The Cedar Sweeper - Web Exclusive

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The Cedar Sweeper

August 2008 Web Exclusive

McKinley; A Fishing Town

By Charles Sams

I have spent the last few Days dreaming of McKinley, Michigan. She isn’t much on a map, just a little speck compared to other places. The AuSable river flows close by and for me a chance at trout during the Hex hatch.

I have bounced around McKinley before. I located some parking lots and loitered around the river bank for a while waiting for something, anything to happen. It never did. It was around a holiday, Memorial Day I think. The water looked good enough and I am sure if I had more skills at the time there would have been a battle.

If McKinley isn’t much on a map then it sure isn’t much in person. A post office and a tavern are the first buildings that come to mind. There is one yellow, blinking light in town and a streetlight. The tavern parking lot is filled with ATV’s during the summer months and snowmobiles during the winter. There are trucks with drift boats hitched during the fishing season. The owners sit at the bar and wonder what went wrong mostly, sometimes though they sit at a table and smile because they caught one.

The locals tell of a steep hill along the trail that the riders try to climb with their machines. I can hear the drone of the engines from my stakeout on the bank. It’s an odd sound for a place so beautiful. I can see the post office and the tavern from my haunt on the bank and decide that the stretch is too inhabited for my taste. I pack up and move on.

Chris Therssen fights a trout on the AuSable. The river that flows through the heart of McKinley. Photo by Joel Tomaszewski

Mio lies to the west and I start off on F-32 toward Cummins Flats, the halfway point put-in/take-out for floaters. There are several people wading but no action. I start back toward McKinley. I notice several small wooden signs along the side of the road with a fish and hook on them so I pull off onto a narrow fire trail to check it out. The two track ends at a make shift parking area, I can hear the river. There are no taverns or post offices and the only sounds are of the birds and the river. No engines.

I suit up and hunt for the river. There is a nice set of wooden steps down to the edge. The rivers wider here than what we are used to in Michigan. It isn’t as narrow as the Holy Water section up above. The AuSable is a tail-water down this far with all the grandeur of some of the western and southern tail-waters. I survey the scene. There is little for cover up high but down lower the river is split by an island and there are some small fish rising. I let myself down the steps and find it too deep for crossing. I walk the edge down toward the island and find a ford.

I eventually make is across but the fish have stopped rising and there is a last mad rush of canoes and tubes for the landings down stream. The fish are down so I tie on a Pheasant Tail nymph and drift the likely seams; nothing. I find a likely spot on the bank and wait for bugs. I watch the sky, against the pale blue of the evening, for a hatch of drakes or maybe Hex. My diligence goes unrewarded.

I don’t see anything on F-32 through the trees so I tap the brakes at the end of the two- track and gun it out onto the pavement. A couple of lazy, lonely cottages stand at the road side where the river gets closest to the road. I can see the McKinley post office in the distance and the truck drifts to the right in anticipation of the tavern. I fight the urge though and guide her back between the lines. I have brats to grill back at the cabin and a plan to make for the river and trout.