ARCTIC GRAYLING, A MICHIGAN DRY FLY FISHERMAN'S DREAM by Jeff Johnson

 Let's face it. Arctic Grayling are one of the most cherished of all cold water fish species, but also one of the most unobtainable unless you spend thousands of dollars and travel thousands of miles. The vast majority of Michigan fly fishers have never had the privilege to catch and behold a Grayling in their hands.

Like most native sons of Michigan, I grew up with the stories of the hoards of Grayling that used to fill our favorite rivers, back in the days when Michigan was accurately called the “wild mid west.” Other than one of Voelker's legendary mermaids, I can't imagine a more graceful fish. Their colors remind me of a peacock in full plume. Their transparent
colorations of violet, silver and red are truly a sight to witness. Their bodies feel almost rock hard to the touch, not soft like a brook trout. Keep in mind that most Grayling are not big fish. The natives in Michigan average between 8 to 12.” However, for what they lacked in size, they more than made up for it in their beauty.

It is believed that Grayling possess keener eyesight than trout. Often they will come up through 4 feet of water to ambush a size 20 dry fly in the middle of a sunny day. Their rise forms are faster, more violent, and leave more air bubbles than that of a brook trout.  Often they miss the fly as their mouths are much smaller. (Note: if you are missing a lot of grayling strikes, you are striking too fast)

Another unusual trait of the Grayling is that sometimes it will jump out of the water before taking the fly, performing an airial attack, snatching the fly on its way down!  They also like to strike flys that are behind their position! For their size Grayling are exceptionally strong fighters, using their massive dorsal fin. Often they will go airborne two or three times, then they just bull dog under water going from side to side while trying to back away during the exchange.

Males have the larger dorsal fins and during spawning, males will become darker in color. Some of the females most become white. If you happen to be casting a bamboo fly rod while casting to a Grayling, you can, for a brief moment, pretend you have stepped back in time a hundred years. As a side note, Grayling are not night feeders.

It's interesting to note that originally the Au Sable River had no trout in it, only native Grayling. With lack of foresight, trees that had taken hundreds of years to grow and shade the rivers from the summer sun, were mowed down like wheat over a short 30 year time span. Rivers were used as commercial highways for lumber, destroying habitat and causing the rivers to fill in with sand, covering the gravel that the grayling eggs needed to stick to during spawning. Grayling don't make redds as their small 3 mm eggs are sticky like glue. Their eggs actually stick to the rocks! Spawning in spring, their eggs hatch in just two weeks. Their fry are very small, approximately 1/4” in size and they are not good swimmers at this stage, making them very venerable to springtime flooding conditions.

The very time they were the most vulnerable, coincided with the spring time high water log flotillas. Add to that, the introduction of non-native competitive species, i.e. rainbow and brown trout and combine that with no concept of catch and release fishing and the fate of our true native “Crawford County Trout” was sealed, or as my father used to say, “even God cannot change the past”, reminding me that fly fishermen, more than most folks, dabbled in the stoic art of philosophy.

According to my father, the fish gods had smiled upon our family by placing my then 10 year old dad within biking distance of Detroit near a certain Paul and Martha Young's place of business. Sometimes he used to hang out there after school. Mr. Young, a kind man, would let my dad loiter there for hours, never once sushing him out of his store. No doubt Mr. Young was just trying to help keep my dad off the streets and from becoming a future member of Detroit's Purple Gang. It was there that he started to learn about becoming a fly fisherman, after sweeping the bamboo trimmings off of the floors first, of course, (ten o'clock- two o'clock ) life turned out pretty good for my dad.  Instead of becoming a gangster, he became a police officer, no doubt to the human nature changing ways of fly fishing. (Thank you, Paul Young)

As a kid my dad used to take me up north to fish the AuSable River. Like most fishermen, we had a ʻgood luck' ritual. Before starting our adventure we would always stop in a small Mom and Pop restaurant in downtown Grayling. We would always try and sit under the “stuffed Grayling Trout” that was proudly displayed on the wall. Like clock work my fisherman father would turn philosopher and say these words of wisdom each and every time we visited that establishment, “It's a sad state of affairs when the only place a guy can go see a Grayling in Michigan is to see a stuffed one hanging on a restaurant wall.” In those words, told to a son and later to a grandson, the seeds were planted to what has become the most recent attempts at the re-introduction of Arctic Grayling back into Michigan.

One of the major obstacles of reestablishing Grayling was finding a small lake that would stay cold even on hot summer days. (Grayling are stressed at a temperature of 63 degrees and die at 73 degrees) Most lakes have a shallow, sandy shoreline that gradually gets deeper, these conditions warm up the water quickly.

One realtor summed it up best, saying you'll never find such a place. “You're not looking for a lake, you're looking for a crater filled with ice water.” For over a year and a half we drove all over the U.P. and northern Michigan looking for such a lake. Finding a natural cold water lake was no easy task. Every one involved was sworn to secrecy as we were afraid the price would go up if the lake owners discovered our plans. To complicate matters, we had managed to get the cart before the horse, as we had already funded the building of a private Arctic Grayling fish hatchery and had, in fact
raised from eggs, thousands of small Grayling. Fish that would soon need a home!

End of Part 1