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When I turned into the parking lot, it was a couple of hours before sunset, which meant it would be great timing for hitting the water for some salmon or brown trout fishing before darkness would be dropping fast.
Over the past three evenings, I have been down here to this big lake tributary only to find the water level lower than usual and only the northern pike biting. I hit one pike on each of the three nights.
The second one fooled me with the ferocity that it hit my lure, I thought for sure it was a Coho salmon, fresh out of the lake with a lot of spunk. The fish even made the drag on my reel zing as it pulled out line headed downstream.
I had begun to conclude that I had started my fall tributary angling a bit prematurely. This was confirmed when several other anglers I encountered along the river reported that they hadn't seen any fish or caught any.
But then, after that third night, something magical happened.
It rained hard and steadily for at least a couple of hours. There was even thunder booming loud and rumbling over the landscape and lightning flashing through my bedroom window as I was falling asleep.
Like other anglers looking for fall success, I knew that this increase in the water level would likely prompt the salmon to run upstream to spawn.
I knew this was correct when I pulled into the parking lot and saw more than a dozen vehicles parked.
There is a makeshift fishing path along most of these lake tributary rivers that have little sidings out to fishing spots. I figured most of them would be occupied already and I was right.
So, I pushed my way through a bunch of dense tag alders to a place to stand and cast I knew was there because of my previous years fishing this river. However, from one year to the next, a river can change so much.
Places where big deep holes were last year, might have been filled in with sands wrought by heavy fall or springtime storms that increase water flow and can run ravenously through a water course.
In other areas, storms may have toppled big trees or cracked off branches or treetops that fell into the water. The power of high and raging waters can move these tree parts or previously deposited trees or brush downstream.
Other woody debris is also pushed downstream finding a place to rest once the waters recede.
It's all cover for fish, especially big fish that have come in from the lake looking to hide in deep holes before and after they spawn.
The place I picked out to fish was still a deep hole this autumn that was on the opposite side of a rounded elbow turn. I started to cast one of my tried and true, hoppity-bop type lures that sinks and shimmies and rattles.
I once caught two salmon in one hole using this lure, and it was the lure I caught my first salmon on in this river.
I saw one big fish jump across from me, not far downstream, despite numerous casts in that direction, I didn't get a bite.
It wasn't long before I started to see ripples in the water coming from upstream right next to me. It was another fisherman inching his way closer to where I was standing to cast in the hole I was fishing in.
I gave him a look like "get out of here would you" and he kind of backed up a little bit.
He tried to smooth the situation over with the question, "Any luck?"
"Nope."
After a few more casts without catching anything, I headed downstream to another hole. I wasn't there long before the fisherman arrived where I was fishing with a report.
"You know that one hole you were fishing in," he said. "Well, I got my worm in there after you left and I caught this nice one."
He showed me one salmon that was pretty big and a smaller one. He had them inside a plastic garbage bag that had its opening twirled shut.
"Oh, that's great. That's a nice fish."
He said he inflated his nightcrawlers with a syringe and then used split shot to weigh down his line, still allowing the worm to float above the river bottom.
I headed upstream and continued to cast my lure.
A guy wearing a Green Bay Packers T-shirt soon approached along the trail carrying a paper plate that was covered with fresh salmon eggs.
I looked at his plate and then I looked at him.
"Worms and spawn is what you want, my brother," he said. "What a push. This is like Alaska, there's fish everywhere."
I wished him luck and carried on, thinking he was only wearing a T-shirt, and it was about 40 degrees outside. He might be one of those Packers fans who takes his shirt off during the games at Lambeau Field when it's 10 below zero.
I left the parking lot that night without catching anything.
The next night, I returned with a worm-casting fishing buddy of mine and we hit the holes. I tried worms and some bottled fish eggs, but I couldn't keep away from the lures I'd had success with previously.
Once you've had success with something, it's hard to change.
Just before dark, the fish started jumping in greater frequency.
At the downstream end of a big pool, I flipped a silver and orange wiggle wart into one of the shadowy holes and a fish hit it immediately and started racing upstream.
I thought it was another pike, but it wasn't.
The pull on the line was nice and hard and the fish kept running.
It tried to snap my line by racing around a standing log, but I was able to move the fish back up around it.
The fish was a nice 21-inch Coho salmon with a good amount of girth to it.
It was a female full of eggs, so I now have spawn for another time.
With darkness falling, it took me several minutes to untangle the treble hooks from my lure from the mesh of my fish net. I finally got the lure removed.
When I stood up from the wet grass, the lure slipped out of my hand and landed on the mesh net to somehow re-tangle itself. It took a few more minutes and the light from my buddy's cellphone to get the lure out.
Meanwhile, the fish were jumping up and down the river behind me.
Just then, my buddy announced that he was ready to head home. He wanted to walk out through the path and the trees before it got too dark to the way.
I told him this was like having to head home with three or four bucks walking in to your deer blind. I left, but I was itching for more fishing.
I came back the next evening in the pouring rain, thinking this should be the best night of them all. I stood and cast my line for three hours with not a single hit.
There were only two cars in the parking lot on this night beside mine.
I saw a couple of fish jump toward the end of the night, but nothing more.
To me, all of this is quite interesting how fishing tactics, lure colors and other provisions can change from day to day, or even morning or afternoon to night.
It's always nice to be able to bring home a beautiful salmon to eat, but it was the time outside on the water and the thrills watching the retrieve of every cast -- knowing this might be the one -- that made the effort meaningful and rewarding.
Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan's world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.