The big news on the Pere Marquette is snow melt. Last week we had some unseasonably warm weather in the high 40s and mild overnight lows. It melted probably 80% of our snow pack and the river came up. The lower river is still coming up, we were at 1380cfs last night, but word is the upper river is dropping and clearing already, though still expect high levels and use caution when wading. Wading in the middle river is not advised and the lower river is pretty much unfishable. But with all this water we’re expecting a good push of spring steelhead and fishing should get very good as soon as the river drops and the weather warms up a bit.
Fishing last week was good. The water came up fast on Wednesday night and on Thursday we were pushing the 1000cfs mark but clarity was still OK in the upper river with a good tannin stain. I fished the upper river with Steve and Matt from the Detroit area. We hooked one confirmed steelhead but didn’t get her to the net. The streamer fishing was much better for browns with good water temps all the way up at 42 degrees. We hooked seven or eight fish, all over 16″. Rippin’ streamers for big browns is only going to get better. I can’t wait. The steelhead was hooked on a chartreuse nuke egg and the browns were all hooked on large, natural colored streamers: a natural brown zonker and an olive Circus Peanut with chartreuse barred sili legs.
Steve was in the middle river on Thursday where his client hooked several steelhead and several cohos. Cohos are still in the river! We are really hoping that this late winter coho thing happens again next year.
With temperatures and weather back to normal over this past weekend, water in the upper river was 37-38 on Saturday and quite high and muddy. Streamer fishing for browns was terrible and steelhead fishing was tough as well. A couple days and things should really be shaping up around here! Remember, only 10 days left to take advantage of our March Madness sale.
