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Trouting On The Brule River

           By John Lyle King

(1880)

This wonderful book is about three lawyers from Chicago, that plan a vacation fishing for trout on the Brule River. This was, buy the way, a series of featured articles in the Chicago Sunday Times later made into a book. They kept wonderful details of their trip for the newspaper.

A quote from the book says it all. "When the haunts of game in the woods and the lairs of fish in the streams incite the passion for sport to couple itself with the quest and yearning for rest and vitalization, the wayfarer's pathway in the wilderness becomes a pilgrimage through abounding scenes of diversion and into a realm of fascination. The restraints and stress of civilization and the city, for the time, are exchanged for exhilaration freedom and simplicity of nature." This was written in 1880. The stresses of city life.....?

Here is a passage form this wonderful story;

"The Michigami river has its source in Lake Michigami, in the iron and copper regions of Lake Superior. Its course is southeasterly. Its length is about ninety miles. Our party struck this river at Republic, reaching there by rail from Chicago, and coursed it about fifty-three miles, making thence overland and water routes by Lake Mary, the Paint river, Mud lake, the Trout (known also as Sugar) river, Lone Grave (or Bass), lake and lakes Chicagon and Minnie, to the Brulé, a distance of thirty-five miles. With the exception of the Hamilton and Merryman lumbering company's camp, about eighteen miles above its mouth, the Michigami, from the point where the party touched it, traverses an unbroken wilderness. This can now be reached by team on a supply road from Badwater, which also extends to the headwaters of Ford river. The Michigami flows through the richest of forest scenery, and on its banks are numerous points where deer may be shot, and, at places where small streams come in, trout are found. Downward canoeing is a most delightful experience of the rambler on this stream."

On Reaching the Brule:

The limpid currents ran either gurgling musically over the shallows, or purling into eddies round an up-reared boulder, or shivering into sparkling ripples of tumult and riot on the rapids, or smoothing and lapsing into a reach of midsummer languor and faintness, but always pure, fresh and living, bearing in their forest-shaded course the chillness of the springs and founts that fed them so unattempered of the sun as to give always a grateful draught for thirst when dipped in the drinking-cup. This was the Brulé of our first experience--everywhere gravelled, rocky and bouldered, the very exclusive haunt and realm of trout, not like the Michigami or the Trout or Paint, with chubs and perch mingling in the population of fins.

We could now halt the pinnacles, almost at any place, from time to time, and were sure of a liberal spoil; and, after holding up for some of these interim casts, we had gradually and idly sauntered to a point estimated to be about twenty-eight miles above the mouth of the river, where we prospected a most eligible camping place. It was on a bank, embowered by a grove of largest cedars and pines, with gentle slopes of surface, free of troublesome undergrowth, the ground velveted and elastic with layers of twigs, with abundant shade, plenty of fuel and a wealth of hemlock boughs for the ground-spread of the tents. We named it Cedar Camp. We expected to make it a stopping place for two or three days, and could sally out from it up and down, and range all the pools and fishing places within easy reach. We could run the canoes light and quickly, and flit about at will.

The sport began suspiciously. A little over an hour's throwing produced a count of fifty, and, richly tinted and embrowned with the touches of the flame, they bountifully garnished the dinner platters in less than an hour, and ministered luxuriously to waiting appetites. The two hours following the feast were spent in camp in various modes of indolent and trivial leisure and laziness. No exertion more serious than that of fitting a ring on a rod, or burnishing a reel, or charging and fumigating with a pipe, or shifting a position on a blanket from an intrusion of the sun, was suffered to perturb the ease and delicious torpor of the situation.

Toward evening piscatorial aspirations revived. High and Pratt went below, and Denison and I breasted the tide upwardly. The fishing was of the best. To cast a fly upon the water was nearly a certainty of enticing a trout. In the first half-hour out, we could forecast the whole story of the sport on the Brulé. It was only to hold at any chance spot, to find that our lines would be cast in places pleasant for us. The throw on the one side or the other, from the canoe, was equally lucky. The trout appeared populous in every direction. Rises were bewilderingly plentiful. We needed reconnoisance but a short way from the camp to find the swimmers in force and voracity. So we soon returned with laden baskets, and turned over the abundance, or rather, the supplies brought in, to the cooks; for the surplus, beyond the needs of the fry, was tossed back into the water. At supper, we all expressed regrets that it was not in our power to bestow on friends at home, part of the excess of our lavish supply. But there, as elsewhere, and otherwise, one man's waste is another man's want.

The wildlife is extraordinary in this area and even today in northern Michigan you can take canoe trips down the Ausable River and others. The fishing is good and the scenery is beautiful. We loved this book and we hope that you do to.   Download it now, and start reading this book tonight.                              

Only  $3.99 USD

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