The unofficial start of summer begins with Memorial Day weekend and this year it coincides with our technical match-the-hatch dry fly fishing on the Manistee, Au Sable and Boardman Rivers. After a long winter and short, cool spring, warmer temps are coming around and so are the bugs. So many different bugs can be found […]
The middle of May finds most anglers on the trout rivers looking for bugs and rising trout. While some days there are good hatches (Hendricksons and Black Caddis) on the upper Manistee and AuSable, finding days when both bugs and rising fish are present has been maddening. With water temps in the upper 50’s I’d […]
With May well underway, it seems that spring is catching up but is still behind on both land and on the water as the morels, leeks and trillium carpet the forest floor and the trout ignore the emerging mayflies. Steelhead are essentially all done save for a straggler or two still in river systems – […]
With trout opener and April behind us, we move from steelhead fishing to trout fishing on the local rivers. While there are still a few steelhead in Betsie and Manistee, there are more fish dropping back than there are fresh fish moving upstream. The others are pretty much preoccupied with spawning. Water temps are right […]
As April begins to wind down it seems we are past the peak of the steelhead run on local rivers including the Manistee and Betsie. Last week’s rain brought the water levels up some along with a few fresh fish, but the majority of fish being caught are actively spawning as well as some drop-back/post […]
Steelhead fishing continues on the local rivers, however the fishing has slowed recently with heavy angling pressure, a majority of the fish hitting spawn mode, and a lot of fish already having completed their annual task. Water temps are in the mid-40s and bright days with lots of sunshine like today really help increase temps […]
Local rivers are holding their own thanks to a slow melt/thaw of the remaining snow in the woods and a lack of significant rainfall. Steelhead fishing has been good as water temps have moved past the 40 degree mark and fish are starting to come out of the depths and are nosing around gravel on […]
As March turns to April we are finding steelhead in most of the rivers which are in good shape as the snow melt thankfully has been slow and gradual. Levels are slightly elevated, and they have color to them, but still enough visibility remains to offer good fishing on the Manistee, Betise and other rivers […]
With the first day of Spring, we are reminded that it’s a transition into the new season, not the flip of a switch. Since last week’s report a lot of snow has melted which brought the river levels up and added some color to it. The water temps are still in the low to mid […]
To say it was a long, cold winter would be to misrepresent that past few months and the multiple polar vortexes, hours of shoveling snow and time spent indoors thinking about fishing. With mid-March, thankfully, comes some sunshine, longer days, warmer temperatures, and opportunities to shake cabin fever by fishing for steelhead. There is still […]
It’s the back half of January and winter has set in with some really cold temps, periodic snow and full-on winter conditions on the rivers. Fishing is limited right now – those needing to shake cabin fever are finding the occasional steelhead on the Betsie and Manistee river. Water levels and clarity are fine, it’s […]
As we cross the mid-point of December anglers are finding fishing conditions to be in step with the season. Cold temps for a month and some snow have the fish in a winter mode and sitting in the slower water and eating a little less aggressively than we got accustomed to the previous months. A […]
