What's the right bait for fish? Fly fishing expert's book offers advice

on June 18, 2012 at 9:41 AM, updated June 18, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Muskegon Brown - Ann Miller.JPGAnn Miller

The dedication in Ann Miller’s new book, "Hatch Guide for Upper Midwest Streams," is not unusual in its expressed gratitude to her husband, Ken Ankli, and their three daughters: Aura, Abbey and Aiden.


What’s unusual, though, is Miller thanking them "for lovingly putting up with escaped bugs in the house." That, and her expressed appreciation for them coping with her 3½-year obsession, which led to constructing small, running streams in the garage so she could observe and photograph the life stages of the insects she was writing about.

"My project started off largely in the garage, but I had a photo studio in the house, and the darn things kept flying away," said Miller, an aquatic biologist by training and an avid fly angler. "I had them in a sealed-up room, but when a size-18 sulphur (a tiny, yellow fly) gets away, they are pretty hard to find.





"If you can solve the puzzle, you can catch more fish," Miller said. "People assume that all the bugs are in all rivers. They are not, just as there are not grouse or ducks in every woods or marsh.



"I spent several years seining (netting bugs) in that water and never found one gray drake," she said. "So I sampled all kinds of other habitat and found they live on vegetation along the banks. I can’t explain where that other reference came from, but I found them by the thousands along banks and overflow areas. I found a lot of things like that."



"Insects are the heart of fly fishing," Miller said. "I know there are people who throw streamers (flies that imitate small fish) and you can catch really big trout that way. We know that brown trout cruise and eat smaller trout at night, but that doesn’t mean they don’t eat big mayflies. They do — along with crayfish and mice.


"I can’t wait to dry fly fish at this time of year. May and June are bug heaven."


