hold-over trout, but never caught one, until today. What is a “hold-over” trout you ask? Well, that’s the ugly, almost dead, grayish trout that came up from the hatchery and can barely eat a fly it’s first few days in the trout pond. Somehow, by some miracle of nature, it finds a place under the ice in the winter, and finds lost of slugs and bugs and worms and flying creatures to eat and in the spring, the ugly duckling becomes the swan. And what a swan it is.

My first “hold-over” trout today I caught on Jocko Pond off the eastern dock. I saw it eating at the surface, but then going down towards the bottom every now and then. The day was crystal clear, like most are around here, so I figured a neutral weighted fly that will get down about a foot would be good, like brown. So, I tied on a brown, crystal flash wooly bugger and cast it with my five-weight into the general vicinity of the rise. On the first cast the devil came up from hell and I quickly knew I had a fish on. However, at first strike I assumed it was a new plant, hatchery trout and just toyed with it for a moment, pulling on the 5 feet of slack line at my feet and just keeping a little bit of tension on the rod. That was almost a fatal mistake when the trout ripped out all the slack instantly, burned my finger, and took my rod tip into the water to a depth of about two feet and I almost fell into the water as I struggled to “re-com-bob-u-late”. So, I pulled my rod tip up and held onto the slack and stepped back towards shore as I increased tension on the line and frantically reeled up the slack line at my feet. Soon, I had the fish on the reel and as soon as the connection was complete that fish took off and ate about 40 feet of line and jumped and rose I think about 8 times. However, I lost count as I was so busy just trying to keep my rod tip up.

Fortunately, what made this moment more magical is that my fishing buddy looked up and watched me from a distance, as some club members on an afternoon drive turned the corner to check out the action. So, I have an audience of three plus me as the beautiful rainbow is making its aerobatic jumps. My hand and arm is very sore right now from fighting it, but I enjoy every moment of the sore feeling, remembering that fish. I wasn’t exactly sure what I had until I started to get it within 20 feet of the shore. I noticed it had the rainbow down it’s side, but also had this neon green sheen to it. It kept going up and down and jumping and generally starting to make me look a little juvenile at times. However, as fate would have it, soon I had the trout in my hand. Well, after about 7 attempts at the weed line I finally had him in my hand (I forgot the net).

Imagine my surprise when I held a most beautiful rainbow trout in my hand, clean and beautiful and solid and shimmering it’s rainbow stripe amongst it’s green, almost leopard like vertical stripes and spots. Wow, I have caught a “leopard trout” in Michigan. I have only ever seen one before, in wilds of Alaska yet. This poor sap of a trout, reared in a hatchery, made it’s way in the wild---learned to live under the ice and find it’s daily meal and become what our God Almighty designed it to do. More than that, it reflected the colors and patterns of that rare rainbow leopard trout and also found my fly and eventually entered my hand. I held it up to my friend and I was thinking 18 inches, but he said it was more like 22, in any case, it was pretty sweet.

Now, you would think that an experienced fly fisherman like myself would have looked at the adipose fin. Was it clipped like a hatchery trout? Or, was it an indigenous trout? It sure looked and fought like the real thing. Or, was it one of those “hold-over” trout that become and assume the natural qualities of it’s ancestors? That would be so awesome if I found a natural-- However, I was so pleased and excited and looking at the total fish and it’s beauty, that I did not look at the adipose fin. What does it matter? The day was sunny and beautiful and awesome and to have a fish like that topped onto my ice cream of life is more than any man can hope for. Isn’t that like a good friend? It doesn’t matter what color he is, where he came from, what education he had or how good a fisherman he is but he makes your day a better one despite ourselves. You look at him or her thru the eyes of the big picture. You don’t pick apart his or her fins.

Thus, as with this fish, he made my day a much better one despite his origins. He made me a better person despite myself, he blessed me and gave me another day beyond what any man deserves. That is the beauty of life, we have a chance to become something better than a “hatchery trout”. We can find our way about whatever stream we are thrown into. We can adapt, overcome, improvise. Soon, battling a lack of food, cold weather, water, ice and near death at times, we become better. It doesn’t matter where we came from, it only matters where we are. And now, as we stand with the winds of adversity behind us, we are strong, and beautiful, and carry the stripes of a rainbow within our eyes.