The steelhead and brown trout are getting more and more active overall here on the Pere Marquette River. There are more and more patches of worked up gravel through the middle and upper river every day indicating actively spawning fish. And drop back steelhead are being caught. The vast majority of the fall and winter fish are still around and there are fresh fish moving in every day, though the spring run is still in front of us, but probably not by more than a couple weeks.
Steve and I put in about 6 hours of fishing in the middle river two days ago fishing indicators and egg and nymph patterns and went a rather disappointing one for one on steelhead. The one fish we caught took a clown egg. We saw a couple spawning fish and left them alone. We also caught a good number of brown trout 12-14″. Yesterday we hit the rather crowded lower river and in 3 hours of fishing went one for two. Both fish took an 8mm sun orange bead.
The river is dropping and is quite clear, even below the Big South Branch. The fishing can be very good or poor depending on the weather, fishing pressure, and whether you want to fish plugs, bottom bounce with chuck and duck rigs, drift flies under indicators, or swing flies, but the fishing will only improve with warmer weather and some rain.
The last couple weeks of March and the first week of April will probably see peak numbers this year, so book your guide dates with Indigo Guide Service now if you haven’t already. We still have some great openings left for March and April.
