Steelhead fishing has been very good here on the Pere Marquette River. We’re seeing some of the best late October numbers Steve has ever seen and Steve’s been fishing this river for more than thirty years. The fish are really keyed into eggs. There are just enough salmon left in the system to be pumping out plenty of eggs, but not too many to make our flies obsolete. We’ve caught them on big nuke eggs, glo bugs, clown eggs and beads. We’re fishing indicator rigs and running the flies fairly shallow, 3-5′ typically. The fish are moving up to grab them.
We’ve made some efforts to swing one up on a streamer but we’ve had very little interest aside from a few territorial follows and swipes. When the salmon thin out a little more the streamer fishing should improve dramatically.
And remember: all of our steelhead here on the Pere Marquette River are wild, stream born fish. Occasionally you’ll catch a stray stocker from another river (look for a clipped fin), but it is rare. Please handle the fish carefully and return them to the water as quickly as possible.
