- Well, hey everyone.

Welcome to "Michigan Out-of-Doors."

Thank you so much for joining us this week.

Hopefully you had a great Memorial Day weekend, spent some time with friends and family, maybe did a little fishing, and we've got a little fishing to show you on this week's episode.

We're gonna kick things off by doing a little trout fishing after dark during the hex hatch.

You won't wanna miss that.

And Jordan Brown is gonna show us some flathead cat fishing and talk a little bit about the new state records.

So lots of variety on this week's episode.

Make sure you stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger, and it's time for "Michigan Out-of-Doors."

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(water lapping) (pleasant mid-tempo guitar music) - [Jimmy] Just last week I found myself in Wellston, tucked away between Manistee and Cadillac.

I was here to see if we could try and capture the famed hex hatch the waters here provide, but looking around this fly shop and the cabins that this place rents out year round, I quickly saw these folks have this down to a science.

I would be joining Chelsea Pete and Jacob Kopec on the river today.

Putting in on the Pine River tonight was the plan.

- [Jacob] We're gonna be stripping some flies for hopefully aggressive brown trout today.

A little bit of that on the menu.

We're gonna be fishing a bunch of little three to four-inch articulated flies.

Some of them are one-piece bodies and we're gonna see we get some chasers, run through a few different colors and we'll start out with that.

- [Jimmy] And where are we tonight?

- We're on the Pine River and Manistee National Forest, and we're in for a good evening of fishing.

Hopefully it's nice and quiet out here as far as traffic and should be the only ones on the water this evening until we get to the bottom.

And then we're gonna jump in for some hex fishing, and soon as the lights go out, we're gonna start looking for some of the big bugs.

- [Jimmy] Who's our expert fisherman up there?

- [Jacob] This is Chelsea.

She's fly shop manager at Manistee River Lodge, and she's also my girlfriend and we're a fishing team, so.

- [Jimmy] All right.

As we traveled the river, I was quickly taken by just how beautiful this river is.

Almost no homes, and to say there was some rapids would be an understatement.

This river was fast and this lower stretch we were floating was impressive.

- [Jacob] So this is a 100% wild trout stream, and the lower reaches, we got mainly brown trout, handful of rainbows, couple random brookies.

This is one of the coldest flowing streams in the lower peninsula, and some argue that it's the fastest flowing.

If it's not, it'd be the second.

This is a blue ribbon and trout stream.

It gets some pretty sizable trout in here, and I mean you got 'em of all sizes.

This river opens up last Saturday in April and stays open through the end of September, and it's closed in the fall and winter time to give those trout a break.

- [Jimmy] Would you say only a couple people could actually guide on this river?

- Yeah, so there's three federal tags for this river and our shop holds two of the three tags for this river as far as guiding privileges go with the state and the feds.

And so we hold two of those three tags.

So this is pretty special little gem.

We only have a limited amount of guide days that we're allowed to operate on this river system.

So it's a real treat anytime we can take somebody down this waterway, and it's just the closest thing you get to a western stream.

It's got big high cut banks, fast water.

As you can see, we're getting ready to roll up on one of the little rapids that this river's known for, and we're gonna have a good time.

- [Jimmy] Had I been in a kayak or canoe, I would've had my hands full.

But Jacob handles this stealth craft like a pro.

It didn't hurt that he spent years guiding in Alaska with a fair amount of whitewater to deal with.

Chelsea was also doing a great job of getting some streamers in the right area for our fish to take a look at, and sure enough, after an hour or so the fish were starting to follow our offerings and a nice fish found our fly.

- [Chelsea] Whoo!

- [Jacob] Bring him to the right side if you can.

- All right.

- Hey.

- [Jacob] There's a start to the day.

Little brown for Chelsea.

(laughs) - [Jimmy] Nice.

Nice job, young lady.

- Thanks.

- [Jacob] Quick little release.

All right.

Back you go, buddy.

This is a little stone fly, a little searching pattern.

We're gonna run it down through this grassy edge.

You got a nice little cut trough with a rock bottom, and we're gonna see if we can attract somebody up to the surface.

We don't got a lot going on for bugs, but there's a few of these guys in the river system flying around right now.

See if the trout are been familiar with them or not lately.

(pleasant guitar music) - [Jacob] Pick it up and cast it again.

(mumbles) - [Jimmy] As we floated the Pine on this lower stretch of the river, I had Jacob talk a little bit about the fly shop that he guides out of and the one Chelsea has been running for years.

- [Jacob] The fly shop I believe has been around for a little over 30 years.

It started out as Schmidt Outfitters by a guy named Ray Schmidt, fishing guide, and now it is Batcke's Manistee River Lodge.

It's kind of a rebrand, a rebuild, and we've been around for the last three years.

We're located right in Wellston, we're in the heart of trout country, and we got the Pine, we got the little Manistee, the big Manistee, all just a stone's throw from the shop.

So you get a couple miles away from the shop, you're in trout country, if it's steelhead or salmon, that's right down our doorstep, man.

That's good fishing area.

We're waiting for the hex to fall.

We're parked on a couple of good ones.

We're gonna see how soon these hex drop on the water, and hopefully one of our target fish over here come up the horizon.

We're on the hunt for a big one.

We're hunting, not fishing right now.

You'll probably see a highway of bugs flying 20, 30 feet up or so, and as that night goes on they get lower and lower, and then they eventually drop on the water and that's when the fun begins.

- [Jimmy] Holy cow.

- [Chelsea] I put a million dollars on my best time.

- [Jacob] Yep, best hatch of the season.

It's not locked down, that's all I'm saying.

Good job, babe.

- I know.

God, I love this.

This is like the best feeling ever.

- [Jacob] Take that pressure my way.

Rod tip to the bank.

Scoot 'em in to the bank, boo.

All right, perfect.

(water splashing) All right.

Hey, hey, hey!

There's a nice brown.

(water splashing) - [Jimmy] Nice job, young lady.

- [Chelsea] Thanks.

- Whoo.

- Good job, babe.

- [Jimmy] What a pretty fish.

(water splashes) - Ready?

- Yep.

- [Jimmy] Beautiful.

- We do a release?

- Yeah.

- All right, ready?

- [Jimmy] Nice and easy.

- [Chelsea] Whoo.

- [Jacob] That's a solid 20-incher.

- [Jimmy] There we go.

- [Jacob] Yeah.

- Nice job, guys.

- Whoo.

- Hey.

- Thanks.

- [Jimmy] That was awesome.

Yeah, there's a few bugs around.

- [Chelsea] Yeah.

- [Jimmy] Well, the bugs were in full force, and sitting in the dark and listening for fish to take our fly, well, it was pretty awesome.

Once the fish is on, well, on come the lights.

- Nice.

- [Jimmy] Nice job, guys.

- [Jacob] Yep, doing decent.

(line whirs) - Ready, boo?

- Yep.

- Okay, I'm gonna try to get him up to you in a second.

(water splashes) Whoo!

And that's how you get a hex fish.

(laughs) - All right.

- Nice job, guys.

- Cool, that's another nice one.

All right, let's get the hook out of him.

We'll show the world what a hex fish is.

- Oh, he's pretty.

- Can you hold that handle?

- [Jimmy] How many times does he feed, you figure?

Half a dozen or more?

- Put that a little bit higher (mumbles) He probably fed 10, 11 times, it sounded like.

I think I put him down for a second.

You wanna hold that net while I grab him?

- [Jimmy] Oh, what a nice fish.

- [Jacob] There's a good little hex fish.

We'll take him.

That's a good start to the night.

- [Jimmy] Good start, we've got two.

- Yeah, you're right, good start for me.

Girlfriend's showing me up.

All right, I'm gonna let that guy go.

Beautiful little fish.

Thanks, buddy.

- Sweet.

- All right.

Let's find our next victim.

- [Jimmy] Two for two.

- [Jacob] I don't know if this one's him, but he sits in this pocket.

Yeah, he just went right there.

I don't know if that's the big.

We gotta get away from the (mumbles) (water splashes) Still on.

Grab this.

(mumbles) Don't pull on it.

You still there?

- [Chelsea] I can't (mumbles) - [Jacob] All right, you see it?

You got on that log jam.

- [Jimmy] You good now?

- Yep, get that net ready.

Yep, where you at?

(object taps) Crazy, isn't it?

- [Jimmy] Looks like a good fish.

- [Jacob] Yeah, he's not bad at all.

Isn't that crazy?

I only have five feet of fly line out.

Yeah, that's a good one.

He's not the one I've been thinking about.

Get that ready, I'm gonna go higher on him, boo.

Try to bring him into the boat.

(water splashing) - Whoo!

- Nice job.

(Jacob grunts) (laughs) All right.

That's how you do it.

- [Jimmy] Holy cow.

- Thanks, babe.

- Good job.

- [Jimmy] Good team effort there, guys.

- He wrapped us in that log, he almost won.

I get my fly back today.

Hold that net.

- I am.

- [Jacob] All right, you ready, boo?

Ground that net.

Ooh.

That's a nice one.

- [Jimmy] Another beauty.

- Another beauty hex fish here.

- [Jimmy] Get a little closeup of him here.

- Yeah, that's what it's all about.

That's why we don't get any sleep this time of year.

- [Jimmy] Geez.

- Look, she's got the hex neck.

- That is awesome.

- All right.

- Right next to the boat too.

- Yeah.

Five feet off the boat.

All right, buddy, thank you so much.

All right, back he goes.

Thank you for playing.

- Whew.

- There you go.

- [Jimmy] Way to go, guys.

- Next fish.

Whew.

- [Jimmy] All right, let's get this light off.

It was a great night for sure.

Thanks to Jacob and Chelsea for showing us just how magical the hex hatch can be right here in "Michigan's Out-of-Doors."

- For our next segment on this week's show, we're gonna switch gears and head way down to the southwest corner of the state on the St. Joe River where I was able to tag along with a couple of anglers who love to target catfish.

(geese honking) (upbeat guitar music) - Well, we're at St. Joe River out by Jasper dairy area.

We're looking for big old flatheads, hoping, hoping the fish are biting.

You know, maybe channels right now, but I think we might get some big flatheads.

- [Jordan] The St. Joe River is an incredible fishery, and it proved itself once again recently as Lloyd landed the new state record flathead catfish, weighing in at over 53 pounds.

Today we are fishing the same stretch of river, using the exact same setup.

- [Lloyd] We got a Big Cat Fever Rod.

The nice thing would've been if I would've caught that state record on this rod, it would've paid me $20,000.

But it just happened to take one of my muskie rods.

I, you know, really wish it was on this, but I'm happy with the state record anyway.

But yeah, I got a heavy rod here.

We're using 80-pound braid, about four ounces of weight, maybe 18 inches of 50-pound mono leader line.

Nice chunk of a AOI, fresh, of course.

And we're gonna use some live baits, and yeah, that's pretty much what we're using to catch these big old guys, a 10-ought circle hook.

The hooks are designed that you don't really have to set the hook.

The rod will kind of do the work as the fish pulls.

It'll set the hook their selves, almost always in the corner of the mouth too.

And that's really what you want so you don't gut hook fish, and that way all your fish can be released if you want to release them, which we're kind of all for.

She's down, we got a fish on.

- [Lloyd] Todd, what do you think?

- [Todd] Lot of head shaking.

- Like channel?

- Yeah.

- [Lloyd] Do we need the big net?

- [Todd] Yeah, might want the big one.

(water splashes) - Well, we broke the seal there.

Nice circle hook right in the corner of the mouth.

- As they get bigger, they don't really have the sharp spines like the small catfish does.

- [Lloyd] These are the ones you worry about.

They got a hard spine there, hard spine here.

Hard spine here.

I mean, as they get older, you see they dull down, you know, mingling around just years and years of running around in the river.

The barbells do nothing.

These are their feelers, these are their.

I mean, what do they got?

Millions and millions of taste buds in them.

I would say that's about the normal.

That's an average channel cat for the St. Joe.

They get much bigger.

But I mean, it's really a seasonal thing too, to where you can find the bigger ones.

I mean, you get to this time of the year, you're gonna find more average fish because there's just so many of 'em.

- We're all into the flatheads.

We love chasing the flatheads, but really the channel cat fishery is second to none here on the St. Joe River with a lot of, you know, 20, 30-pound channel cats where a lot of places in the country that's unheard of.

But the river system being connected to Lake Michigan, it's 211 miles long, has 28 dams on it.

The first dam from the lake to Baron Springs is 27 miles.

And you really get a diverse fishery.

Walleye fishing is going really strong right now in June.

A lot of guys drifting for 'em.

But then also the fall, winter steelhead runs, we get, the skamania runs we get in the summer of steelhead, as well as a lot of other species of fish to chase.

- [Jordan] As we made our way up river, we eventually ended up at the exact same spot where Lloyd had caught the state record just a few weeks before.

- Well, this is the spot we caught the state record.

A lot of big fish get caught in this spot.

It's a deep hole right in front of a island about 22 feet deep with a lot of wood cover.

- [Person] What's it like being back here a couple weeks after the fact?

- A little weird.

It's a little weird.

I knew it was a good fish right when it hit.

I just didn't know how big.

It felt good.

I've caught a lot of big fish, but see, he was stuck in the log jam for a good few minutes, probably two, two and a half minutes trying to work him out.

You just kind of play with him a little bit.

Finally I got him out, start reeling him in, and you know, he took a couple of good runs, and we pulled him up over the side and yeah, yeah, we kind of said a few choice words and my nephew was pretty excited.

I mean, we see a lot of good fish.

I mean, we weigh a lot of good fish for our tournaments and stuff, but when you see something like that, you know it's a good fish.

And so we grabbed a scale immediately and just weighed it.

On our tournament scales, he was weighing 52.7, so we knew we were close.

That's something.

- [Todd] One of the coolest things is to see somebody that has so much passion for it and has spent so much time chasing that species of fish.

You know, normally a lot of your state records you see are incidental catches and somebody by accident, or you see one of the guys who put his time in, that really makes it pretty cool.

- It's a little drag.

- [Todd] Just keep 'em over here.

(line clicking) Last time you went right out to the middle of the river and lost the guy.

Yep.

(water splashing) - You got him?

- Get up.

- All right.

That's a. Yeah.

Maybe 10, 12 pounds.

He's not a big one, but when we let him go, he's gonna grow even bigger.

And hopefully we catch him a few years from now when he weighs 40.

- [Jordan] Well, we didn't break the state record on this trip, but it was still a beautiful night on the water and a lot of fun.

Special thanks to Lloyd for sharing his story.

And congrats on the new state record flathead catfish.

- [Lloyd] There he goes.

(mid-tempo guitar music) - Hey everyone, thank you so much for watching "Michigan Out-of-Doors" this week.

If you missed part of this week's show, maybe last week's show, you can always check us out on YouTube.

Just search for Michigan Out-of-Doors TV and you can find our channel there.

And actually, if you subscribe there, you get an email every time we post something new.

And there should be a lot of new stuff coming over the next several weeks.

I think on next week's show, we're gonna do a little bow fishing and a little salmon fishing outta the port of Muskegon.

Lots of variety, lots of good stuff happening around the state.

Get out and enjoy it.

And if we don't see you in the woods or on the water, hopefully we'll see you right back here next week on your PBS station.

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Closed captioning brought to you by Double D Ranch Foundation, a nonprofit 501C3 foundation working to make hunting and fishing accessible for those with disabilities.

♪ When I wander far away ♪ ♪ A dream stays with me night and day ♪ ♪ It's the road that leads to my home state ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ Changing seasons paint the scene ♪ ♪ Like rainbow trout in a hidden stream ♪ ♪ The whitetail deer in the tall pine trees ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ I am, I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ That's where I'm from, and I'll show you my hands ♪ ♪ Lord above, I love this land ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ From the Keweenaw down to St. Joe ♪ ♪ Kalamazoo leads to Monroe ♪ ♪ To Ste.

Marie and back again ♪ ♪ I am a Michigan man ♪ ♪ I am, I am a Michigan man ♪