City Fishing

Union Street Dam is place in the city to fish, you may evan catch a king salmon, steelhead, perch or lake trout.

A non-fisherman just passing through would find nothing too spectacular about the river flowing through downtown Traverse City.  But then that's where the Boardman fizzles out, its tired waters corralled between concrete walls and brick buildings until finally emptying into the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

Nevertheless I can't think of another city in the country where you can drop your truck at a downtown garage to have a sticky starter replaced, grab your fishing rod out of the back on a lark, and not only be on a river in as much time as it takes to walk a couple blocks, but actually catch some fish.  Big and, often, exotic fish.  Depending on the time of year you can peer down from atop the Union Street Bridge into the water below and spot king salmon or steelhead, walleye or perch, pike, gar, brown, and lake trout all come fresh out of Lake Michigan.

You also see lots of suckers and carp and, like any urban fishing hole, the usual underwater assortment of tires, rusted iron, Frito bags, and Budweiser cans.  The Union Street dam forms what looks like a big concrete swimming pool where black waters churn up sudsy trails of unhealthy looking white foam.  Not exactly the backdrop of a classic fishing tale, but then anybody can find an ear when discussing the glamorous fishes that inhabit the pristine and more storied water of the Northern Michigan countryside.

Instead, I'm here to sing about city fishing.

The Boardman River is considered to be one of the top ten trout streams in Michigan, according to the Grand Traverse Conservation District (Photo: GTCD).

Growing up a thousand miles east of here, I learned about fishing like a million other suburban boys: by wetting a line almost every day after school in water hemmed in by apartment buildings and parking lots.  The North promised something else-namely, trout-though I'll admit I knew little of trout at the time.  I was a bonafide trash fisherman with mostly book-learned knowledge of fancy fish of the Michigan countryside.

For instance I knew that the Adams fly, the most versatile dry fly pattern ever conceived, was invented on the Boardman River some 20-odd miles from my new home outside Traverse City.  The Au Sable, due east, is where Trout Unlimited was born.  Hemingway fished here.  And that's just for starters.  The upshot is, with nobody around to educate me, I had to start over and found fishing in town a comfortable place to begin.

I've never been a big fan of city living, but when you're deep in the concentration of fishing the rattle of traffic, the rotting smell of back alley dumpsters and diesel exhaust, and the occasional heckler critiquing your technique (I'm remembering an errant cast that landed my fly in a tree and some teenie-bopper on the bridge yelling, "Hey, pretty sure the fish are down a little lower.  Har!  Har!") has a tendency to dissolve away.  Although never totally alone, overall I concur with the writer Greg Keeler who said, "If wilderness is where people aren't, then there's plenty of it in the middle of the darkest dankest of cities and towns."

I caught my first lake trout at the Union Street dam over lunch hour one snowy December afternoon.  Actually, I caught three: one right after the other on day-glow green egg pattern without another soul around to witness the coup.  Months later and downriver under the bridge where the boardwalk ends and where there used to be a sandy hole under the weeping branches of a willow tree, I caught my first steelhead, fresh from the bay and silver-sided-though a barely legal fish.  Again, nobody was around to see save for a bum digging around the library trash bin looking for cans and chewing on half-eaten sandwich of suspect origin.  High on a heady mixture of generosity and pride, I offered up the fish.

"Bah," he said, "I wouldn't eat anything come out of there."

City fishing is like that, surrounded by stigma regardless of your station in life.  Even my fishing friends look down on any piscatorial activity within the city limits regarding it as mere child's play.  Having never been the kind to take myself too seriously, maybe that's why I like it so.  For one thing, at my Union Street hole there is always the possibility of the unexpected surprise.  I caught a submarine-sized carp there one time while stripping streamers for trout.  Another time, a pike as long as an ax handle on, of all things, a dough ball.  With so many different fishes swimming in the water, I never know what I'm going to catch.  Which, come to think of it, is exactly the kind of wonder that got me into fishing in the first place.

So I started fishing in a city and to the city I sometimes return.  It might only be for an hour between errands or in a spare moment before some appointed hour.  If you're like me, sometimes you just got to get out and fish, if only to feel reconnected for a time to more than just whatever happens to be pulling at the end of your line.   

"A past-contributing editor for Sports Afield magazine, Bob Butz is an essayist and book writer from Lake Ann, Michigan.  He is also a regualr commentator on Interlochen Public Radio and magazine writer whose byline has appeared in the New York Times, National Wildlife, Outdoor Life, and numerous others.  Butz's book Beast of Never, Cat of God: A search for the eastern puma was chosen by the Michigan Library Association as a "Notable Book" for 2006."