Third Coast Fly

The PM has been fishing well the past week. Warm weather and recent rains brought a big bunch of fresh steelhead up from Lake Michigan. These new steelhead were dearly needed as our winter fish had  spawned early and headed down, I’m sure the pre and post spawn fish high-fived as they passed or maybe a low-one is what fish do.

It raided all day yesterday and the river is on the rise but it doesn’t look like it’s going to get out of control and should make for some good fishing for the weekend.

I can guarantee that I’ll be fishing 12 pound and big bright stuff until at least next week.

Steelheading on the PM has remained consistent with a couple fish in the net with a day spent on the water. Anyone who lives in the region knows that the weather has been very mild, making it unusually pleasent to be outside for December.

Water levels and clarity are just about perfect. I still don’t have a good feel for how many new steelhead moved from the big lake into the river following the recent high water.

The water downstream from Indian Bridge is still where you want to be. Why we aren’t getting many steelhead upstream of there is still a mystery. Are most of this falls steelhead stocked fish from the Big South Branch? Are 90% of the steelhead simply being harvested before they can make it through the first 30 miles of the PM?

While there is almost never a time when eggs don’t produce steelhead, there are times when they will take almost nothing but eggs. Over the past few weeks I’ve been impressed with how many steelhead we’ve been hitting on the swinging. Good stuff.