Just returned home late last night from spending the labor day weekend fishing the Au Sable. I've been so busy with the rod business the past couple weeks I was just happy to get away and stand in the river again fish or no fish it was just nice to finally get back out after a month of no fishing.

Started out the first day pulling streamers for smallies below Five Ch on the Au Sable right by my cabin and got the big skunko'la. Really only fished for about an hr that first day but still the fish just weren't to active it seems. Smallies have been a bit off up there this yr probably due to the cooler summer I would think.

Next day I headed far up stream but decided to wait till mid afternoon to get on the water so that the floatila of drunks in inner tubes would be cleared off the area I planned to fish. That plan worked out pretty well as there were only a few tubes coming down once I got on the water. Started out fishing a nymph rig right on bottom and picked up a couple small bows and browns on that mid day. About 8pm once the sun started to lower the whites (Ephoron Leukon) started hatching and it looked like snow coming down with fish rising all over the place. No real big fish but every other cast resulted in a Rainbow of 12-13" sipping in the dry fly and one or two that pushed close enough to 14" so it's hard not to enjoy catching a bunch of foot long or better trout on the surface one after the other.