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Chase Creek

Going home

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I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this.

I've been fishing a small area off the Manistee River since High School (55 years ago). It's between Cadillac and Traverse City near a small town named Manton. I've spent at least teo weeks a year up there annoying Brookies in small streams.I've always fished by myself,and I prefer it that way.

Recently, I've had some medical issues to deal with, and I'm thinking Last Fall was my last trip up there. My balance is not so hot anymore, and I've got our friend "Arthur" quite bad in my left knee, among other places. I have a very rough time walking on uneven ground, so my days of gracefully flitting about the woods is pretty much over. I had to make some concessions with my wife after a Quadruple Bypass a few years ago, like staying in habituated campgrounds, etc.

Anyway, every time I crest the hill overlooking Manton, I get the unmistakable feeling of coming home.I would absolutely love to make one more trip up there, but it looks like that's not going to happen.

Fortunately, I can sill use the vise, and there are some pretty good Bluegill waters around here. But I will always miss "going home".

(Stepping down from soapbox)

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That's another one of those "nostalgia" things I just don't have "the gene" for. I grew up fishing the Wabash and Eel Rivers in Logansport, Indiana.

I left home when I was 19 and never looked back. I went back many times, visiting Mom and Dad while they were still around. I even fished those rivers a few times on trips up there. But it was always "just another placed I've fished."

 

I thoroughly enjoy fishing, in any of it's forms. Rod and/or reel ... I mean. I've enjoyed fishing in more locations than I can remember. I don't feel any "affiliation" with "home waters". That being said ... I do like fishing the St. Johns River more than just about any other place I've been to. I guess I could consider that my home water, now ... but I still wouldn't miss it if I had to leave that part of the Country.

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I defiantly know the feeling very well. I feel the same way about the Au Sable just on the East side of where you're talking about on Chase. My family started taking me to the Au Sable before I was even 1 year old. We spent 2 weeks on the Au Sable every summer growing up, then in my teen years we bought a cabin on it and spent 2 weeks plus many weekends on it and still do to this day. I plan to move up and live on the Au Sable at some point in my life. Every time I go as soon as I come down the hill and around the corner on M65 and see the river at the bridge crossing over it I always get that feeling of "this is where I am supposed to be" and I feel at home.

 

I sure hope you get to go back to the Manistee at some point Chase.

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Matthew 6:19-21 Treasures in Heaven

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

 

This for me beats out any fishing hole I ever fished at. My treasure is not those fishing holes, those belong to a lost and dying world that will end one day. I've enjoyed them yes, but.... Incidentally, for those who also believe as I do, "going home" has a whole different meaning and I wondered at first if you had terminal cancer or something, LOL ! Glad you don't.

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My folks lived in Manton for quite a few years. Arrowed my first deer on a farm nearby. I still fish the the Manistee occasionally (usually downstream of the Tippy) for steelhead. I am fast approaching that time when I will not be able to stand steadily in a swift stream myself so I feel for you Chase. It will be a sad day.

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I am fast approaching that time when I will not be able to stand steadily in a swift stream myself so I feel for you Chase. It will be a sad day.

 

Don't count yourself out too fast Chris. My fishing buddy Mark whom fishes with me all the time just turned 70 yrs old last month and he still keeps right up with me no matter the water conditions :)

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Hi, Shoebop,

Think I'd move toManton if I could. Fished the Morrisy, Golden, and Chase Creeks for all those years and tent or tarp camped at the old Chase Creek campground. The campground has been closed for many years, and is the only place I ever saw a DNR guy in the field. Scared the hell out of him when I came up out of Chase Creek when he was bent over checking the well in the closed campground. In my latter years, after the heart bypass, I camped at the Baxter Bridge Campground where there were people, to satisfy my wife. Maybe I'll go back to Manton an fish the lake in town.

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It's funny you mention going home, I was just thinking today of taking a summer trip down to Salt Springs, Florida. That's my "home". I would love to go fish Lake George again, the same river system Mike fishes in haha. Man how I miss that place more and more.

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I don't know the nature of your bypass or what doctors orders are etc, but most people I know who have had it done live active lives, sometimes more active than before the surgery. The head pastor of our church organization world wide had bypass surgery and still wake boards out in the Chesapeake ( sometimes in the fog scaring himself and his wife who is on shore half to death LOL) and travels world wide. He is getting older now and looks it but you can also see that he is in good physical condition from outdoor activity. Maybe in your case it's different or it's just early on. You probably need to test those waters a bit Chase ! Get yourself a walking stick for that river and don't expect to move as you once did. Again I'm saying this not knowing your full situation.

 

Two years ago I went to Maine with a bent knee that ended in surgery. Mostly it was arthritis, there was a small ( tiny) tear in the meniscus but that sucker hurt and developed a bakers cyst in the back of the knee so it couldn't physically straighten out . I hobbled down to one of the rivers we like up there and took my stand in it working just one pool that isn't really even my favorite spot . I caught two small salmon and I spent a lot of time unhooking my wife's flies from tree limbs LOL ! But I was up there and in the river I like with someone who enjoys what I enjoy. One day we might be sitting in lawn chairs waist deep in the river roll casting, who knows, who cares ! .

 

You're not done yet, perhaps you just have to back up a little bit. I no longer go way down river like I used to ether. I just accept that ( the family bought me a drift boat trip a few years ago and that was awesome). I've been an avid bike rider for a few years and last year that back fired too as a 20 year old hernia surgery got inflamed ( they think some of the mesh tore) and any activity like bike riding just blew it right up, we shall see this year but I'm going to try it.. I think of this one old guy who used to come into the river up there in Maine and slaughter the fish, he worked his way into the upper pool, real slow but eventually got to this one spot. I learned a wading path through the pool that I didn't know was possible, a sinking line tactic and one killer fly pattern from that guy. He no longer went down river either but he was willing to talk to a younger angler and he dredged up some corkers out of where he could fish. What he did not do is sit with his face in his hands. I will remember that as I move on from this 67 years I'm presently living in ( I'm not convicting you on this but myself ). Another old guy ( he was 90 the last time we saw him) would poke his way down to the river, then some guys helped him along just to get to the rocks where he could stand. He fished Each summer right up till one day he fell in off the rocks in the head water pool and two guys had to dive in to dredge him out. That was the last we ever saw of him, he probably went back to Florida undoubtedly passed on now because that was a lot of years ago. These are lessons to us all, to see these things. Anyway, We still go up river from the pond below and fish that deep tail water down there in our canoe and anchor in some of the prettiest area you could ever be in. Un-wadable that's why we use the canoe in there. Not over the last year or so with recovering from the knee surgery and hernia incident, but I seem pretty good to go this year. We shall see.

 

Certain chapters in our book of life do close on us, never to open again, that's true. But we can go back and skim the pages and take in a few passages and maybe even pick up some highlights we didn't see before, unless the pages were totally ripped out.. Meanwhile those passages I quoted in Matthew are still the more important element in my life, because that speaks of eternity, not our flash in the pan portion of life here on earth.

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I relate to many things in this thread. For me it would be any time I crest a hill and look down on Lake Superior. The big lake has played such a great part in my life for many years, both on the lake itself and the many feeder streams that support it. Like others, health at 73 is slowing me down and I now tie a lot more flies than I will ever put to water but it's enjoyable and the memories are always there to enjoy. I fixing for at least one more good trip later this year but don't know how many more after that. Just take it year by year I guess.

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The last time I went back to my home waters (MA) I hardly recognized the place, most of the farms where gone along with some of my old fishing holes. Mostly developed, but I will say that some of the waters that used to be unfishable, polluted, industrial sites where much cleaner than I remembered. I am content to fish where ever I can today, and for what ever takes or dosn't. I am usually happier fishing new water, last year I went back to fish the Cheticamp River in NS after a 10 year absence (where I caught my first salmon almost 50 years ago as a lucky kid and today I still don't know who hooked who) to be honest I think my memories would have been better served by not going. I find that I miss the old timers I used to fish with more than the places. Today I fish alone or with a dog, very few younger people I know like to fish, and we stay in a campground in a travel trailer. Times change, I fish slower than I used to, I like to think more methodical but probably more carefully. I am probably one of the younger fisherman posting to this thread and at 62 I feel the difference after a long day in the water. Makes the chair & campfire feel better. Chase Creek and shoebop please keep casting, if you have to stop wading, cast from the dock.

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Man...Chase, you hit it hard on the nail-head there. That is how i feel at several places my Grand-Father (Papa-Del)and i fished when he was here.

 

Dave G. I feel sorry for you. Even the psycho teaching my Philosophy of Religion class at USC agreed that this means you should treasure the memories of those moments in life to enrich your soul above Earthly goods, thus college.

 

In my life i found that having many of those memories erased by chemo-therapy has been so hard that i wonder if i should have just let the cancer take me. That feels like heaven was stolen from me because i chose to fight...i hope you never face that Dave.

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Man...Chase, you hit it hard on the nail-head there. That is how i feel at several places my Grand-Father (Papa-Del)and i fished when he was here.

 

Dave G. I feel sorry for you. Even the psycho teaching my Philosophy of Religion class at USC agreed that this means you should treasure the memories of those moments in life to enrich your soul above Earthly goods, thus college.

 

In my life i found that having many of those memories erased by chemo-therapy has been so hard that i wonder if i should have just let the cancer take me. That feels like heaven was stolen from me because i chose to fight...i hope you never face that Dave.

I wrote a post but edited it because there is a bigger picture going on here. Sorry if anyone read it already !

 

Dr.V, you made the right choice. The way I see it, If it were the wrong choice you would have been taken anyway.

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