Yeah, It's been Hot!!!
Really, too hot to fish and be fair to the fish. An overly warm June has morphed into an overly warm July, at least by Northern Michigan standards. I'm a firm believer that fish mortality in hot weather goes up substantially and that is largely because folks travel to get to their favorite stream, and by God, they're gonna fish come hell or warm water. That is simple selfishness and being uninformed. Temps in the North Branch of the Au Sable last week actually hit 84 degrees in mid-stream, (or so it was reported to me.) So, do the fish a favor and take a walk with the family or go to the bar and keep cool instead, and if you're hell bent on fishing, do it early before the heat hits the water. This in itself can be tricky. Three nights ago, we had a low of 44 followed by 86 during the day followed by an overnight low near 80 followed by daytime highs in the mid-90's and today's high much better in the low 70's. The long range shows us going back through the roof this week. But enough lecture on what should be common sense angling.
The shop right now is in its mid-summer lull. This is the time of year I get the wood up for the winter, catch up on the mechanical crap that I hate and get other projects out of the way. Right now, the back area is graced with a sizeable pile of lumber waiting for foundation and slab for an additional garage. This will let me tweak the current shop/work area and make things much less crowded. I firmly believe your stuff increases exponentially to the amount of room available to you. I will try to remember this drawback in populating the new space and try to spread the clutter rather than adding to it.
So, all that being said, I'm not spending much time in the shop proper at the moment and orders are caught up (more or less). I do anticipate that the end of August will see me back at the bench eight hours a day. Current lead time on custom rods is 4-6 months. Order now and you'll have it for Christmas. Of course, we still have about a dozen rods in inventory with some real beauties added before the Midwest Fly Fishing Expo. We invite you to give a shout and come by the shop if and when you're in town. We are open by appointment at present and are here most of the time, except when we're out camping or otherwise enjoying the beautiful fruits of the Northern Michigan lifestyle.
Easy directions to the shop can always be found on the "Contact Us" page. Just give us a call!
Until next time, enjoy your summer and your time with family and friends and keep the waders dry on the inside. (I already violated this maxim with full baptism a couple weeks ago.)
John (and Mary) Niemann
The Razing Kane Rod Company
940 Sumac Trail, PO Box 32
989-344-8320
