A Friendly Brown Trout

In northern Michigan, the Pine River is very popular for kayakers and canoer’s but doesn’t get heavy fishing traffic mostly because of the limited number of commercial permits issued by the Manistee National Forrest. It was July 28th; the day was cloudless with temperature in the 90’s. I was fishing with Chris, an well experienced guide from Schmidt Outfitters, in a section of the river that flows through private land before it enters the national forest.

The fishing had been tough all morning and we had just stopped for lunch in the shade of large pines overhanging the river. This river remains in the low to mid 60’s even during the hottest part of the summer and had been fishing well---at least before the day I fished. We were in a 2 person Outcast pontoon boat with Chris in the back and me in the front. It was about 1:00 PM as we started downstream after we finished lunch and came to a large sandy bottom pool just as the river took a sharp left.

We both spotted this fish as it started toward the boat and to get a better look, I stood up. In these boats, we are very close to the water surface so it best to fish while seated. We thought at first, this fish might be a sucker but with a closer look, no doubt it was a hen brown trout in the 20 inch category! It came close to the side of the boat, looked a both of us and seemed to almost say---“Nice day guys and nice boat as well”.

As we slowly moved downstream, it swam around to within 2 feet of the front of the boat, looking up at me as I was still standing and drifting downstream with us. Then it came around to the other side of the boat, checked us out again, moved down from the boat about 20 ft, and then turned to look at us from a distance. I threw a grass hopper pattern right over her nose, but she seemed to say, “Thanks fella, but not today. Nice pattern though”.  Then it swam down the river, out of sight.

Chris has been guiding more than 15 years and virtually grew up on this section of the river. Never before had he ever witnessed anything like this before or even heard stories from other anglers or guides. As we were mumbling to ourselves about such a weird event, 5 minutes later, here she comes again. This time, I had the camera and shot this picture  --- note the fish is about as big as the oar paddle. Chris put the net in the water and even had the fish partly captured----isn’t that illegal--- but the fish said, “Not today guys, got other things to do”.  After a few minutes and keeping a little more distance from the boat, it swam up river into a deep pool and out of sight.

There are no fish hatcheries on this river so it couldn’t have been a stupid female escapee looking for pellets. This was a healthy fat female brown trout I guess just trying to be friendly (looking for treats?) at a time of day that big fish usually hole up in the dark water until the sun starts to drop low in the horizon. Go figure and it sure made our day!!!