Discovery 2015: Challenges in Michigan

Day 1

After my very successful discovery trip across multiple states while driving to the CCC, I had in mind to try something a bit different, and do some team work with the remarkable young fellows from Michigan who took carp fishing by storm in the past few years (up to the world championships in Europe!). 

I had to download Facebook Messenger to properly communicate with them (e-mail is sssooo outdated), and I was quickly swapping messages with Austin, Brian and Brendan. So I asked them for possible venues for my planned 3-days stay in Michigan. Austin proved the most verbose, sending me a long list of 6 or 8 venues.

When I further explained that it would be for a discovery story, and it would be great if he could select ONE venue, whatever excited him the most, he sent me a list of FOUR NEW venues... Decision making isn't Austin's forte, but sharing certainly is! After pulling a few teeth, we finally settled on a small lake close to where I rented a nice home for a few days for a cheap price. I went straight to the venue after the 6 hours of driving from Illinois, and this looked quite scenic and very carpy indeed.

Plenty of choices! Several fellows (including one originally from Macedonia - on the last pic) confirmed the presence of carp in this venue. Frankly, it didn't seem like a difficult venue, just pile up bait in a suitable spot and they will come. I selected the area close to the outflow to the Rouge river (2nd photo above) and the larger opening as a backup plan (3rd photo above).

I went to dinner in the center of town (I indulged myself with a nice fancy restaurant for once, eating oysters and octopus!), then came back to prebait at night. I also found a remarkably accurate depiction of myself, happy to go fishing tomorrow and totally confident I would catch.

Day 2

In the morning, I had flavored oatmeal available for breakfast at my rented home. I never used oatmeal for anything else than a fishing mix, but hey, I tried it. Eat like a fish, think like a fish, catch fish. Yeah, well, it was ok, but I'd rather eat French pastries in Quebec... I arrived at the venue, threw a few freebies, and started to fish. Three rods allowed in Michigan, this is cool, fish will undoubtedly come quickly.

Three hours later, I had a lot of fun bantering with Austin and Brian through Facebook (ahem, they were supposed to be at work and I was supposed to catch fish!), and I got one weak line pull, and that was it. Very disappointing. So I topped up a bit the bait in my backup spot, and went to get lunch. When driving back, I also threw bait at the other end of the lake, the weedy area as an alternate backup for the end of the afternoon. I resumed fishing, but ominous clouds were drifting towards me, and rain started to pour.

To begin with, I tried to tough it out under some trees, but I was getting thoroughly soaked. After one hour of that, a couple of line pulls were not enough motivation (I suspected turtles), and I drove 'home' to dry up. I checked the weather prediction, and clearly, the end of the afternoon plan had to be scratched. Around 5pm, the sky did clear up a bit, and I decided to go check an area of Lake Erie that Andy Sprinkle suggested to investigate. It was a bit of a long drive, on a highway with road work and numerous trucks all over the place. 

The pier looked ok, but everywhere I cast, I was in a couple of feet of water at most. Now that was not inspiring. I drove around, as the map seemed promising with all sorts of shore structures, but it was either all residential or all industrial, zero access. That really didn't seem like a plan, and I decided to come back to the small lake for the following day. But first, I stopped by a gas station, and checked my tires as my new fancy car warned me with a low pressure tire warning. After all the driving during this trip, I didn't think much of it, added some air, one tire did seem quite deflated, but I restored it to normal. Or so I thought.

Back to the infernal highway, in the dark, surrounded by trucks. Sudden big noise. Took me a few seconds to realize that I had just blown a tire. The car behaved really well, kept going straight; lucky for me, I was clear of the trucks by then, and I stopped on the side of the road to assess the damage. Ok, I do have a spare tire. In the trunk. Under tons of fishing gear, which I had to unload. And I never changed a tire in the past 20 years. It was not fun with all those trucks passing by, but I finally succeeded to do it, while profusely swearing at f*** Andy. Wasn't really his fault, but hey, I needed somebody to blame! I did resume my driving, luckily the GPS redirected me to a much more quiet highway, and I even went to prebait the venue (the weedy point) before going to sleep after cursing a few more times at Andy (felt good!).

Day 3

The following morning was occupied with trying to find a Subaru dealership. Japanese manufacturers may not be entirely welcome in the suburbs of Detroit, and I could only find one 40 minutes away. I drove there after prebaiting my targeted swim one more time, they looked at my tire, and it was punctured by a big nail that I am sure Andy put on my way... Just kidding. Trouble is they didn't have a proper spare, nor could they find one anywhere around, and they told me to come back the day after. Hey, what about my fishing time? Hmpf.

So I was back to some driving with my spare tire, I went to get a light lunch and back to work, er, I mean, back to fish. It was a bit of a walk to get to my selected swim, I found a young bass angler right where I wanted to cast, but he quickly moved away. With this kind of weedy environment, I felt that method balls were in order, so I set up my rods in several spots and waited, with plenty of doubts on my mind.

After a couple of hours, I finally got a weak run, the fish got stuck in the weeds (of course), I carefully got it out, ready to find a catfish, and, oh miracle, I did land a carp from this new water. It wasn't big, but no matter, I broke Andy's curse, and made it work. Geez, it turned out much more difficult than I thought it would be.

I kept fishing, tried to cast one rod much farther away (couldn't find a deeper hole though), and suddenly saw two fish jump in quick succession in an area where I had thrown some method balls earlier. I quickly repositioned my rod in there, and saw two more jumps. I got excited, and probably made a mistake by casting another rod in the same area. Too much noise, or they were not interested, don't know, but it didn't work, and I was back to quietness. 

Around 5pm, Austin texted me he'd stop by with Brian to see hello. With them working all day, I had not seen them yet! I begged Austin to bring some food as I was starving, wondering if I'd get a list of 4 possible fast food restaurants in return, but no, he selected pizza on his own (making progress on the decision making!), and came to visit around 6pm, bringing young and pretty Courtnie to the rescue as a possible lucky charm. We had a good chat, but even Courtnie's smile couldn't convince those fish to bite one more time, and I eventually gave up.

On the way back, Austin and Brian spotted a couple of carp in the lily pads. Maybe some stalking would have been more effective... That will be up to the youngsters to try. I was ready for another challenge by then.

Post Scriptum

Austin did give me another challenge, a gravel pit he fished a couple of times before September (so it doesn't qualify for the Discovery month) and had been prebaiting for the entire week. I went there the day after, and landed a very nice 21lb fish. Then I took care of my tire in the afternoon, came back to prebait (meeting Austin there), and stretched my time fishing this new venue a few hours the day after before driving to Ontario. And I was rewarded by a superb 23-8lb, a truly stunning fish. This closed my Michigan adventures with a welcome bang. Onto Canada now...