Gateway to Michigan's finest fly-fishing
December has come and it seems that the big push of steelhead we are accustomed to in the fall simply did not. While it was a tough fall, reports from the lake indicate the population is healthy and the lack of rain is to blame for keeping the fish there.
Our long-awaited fishing trip to the Pere Marquette arrived with the snow and wind this past week. Baldwin got a few inches of snow. Grayling a few more. Kalkaska about a foot. It was snowing sideways on the PM, the kind of gale that makes you turtle into the layers
I think of November as the coldest month, as judged by the number of days where I’ve come inside from a day on the river or in the woods and it has taken hours, and a hot shower, to feel right. But this November has been anything but cold. It
The leaves are gone, temps are dropping and it’s the time for the serious steelhead angler to go looking to hunt fish, not deer. As is typical for this time of year, the river is running clear as it’s been a while since we have had a push of water
Almost every early November, I aim for the nastiest day in the forecast and I float solo down the river. Some years this leads to an incredible day of fishing and other years there are too many trout spawning. This year there were too many trout spawning. The modus operandi,
The trout are on the beds on the Au Sable and Manistee Rivers. Be it moon or water temperature or whatever, the spawn seemed to start a week earlier than normal. The picture at the top of the report shows a few brook trout beds (they like the pebbles that
As October winds down, so has the salmon fishing. There seemed to be more salmon this year in the Manistee and Betsie rivers than in recent years as their population builds back up thanks to an increasing baitfish population in the lake. With so many salmon laying eggs in the
Yeah, it’s been gross. I guess you could say that we had it coming. Weeks of sunny, warm weather. Cracking good fall color. Flying ants. The fish were eating hoppers last week! Now it’s tiny olives and nymphs and streamers and gale winds whipping rain from the Great Lakes and
Summer-like weather has come to an end after a few extra weeks of it which continued well into October. The local rivers have been really low from a lack of rain, however today’s rain along with the rain in the forecast should really help get the local rivers into shape
Yeah it was hot but it felt great to squeeze the last out of summer. We did too! I went bass fishing with my kids (all the time…they couldn’t get enough of it), other anglers hit the creeks before they closed, or bombed the last foam bugs of the year.