The river is still super high and difficult to fish, nearly impossible to wade, though it is finally dropping in the fly water. The picture below is of the old trestle above Gleason’s Landing. Usually the timbers are at least a foot out of the water. You can barely tell they’re there at all in this picture. Lower river’s still coming up at 1570cfs last night in Scottville. There are decent numbers of steelhead around in the middle and upper river and we’re expecting excellent steelhead fishing as soon as the river drops and comes back into shape.
But right now, the story for me at least, has been the brown trout. I walked into the fly water on Tuesday afternoon just to get a look at the river. It was out of the banks and chocolate. But you don’t walk into the fly water without a rod. I flipped a 7″ black and olive Ditch Pig from the bank for about 20 minutes with nothing to show for it. I switched over to a white and ginger version and on the second cast, strip strip, strip strip, boom. Big brown. The fish was right where it was supposed to be: inside bend in the soft water.
Sound good to anybody? Offering a special right now for this Sunday April 10th only: first person to respond via email or 231-898-4320 can fish a half day for $150. Steelhead, browns, both. Drop a line if you’re interested. Still have other good dates available throughout what is shaping up to be a very long steelhead season.
