I had a chance to get out and fish Monday and Tuesday this week. Monday was really slow but yesterday things seemed to really pick up, we saw more salmon in an hour and a half than I have all year, it really seemed to turn on overnight. There were a lot of fish on the spawning gravel and new ones pushing up. After a weird beginning of the fall it was great to see things shaping up, even if it is a month behind. It seems a lot of people have been frustrated by the slower start, but remember that fish don’t have calendars, they were just waiting for the conditions and temperature to tell them it’s time to move up. From what we saw yesterday, we should be in for a good fall. Fishing should be good from here on out for salmon, steelhead and resident trout.

We decided to fish beads behind the gravel and nick caught the nice steelhead in the picture on a trout bead under a bobber

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The Muskegon River, in addition to providing world-class fishing for salmon, steelhead and trout, is alsoone of the best small mouth fisheries in the area. Smallmouth Bass are one of the toughest, hardest fighting fish in freshwater and are perfectly suited to be pursued with a fly rod.

Here is a short intro on what gear to use when chasing these fish. I am by no means an expert, so for more indepth information I recommend the DVD “Big Appetite, Small Mouth” which was made by Jon Ray and Kevin Feenstra who have each probably forgotten more about these fish than I will ever know. It can be purchased through Jon’s site Mangled Fly Media or through Kevin’s retail site Swing A Big Fly.

RODS AND REELS:

Due to their fighting ability as well as the fact that the flies used are often quite large, fishing for smallmouths requires a rod with the typical 4 or 5 wt most people use for trout and panfish. Anything from a 6wt to a 9wt can make a decent smaller rod. My preference is a faster action 7wt. I feel it’s morethan capable of putting the brakes on the fish and it throws flies from small poppers and little baitfish patterns all the way to large articulated streamers and great big surface flies. However, if you already own a 6, 8, or 9wt, they will work just fine too. Any reel with a decent drag system that can hold your fly line and a little backing will work just fine.

LINES:

As we have all seen over the past few years, the number of different fly lines on the market has been growing at a staggering rate and frankly, it can cause confusion. It is absolutely possible to fish smallies in most conditions with a single weight forward line and a couple of versileaders in varying densities. However, the more you get into it, the more it becomes apparent that have three different lines can be very beneficial. An aggressive weight forward floater, The following are all good choices for FLOATING LINES FOR SMALLMOUTH FISHING:

• Scientific Anglers: Siege and Magnum
• Rio’s Outbound Short, Power Fly, and Smallmouths Bass
• Airflo’s 40 Plus and Streamer Float

The next type of line is a good fast sinking tip line (which doubles as a line to streamer fish for trout). We recommend:

• Scientific Anglers Sink 25 Cold series (These replaced the old Streamer Express models)

The third type of line that is often a great asset is a slow sinking intermediate such as:.

• SA’s Titan Taper Clear Tip
• Rio’s Outbound Short with the intermediate head.

The idea by having the three different lines is so that you can fish different depths and with different types of bass flies: The floating line is for fishing on the surface with poppers, divers, mice, gurglers and sliders. There are also some situations where a floating line with a long leader and heavy fly can be the ideal way to fish sub-surface.

The intermediate line is to fish the two feet below the surface with baitfish patterns or with any fly that you want to present in that water column. They cast nicely and are great for weary fish. The fast sinking line is for fishing deeper. This is perfect for presenting flies like Crayfish, Goby, Sculpin and others that are usually found at the very bottom of the river. They do not cast as nicely as the floating and intermediate lines but after a little practice they aren’t so bad.

FLIES FOR THE MUSKEGON: 

Note: This list is simply the patterns that I personally like the best. There are 100’s of others that can work just as well so don’t be afraid to experiment. Kevin Feenstra’s site FeenstraOutdoors.com and Matt Zudwegs site BoneyardFlyGear.com are both great resources for fly tying recipes.

• Matt Zudwegs Zudbubbler
• Deceivers in White/Chartreuse, white/blue, white/pink, white/red, white/yellow, white/gray, white/black, all white and all yellow
• White/Chartreuse Clouser (pink, green, blue, red, gray, and many others with white can all work too, as can solid white, solid yellow, solid chartreuse and many others.)
• Crayfish Patterns
• Goby Patterns
• Sculpin Patterns
• White Circus Peanuts
• Near Nuff Sculpin
• Whitlock’s Scorpion
• Balsa Poppers
• Crease Flies
• Deer hair and foam head divers
• Sneaky Petes
• Gurglers
• Mice imitations
• And many others!

We want to let everyone know that we will be putting on a showing of the The F3T Fly Fishing Film Tour again this year. It will be on April 22 and at the Dogwood Center in Fremont. Tickets aren’t available quite yet because we have just nailed down the date and all but we will keep you posted.

It looks like this years films may be the best yet from the trailers which can be viewed at http://www.flyfilmtour.com/watch-trailers/

We have been getting some good fishing reports or steelhead and trout fishing.

Steelhead fishing continues to be productive and should continue to improve with the warmer temps. Spring flies liike eggs and stoneflies and trout beads have all been producing.

Not much of a “transition” from trout to smallmouth fishing this year. All of a sudden Boom! The water is in the mid 70’s and it is DEFINITELY time to switch over to smallmouth if you care about the trout. It’s just too hot to be able to target trout without taking a toll on the fish.

Thundersticking the deep water for kings continues to be productive. Here is Charlie with one he got this evening.

Picture of a nice Brown caught on Stone fly

The few people getting on river are doing fairly well.

Steelhead are still hitting egg flies and beads plus stone flies and fry patterns.

Yesterday with the warm weather there was a good hatch of Stones with some nice Browns being caught.

Remember to practice social distancing and stay safe

There are plenty of steelhead and lake run brown trout in the river and it look’s like the next week or so is going to provide us with some decent weather and some comfortable conditions to get out and fish. Things are supposed to cool down quite a bit this weekend but it looks like next week is going to be quite mild with temps in the high 30’s. (10 Day Weather Forecast For Newaygo) We got a nice little bump in the water level with yesterdays melt and conditions look good.

Any of the usual winter steelheading methods can produce:

• Swinging streamers (Black, purple, blue and sculpin patterns are good winter choices)
• Back trolling plugs
• Bottom bouncing with nymphs and egg patterns.
• Fishing beads, nymphs, buggers and jigs under bobbers.
• Stripping large streamers can yield some very large browns this time of year
• Those nymphing for trout will find succcess with worm patterns, scuds, and hare’s ears.

Current River Conditions (@ below Croton Dam):

• Flow Rate: 1950CFS
• Gage Height: 5.47ft
• Water Temperature: 34 Degrees Fahrenheit

Fall weather is finally here, and since it also came with spring like rainfall, steelhead season has really picked up. The water has started to come down and is currently flowing at 4440 CFS with the gage height at 7 1/2 feet. Water temps also experience a decline from 61 degrees on Monday to 57 degrees on Friday. Water Clarity is still not too bad, not “blown out” or muddy by any means.

Although there were good numbers of steelhead in before the rain, they’ve increased significantly since and fishing has been excellent. Although the high water dictates the types of fishing that prove effective (Swinging streamers is still a very difficult task simply because it’s next to impossible to cast a heavy enough tip to reach the right depth and to slow the swing down) those employing methods that get the presentation down have been reporting absolutely great fishing. Bottom bouncing (aka chuck and duck), pulling plugs, casting and retrieving crankbaits, spoons or spinners, and fishing under floats.

With the colder water trout fishing has also improved greatly and we do still have numbers of Kings in the river too.

FOR THOSE WADING PLEASE USE EXTREME CAUTION AND DON’T TAKE RISKS YOU SHOULDN’T. STUDDED OR FELT SOLED BOOTS AND WELL AS A WADING STAFF ARE RECOMMENDED FOR ALL BUT ARE 100% NECESSARY FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO WADE IN THE HIGH WATER WHO DONT KNOW THE RIVER ALL THAT WELL.