Muskegon River Trout - Fly Fishing Hatches

Muskegon River Trout Fishing - Dry Fly Hatch fishing at it's finest!

 

Sucker spawn is for kids! It's great opportunity to introduce your son or daughter into fly fishing. Trout fishing during the sucker's spawn has constant fish landing action with the small 8" - 12" trout. They're also sure to hook into a couple big trout! They're great for kids to learn the fundamentals of fly fishing and have a great time on the water. This technique is very easy to learn. Half days are also perfect for this technique.

For those of you interested in trophy brown trout fishing, we are extremely excited about the upcoming Gray Drake spinner fall! If you look back through the fishing report, you'll see we have landed some giant resident brown trout throughout the winter and early spring. All of these big second year trout will be in the shallows feeding on Gray Drake mayflies. Dry fly fishing the Gray Drake spinners  is an angler's best opportunity by far, to land a trophy brown trout. Sight fishing to these big browns is an adrenaline rush! You're hunting trophy browns!

May & June are the the time for Dry fly fishing with the Gray Drake Spinners. (Gray Drakes are a mid-sized may fly with smoke clear wings, a thin variegated body, and a white ring around the eyes.) Most spinner falls occur just be for dark.

Drakes also always spinner fall on a riffle or fast current. Muskegon's most overlooked hatch, typically found in the middle to lower sections of the river. Thornapple - Henning Park.

Dry fly trout fishing the Grey Drake  in late May. Without question, my favorite time of the year for trophy brown trout on the Muskegon River! Sight fishing giant pig browns feeding in the evenings on the surface. It's one of the only times of the year that browns are less wary during daylight hours. These trout gorge on Gray Drakes and nymphs preparing to emerge.

Muskegon River Hatches: March Browns, Caddis, Quill Gordons, Black quills, and Sulphers. Gray Drakes coming soon! We still have good numbers of steelhead in the system on shallow gravel redds. Key locations are holding fish. Chinook Salmon fry are everywhere against the banks. Resident Trout are feeding on fry and parr big time - Making for some fantastic Streamer fishing during the next several weeks.

Coming up in late May, early June, we have the Gray Drake spinner fall offering some of the best dry fly fishing there is in the mid west!

Muskegon River Trout Fishing Report

Muskegon River Steelhead - Spring Steelhead

Muskegon River - The Muskegon River, as always, is far behind, because of the warm water reservoirs. The Muskegon River improved greatly over the next few day with the high water levels. Over the past few days, rain and warmer weather has dramatically improved the Steelhead fishing on the Muskegon River. There seems to be good numbers of steelhead starting to show near the mid to lower sections. Deeper holes and runs have been producing the best fishing action. With forecasted rain, fishing should continue to improve. The middle to last week of March and April should offer some great Fall Steelhead fishing, I would also expect to see a handful of large, Lake-Run Brown Trout.

Fly fishing has been our choice technique. Deep water nymphing has been producing good numbers of Steelhead with the stone fly emergence. Stone flies emerge near 36 - 38 degrees and Steelhead key in on them big time!

Muskegon River Spring Steelhead

Spring Steelhead on the Muskegon River.

Over the past two days, I had the pleasure of fly fishing with Shun Washiya. Shun lives in the UK and in his words, took a "fly fishing holiday to visit Steelhead designations around the world." The Muskegon River was first on the his list!

I was less than pleased with the weather forecast... winds 7-15 in the morning, highs in the mid twenties... Just what you want to hear when fly fishing for Steelhead.
Nothing like frozen fly line and frost bit finger tips. After changing fly lines and teaching Shun our bastardized method of Great Lakes Chuck-n-Duck, things began to roll along quite nicely.( After a morning Monster, and 6 hand warmers ) Within the first few drifts of the morning he was in to a fat Rainbow in the riffle above Pine Street.
This spot is loaded with trout and is a great way to start the morning!

Around 11:30 things began to change. The wind died down and the sun popped out for awhile. We moved the boat to several deeper runs. Many drifts and only a few small trout in those locations. I decided to change up patterns instead of moving. Shun hit his first Steelhead of the day, a stout double striped buck pictured on left. After ten photos Shun was fired up, had faith in the water (and guide) and was now ready to fish! We managed to hook four more Steelhead that afternoon and landed another bright hen and a smaller buck.

Those of you that know me well understand that I prefer to fish floats and spawn during the cold winter months. Typically, you hook and play far more Steelhead and line management is just easier. It did feel great to hook-up Steelhead on a fly rod. There is certainly something different about feeling the "grab" of the fly verses watching a float go down. They are both cool if there is a fish at the end!

By the second day, things were beginning to groove well. Shun had the cast and the drift down and fishing smoothly. Air temps, still not warm, were better than the day before. Within the first three hours on Sunday, he had landed an nice Brown, hooked two other Steelhead and landed a dark winter hen from a deep run. Oddly though, almost every Steelhead landed (7 for 11- 2 days) were all on either Stone flies or Hex nymphs. Often times that is a sign that Spring is near, the hens need protein to help mature the eggs, Stone flies become active in late February, and salmon fry begin to emerge this time of year. I was thinking more along the lines that every Steelhead from the Dam to Bridgton have all been either hooked, pricked, stung, or caught and released on spawn sacks or egg flies. Nymphs were something different.

Point being that we both had a fantastic two days of fly fishing! Not the best weather or best conditions. The water was 32 degrees, low, and gin clear. Because the Muskegon is a tailwater fishery, it has so much more to offer. It never freezes, and has piles of resident trout and a lot of Steelhead. How many places in the world today, can you hook over ten Steelhead in two days fly fishing in February? This river has a lot to offer anglers. Sometime this Spring, take and day and enjoy the river!

Muskegon River Spring Steelhead

Muskegon River Fly Fishing Report

Great Lakes Steelhead Flies

Michigan Fly Fishing Guides

Michigan Fly Fishing