Third Coast Fly

We received a good shot of water the other day and it brought the river up quite a bit. This is good because it really helped clean the system out of a lot of zombie salmon. Salmon numbers have fallen off quite dramatically over the last several days, but the ones that are around are fresh and quite aggressive. There were still more than enough to target in the upper river on Saturday, particularly with the lack of angling competition.

The river picked up a nice stain so streamer fishing for browns would be OK if the high water also flushed some eggs out of the system, but I think it might be a while before their appetite returns. And we’ve seen a lot of dead browns around, maybe eating themselves to death? Particularly on those hard white dead eggs? But if you like stripping streamers there are good numbers of cohos in the upper river right now that will track down and nail a streamer most days.

Good numbers of steelhead in the lower river and this rain will hopefully bring in another batch. King salmon season on the Pere Marquette is winding down. We’ll see if the recent rain will bring in some fresh fish and keep this already epic season epic a while longer. We’ll see.

We are still going strong in the salmon department here on the Pere Marquette. Fresh fish are getting harder to come by, but there are still plenty very fresh fish around. Check out Doug’s beautiful fresh hen from yesterday below.

The weather has improved dramatically over the past week or so. Some might even say it improved a little too much. It was almost starting to feel like summer again with highs breaking the eighty degree mark. But it’s hard to argue with crystal clear skies, bright sun and warm temps after all the rain and cold we’ve had this fall. The warmer water temps also mean that a lot of 20lb salmon are getting airborne. Lots of fun.

Steelhead are around but we need some rain and probably some colder weather to get a good push moving up the river. There are literally gobs of eggs in the river right now so targeting browns and steelhead behind salmon is pretty much useless. It’s more a matter of lucking into one than anything else. We’ve lucked into a couple steelhead in the upper river fishing the dark water behind gravels, but nothing to the net over the past week.

It seems like the peak of the salmon run has coincided with the peak of the anglers this year which is always nice. Though what is even better is that it looks like we will continue to have good numbers of salmon in the river while angler pressure will decline dramatically. If you want to have lots of big fish mostly to yourself, now is the time to come. We still have a few open days in October, so if you want to get in on some last minute salmon (or steelhead or trout) fishing, drop us a line.

There are fish all over the gravels in the middle and upper river with several holes in the middle river still packed tight with fresh fish waiting to move up. Plenty of fast moving migrators pushing through every day, particularly with the slightly higher stained water over the past several days. Last week was pretty rainy but the river is in perfect condition. We got our first shot of cold weather the other night with lows in the upper 20s and a solid frost yesterday morning.

Our best flies continue to be big nuke eggs in steelhead orange with white veil, hot pink with white veil, and grapefruit: steelhead orange with chartreuse veil. Streamers at first light hung in front of fish will usually elicit a strike, though the streamer bite often slows down during the day.

We’ve been getting into quite a few nice brown trout and a couple steelhead too. We’ll have a bonus fish fishing report tomorrow, so stay tuned.