Today, Captain Don Graham and I sneaked out for a guides’ day on the river. Although we two confess to having taken a more laid-back approach to our fly fishing today—frequent coffee breaks, tall tales, and fish remembered—we also spent the day probing some promising locations, which sometimes we pass up when we host clients in favor of our more tried and true lies. The Muskegon continues running high and off-color, though entirely fishable. With the higher stained water providing more cover, the steelhead appear scattered about. So scattered were the fish, that even with all our checking, all our probing—fun as it was, it proved unfruitful. Fortunately, of course, we couldn’t pass up our proven sweet spots, and “Bingo!” they came through—for Don that is. Yep, he smoked me. Smoked me bad! Don boated all the fish he hooked—a 100 percent hooking and landing ratio. My score was perfect, too—perfectly pathetic, that is: zero for zero, nada for nada, goose egg for goose egg! Just when I was thinking I was destined to live a charmed fishing life every time Captain Don would get into my boat, he brought me crashing back to reality. Sandbagged me totally!
Don’s top producing flies were clown egg patterns and stone flies, both tied by his own deft hands. Congrats, D! Hat’s off to you! Here’s Don with one of his lovely ladies from today.
Captain Tom
