fishing reports

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Feb 02
2012

Pere Marquette fishing report -Feb 1st

The weather is weird here. It snows a bunch then it gets warm and everything melts. Repeat. The river has a nice stain right now from the fly water to the Big South. The ice has broken up in the lower river and the river below the Big South is most likely quite stained. With highs in the low 50s on Monday the steelhead and trout fishing has turned on. We heard the steelhead fishing was particularly good on Monday. Seth was up yesterday and we stripped streamers for trout and stuck a couple decent fish but we didn’t roll anything to get excited about. No luck with the steelhead, but others on the river had a little better luck.

It’s weird to head out and strip streamers for trout on Feb 1st and it’s pretty cool to stick a few, particularly after last year’s brutal winter. This weather will make for a strange winter and spring steelhead season as the fall and winter run fish will spawn as soon as the water warms up into the 40s, which it was very close to doing on Monday. There are some worked up gravels throughout the fly water, but we didn’t see any fish on them yesterday.

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brown trout / fishing reports / pere marquette fishing report / steelhead — Comments Off
Jan 18
2012

Pere Marquette fishing report -January 17th

Winter finally arrived here in northern Michigan last week with a good 6″+ of snow after weeks and weeks of freakishly warm weather. Steve and I were out the last two days, including yesterday in an all out blizzard which dumped at least another 6″ of snow, probably a good bit more but I’m so often accused of exaggerating snowfall amounts I’m playing it safe, and has brought in some colder temps. We were all so busy with other obligations during the warm weather since Christmas that we didn’t get a chance to fish much. Leave it to us to head out as soon as the weather turns harsh.

The lower river is finally starting to build some ice in the slower sections and some considerable slush. We had a tough day of it yesterday fishing in the blizzard. We didn’t stick one fish. Granted we didn’t fish nearly as hard as we might have on a nice day, but the lower river has been getting hit very hard by the meat hunters with the warm weather and if a section of river gets fished out it takes longer for fresh fish to move in this time of year. So let’s hope for some super cold weather and a nice protective layer of ice.

The upper river fished a little better on Monday with one steelhead and a few decent trout to hand over about 6 hours of fishing. Everything came on orange 8mm beads.

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fishing reports / pere marquette fishing report / steelhead — Comments Off
Dec 26
2011

Pere Marquette fishing report -Dec 24th

Kevin sends the following report from last week:

With lingering mild weather and a few days off before Christmas, Paul and Sue called to see if it was worth driving up for a day of steelheading. The goal was a fun day on the water before winter really hits and hopefully a steelhead or two in the net.

What happened instead was a total pre-Christmas pig fest. While I have experienced several pig fests over my 12 years of guiding, most have involved a road trip to the buffet with Steve and Matt. I much prefer the coveted steelhead pig fest as it rarely involves heartburn, gas and moaning. Well, maybe some moaning.

Paul and Sue missed many more steelhead than they landed and they landed a bunch pitching plugs last Friday. The most impressive part of the day was the size of the fish. The smallest was about six and a half pounds and the largest was a 33″ monster that almost won the battle with Sue late in the day.

With perfect low light conditions for photography I couldn’t have been more disappointed when I dumped my camera. I expected great shots but got a total mess. I usually have my camera pre-set for average conditions but unfortunately I made a totally amateur mistake by forgetting to reset my camera from an extreme setting I was using a few days before. Sorry!

Paul, Sue and I must have been extra good in 2011 because Santa totally stuffed our net with lots of great steelhead.

The forecast is for this warmer weather to hold up for the next week or so. Great time to hit the Pere Marquette. Drop us a line if you want to book a trip.

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fishing reports / pere marquette fishing report / steelhead — Comments Off
Dec 21
2011

Pere Marquette fishing report -Dec 20th

Fishing continues to be good here on the Pere Marquette. While we got about and inch of snow on Saturday, temperatures have yet to get really cold. Highs in the low to mid 30s and a good shot of rain last week have kept the river is great shape. There are good numbers of fish in the entire river system and as long as this weather holds we should continue to see good fishing.

I hit the lower river yesterday for a couple hours and swung streamers in three runs. On about the tenth swing in the first run the big fish you see below creamed that big orange and gold streamer.

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fishing reports / pere marquette fishing report / steelhead — Comments Off
Dec 15
2011

Pere Marquette fishing report -Dec 13th

Kevin had Larry in the boat on Monday and said with the unbelievably mild December weather, catching steelhead on swung flies was about as good as it gets. One fish was so bright that the camera’s autofocus wouldn’t work. Kevin said they swung a dark streamer for a couple hours with one weak bump, but then switched to a light pattern and had a fish in the net in just a few minutes.

The lower river is far from freezing, unless winter decides to hit hard and cold. Get in on some last minute fall steelheading before it turns to winter steelheading. This weather has been fantastic.

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