I floated far enough down the Betsie River to see eagles, big buck deer and Lake Michigan. I roll casted through the depth changes, chucking-and-ducking into the deep holes of the ox bows.

Not making more than a few false casts, and boom! I was on. The reel wind banged my knuckles to mush. I was tight to a king salmon sure to measure every inch of the hundreds more swimming in the target hole below me. The shimmering chorus of heads and tails swam as one in the tea-colored stream.

And then it happened. He plunged into the river near my fish, lured by the sound of zipping line. His big barefooted, hairy ass broke through the water turning the lazy river into a raging tempest, lunging to the king’s turns. With the bold, intentional motion of a cattle dog, he turned the big silver back upstream. He poked and prodded. His arms and hands tossed water. The salmon turned hard back toward a fallen log. Narrowing the fish’s escape routes, prehistoric man, with hands like furry car wash gloves, finally handled my catch. I let out a muffled yelp. Our eyes met. The giant fish calculated the pause in both of us. She, gauging by her size, thought of her to-do-list, splashed and was gone.

Bigfoot stood startled and frozen, like the much smaller version of man in front of him. With a lurch, he broke to the bank. His giant pads pounded across the sand bar, glacial till crunching asunder. Before he bounded from sight, he paused to shake his body free of the river. Drip drying in the breeze, he disappeared behind me. The wind blowing on my back gave me a signature whiff. He had the earthy, chocolate smell of a cigar bar, layered with musk of marsh. I began to form a picture of the beast’s lifestyle.

***

Salmon, emerging from the depths of Lake Michigan, shine like motor-city chrome in the shallows. With spawn on their mind, they bump noses against the Betsie River current, gauge temperature and wait on the next cold front. Stacked at the starting line in September, they spar in the harbors of Frankfurt. After a year-long sexual drought, everything with fins or fur is preening for action.

On our maiden voyage to Northern Michigan, my lady worked the Traverse City shopping district like it was closed next week. Just as my patience thinned in the August heat, she threw me a bone. “There’s an Orvis Store.”
We wandered in and waded through collared shirts and jackets stitched for casual Friday. A young store-clerk-come-outfitter approached and said, “I heard you talking. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“That’s my line, playa.” My cracker accent gave it all away. I thumbed through the shirt racks. With sinful pride, I held the absent-minded satisfaction of angling forty-inch redfish on the Gulf Coast. “Anybody catching anything?”
He threw his casting hand up on the sunglasses display case, and said, “Big browns, Steelhead and King Salmon - Chinook.”
I raised an eyebrow and asked, “With all due respect to the outfitters peeling client flies from trees, are you catching goodn’s or striper bait?”
His grin spread from the Costas to the SunClouds. “Sir, were catching twenty-five-pound kings all day long, in knee deep water.” Hook. Set!

Then, he pounded the proverbial hammer. “You should come back in September for the spawn.” Unloading me and my attitude off on one of his unsuspecting friends, he handed me a local guide’s card. I made a mental note and bought the SunClouds.

King Salmon in the net Photo: Chad Boles

After I paid, but before I left, the store clerk gave us both a timid warning. “Say hello to BigFoot for me.” Little did we know, he was serious.

Given a glimpse on our first trip, I couldn’t shake him. I was determined to search him out, if only for confirmation of my own sanity. Finally, our marital calendar opened up. We travelled Up North for a June trip. The largest emergence of mayflies on the Jordan River - third knuckle on your ungrateful salute finger - would feed a river full of brown trout. The bugs emerged at dusk. The trout fed at night.

Big Foot Crossing Photo: Chad Boles

As the curtain closed on the day, the surface water popped like bubble wrap. Mud bugs slinked out of their river bottom cocoon and squirmed to the surface. Some took to angelic, winged flight. Many vanished in the violent boil of a spotted carnivore.

Casting at fish gulps in the dark is a refined skill - one I have not refined. Cursing my failure of blind casting at feeding trout, I sat on the boat seat, cradled the rod in my hands and calmed my nerves. I hadn’t been that alone and confused since post-op of my last colonoscopy. But I wasn’t; alone that is. The tingle suffocated my nose – cigar, chocolate and marsh.

In soft grunts he whispered, “Cast to the pops that keep popping. That’s the big one. You’re not casting far enough.” The sound came from the bank of cattails, barely visible in the moonlight.

He was concealed in the curtain of humidity and darkness. But his voice was definitely human, and his logic was spot on. “You missed him. He’s gone. Float down some more.” This was no dumb animal. And just like that, he vaporized into another Michigan memory.

Seasons rolled. Fall colored our memories, and we turned a newlywed’s idea into a tradition. This trip was early, but there was good small mouth action on the Au Sable. It is, possibly, the prettiest stretch of fly snags in the country. Streamers were the lure da jour.

Motoring upstream from the wide shallows, we ventured into the narrower, faster water. Passing a lumber pile of deadfalls, I smelled him before I heard him. Cocoa scented smoke rippled around the boat. He pointed to an otherwise forgettable dark spot on the edge of the river and laughed with the familiarity of a casual affair. “That’s a good hole there, but we knocked the hell out of it yesterday.”

His one hand gripped the handle for balance. His other flicked ashes from the burning end. He was the constant fly-casting guide you hoped for. ‘Too far forward. Stop hard at eleven.”

“Why do they call you Big Foot, Kelly?”

Smoke signals to civilization billowed from his maduro. “You and that kid from the Orvis Store in TC are the only ones that calls me that.” Kelly’s smiling eyes jerked into an eagle’s glare. He followed the subtle movement swimming in position in an underwater shoal. Barely distracted, he continued, “But you come every year. So, you can call me whatever you want. There’s one. Cast to that spot. See him?”

Back to two. Forward to eleven. The line shot the streamer, in mayfly white, through a narrow alley of bare limbs. It dropped on a puddle next to the bank. Visible every inch of the retrieve, I stripped the streamer and tugged the tippet. Swimming in the current, the fly jolted from limb tip to limb tip. The deep dark of the sunken logs flashed golden brown. The rod bent with weight. The line burning in the crook of my finger signaled success.

“Strip! Strip! Strip! He’s on,” Kelly coached.
Smallmouth bass swarmed in a feeding frenzy the entire float. Finally, as all action does, the bite reached a crescendo and the moon phase passed. As it waned, we filled the silent gap with memories of women, fish and football. “Is Paige with you this trip,” he asked. He’d corralled Salmon for her, too.

“You kidding? I’m not allowed to come up here without her. Brought her sisters, too. A fashion bomb is going off on Mackinac Island as we speak.”
“How do you get away with that? I shake more girlfriends loose because they can’t get on board with my guiding schedule.”
“I don’t brag much, Kelly, but I got luck by the balls. My wife is my superpower.”

Kelly’s dimples screwed into his face. Dripping contempt like water off a sagging line, he smirked. “Look! Hard stop at eleven. This shouldn’t be that difficult. You’re whipping the rod too much.”

As I stripped in frustration, eliminating the line bend, the rod doubled up again. “You were saying?” My luck wouldn’t outcast his patience, so I changed the subject, “Michigan gonna’ beat Ohio State again this year?” The taught line jumped and darted around the prop and under the boat.
“Beat em’ four years in a row. What else you want?” Up came the smallmouth tugging against my hook fouled in its tail. With the mesh catch-all in his hand and a stogie in the other, he swaggered. “You really lipped that one. Must’ve been your perfect cast.”
Agreeing, I said, “Thank God for all the mayflies in the water. They’ll eat anything.”

*It’s go time on the Double X (Kelly Neuman) Photo: Chad Boles*

He puffed and asked me, “You know the difference between me and Bigfoot?”

“You’re a Michigan fan and he’s a Spartan?”

“No, man.” He chuckled. “It’s common knowledge Sasquatch bleeds maize and blue.” Patiently, he sent another smoke signal into the breeze. He laughed and blurted out, “The pictures on my website aren’t blurry.”

My bones ached. My muscles cinched up my shoulders. My cheeks hurt from talking and smiling. I crawled back in prehistoric time. No, BigFoot isn’t a monster. He is every man.

BigFoot on the Au Sable

Adrift in Skinny Water in First Place