Written by Nick Cassidy
I am a little late with this fishing report, but late is better than never. Andrea and I made the trip up to Traverse City for the Memorial Day Weekend and were lucky to have our families join us. We rented a house right on the East Arm of Grand Traverse Bay. I packed my 5wt travel rod with hopes of hitting some local trout streams, but we never had to venture out of sight of the house for some drag squeeling action and a ton of fun.
In the morning we saw a few carp cruising the shallows so I rigged a spinning rod with a silver spider and a tiny chunk of orange twister tail. After hooking several, I decided to go back and get my fly rod. Nick Pennington (now called High Pockets by Dave) did the same. Nick rigged up with a brown wooly bugger with rubber legs and after a few minutes he hooked and landed a big carp. I followed suit shorlty after. I began to gain a new appreciation for for these monsters. They are very spooky, but if you spot them with their tail up they will hit. Several times I would see them feeding and slowly strip a bugger in front of them and watch them suck in the fly. Then the fight was on! I have never had so many fish take me into my backing. One fish I had to run out as far as I could so it didn’t line me. The only thing that would have made this type of fishing more fun would have been a bow and arrow or a fly rod with a little more backbone than a 5 wt.
We also made a few side trips to the Elk River in Elk Rapids, which was only about 5 miles north of our rental house. We caught several smallmouth, a few trout, and High Pockets caught a big carp.
I am heading out for a float down the Etowah River for some stripers tonight. This beginning to get personal. I have made about a dozen trips for stripers in the rivers near my house and have only ever hooked one. Maybe tonight is the night. I will be taking a fly rod and a spinning rod.