We saw a few salmon heading upstream but nothing like the numbers I saw last year. I don't think I even had any good casts at salmon in the morning. Keith talked to a few guys who caught cohos that morning. They said they were just trying to aggravate the fish to get them to bite. We walked a lot of the water downstream looking for salmon but saw next to nothing.

We headed up to the fish hatchery to take a quick tour and see the mother lode of salmon. We also stopped for lunch at Sleepy Bear Lounge in Honor. We had great soup, chili, sandwiches and beer. It's a must stop from now on.

In the afternoon we tried some more fishing upstream of the campground. We saw a few more and had a few good casting opportunities but still got nothing. Frustrated, we decided to head to the Betsie where I had fished before. We saw about 10 cohos there but didn't even come close to catching any. At night we had a few more beers and cooked some food.

Back at camp Keith had woken up and got coffee going. We ate a bit, played with Tanner and then started taking down camp. Just as we were finishing up, Greg and Patti Kirchmeier showed up. They were attending a convention at the Grand Traverse. Greg told us stories of how he and a bunch of kids had been catching brookies, browns and chinook in Acme Creek. The kids were snagging and gave Greg a nice chinook.

Greg wanted to fish here a bit so I joined him for about 45 minutes. He caught a bunch of brookies and browns using spinning gear. Meanwhile I accidentally caught one brookie and nearly snagged a coho. I only got three good casts at it before my egg pattern caught its tail. It was a very short fight. Oh well, better luck next year.

Moved down to the Veteran's Memorial campground (20 camping sites, nice but close to the highway) and fished that a bit. Didn't catch anything, but did see a hulking fish swim by. I thought it was a steelhead, it turned out to be a coho.

Then went down to the Platte River campground, which is more secluded and has 25 sites. Caught a couple more small trout and saw another hulking fish swim by. Lots of access here, and lots of holes to fish.

Near dusk I drove to the Betsie River and fished there and hung out for a while. I intended to sleep in the truck near the Betsie but didn't feel comfortable for some reason. I drove to the hatchery and looked around a bit.

Before it got too late, I returned to the Platte River campground and slept there. The campground was nearly empty.

Naturally I stopped fishing for trout and started fishing for salmon/steelhead. They were very aware of my presence, my casting, my line and my fly. I don't think you can easily fool these fish into taking a fly. Instead, I harrassed them into taking it by waving the fly back and forth in front of there noses. It was disappointing to see school after school of fish swim by; probably 100 without catching any. So I took off upstream to catch up with them. I found a couple of spots where they were forced to swim through a narrow channel and harrassd them there.

I had several snags/hook ups, most of the time my 1x line would break. My sink tip line seemed to spook the fish less, as well as a less colorful fly.

Finally I landed one after a tough fight. I was so fired up with adrenelen when I netted it. I identified it as a coho salmon. It was 25 inches long and 13 inches around the belly, probably less than 10 pounds pretty typical as far as I could see.

I tried to get one more to take home but couldn't. On the way home I stopped by the hatchery again and toured though the buildings and saw where all the salmon go. Hundreds of them found there way into a holding pen and will be used to create the next group of fish plantings. It would be nice to try fishing a little closer to the hatchery. It doesn't seem to busy. I also stopped at the Muskegon River on the drive back to GR.