THE ANGLER’S LOG BOOK
While cleaning out some old fly fishing items I came across my old Angler’s Log. Back in the 1960’s the Orvis ® Company sold an Angler’s Log book. The pages were punched to fit in a small note book, and you could carry it in your vest although I chose not to do so.
Cover Page – Angler’s Log
The pages of the Log were well thought out. There was a place to make note of everything that a fly fisher could desire to record for posterity. There were a few lines at the bottom of the page for notes and on the back of the page was a place to record the fish that you caught. Before I had this recording system I kept notes in a small notebook, but this was an organized way of keeping notes that insured that the data recorded was the same from entry to entry.
Entry Page
Back of the Entry Page
As I reviewed these old notes from my days fishing on the Au Sable in Michigan I realized that my memories of fishing in those days have gotten better with the passage of time. In reading through the entries I came across many entries like: “fishing poor today, cold and miserable, and good hatch but no fish feeding.” However, I did come across entries that brought back some great memories, like this entry from April 1971, “Spent evening with Vince Marinaro.”
I was also surprised about the size of many of the fish that we caught especially when I first started seriously fly fishing on the Au Sable. One early entry reads, “Four brook trout – 4 to 9 inches, three browns 10 to 13 inches long.” As time went by the larger fish became more frequent, but most of the ‘better fish’ were in the 12 to 14 inch range.
There were numerous mentions of my old fishing partners, Dean, Ole, my nephew Tom and my older brother Bob - but especially JC since I fished with him nearly every weekend for several years. There were place names that brought back warm memories – Keystone Landing, Big Creek, Hollow Leg, Birkholm’s Bend, Smith Bridge and the High Banks. There were many entries of fish hooked and lost and those that were hooked, landed and released. The entries included the insects that were hatching and the flies that we used. Names, places and events have been lost in the mists of time.
In thumbing through the cards I came across one especially notable entry. The date was July 11, 1970 and the place was the South Branch of the Au Sable River just downstream from the High Banks. JC and I headed out for the stream for a final evening of fishing the ‘Hex’ hatch. Up to that time my notes indicate that we had not been very successful chasing the big bugs. Several nights had produced no bugs, a couple nights we had some limited success but mostly we had struck out. We arrived at our designated spot about 7 PM. It was overcast and the air temperature was 68 degrees. We had showers off and on during the day and the humidity was high.
Early on there was a hatch of small flies with some larger light colored spinners, but it was the Hex that we were hoping to find. As darkness began to fall a few Hex began to hatch and a small number of spinners could be seen in the gathering darkness. Using a #8 Hexegenia Spinner pattern I proceeded to catch 4 browns all over 15 inches long. The largest was 19½ brown that was shaped like a foot ball. Hog fat, it pushed my Chatillon Scales down to 3¼ pounds! They were caught on my new Orvis ® bamboo fly rod and, in those days, Orvis ® had a program called “The Record Catch Club” and this catch got me my Record Catch Pin which I still have on my fishing hat.
I maintained my Angler’s Log for a few more seasons after I left Michigan, but over time the entries became fewer and fewer until I abandoned the practice. I still keep a record of my fishing trips but they are far less detailed. Today the old notebooks are magic carpets that take me back to another place and time. To places and times that only exist now on the pages of a fly fishing log book, of times and places the likes of which I will never see again. I hope you have a magic carpet somewhere in your angling paraphernalia.