Team indigo will be invading Indiana this weekend.
Steve is heading to FlyMasters for their Hardy Two Handed event. Steve will be available on Saturday to answer questions and give instruction.
On Saturday I (Kevin) will be heading to the Hoosier Outdoor Writers for their 2012 conference. I’ll be giving a presentation on Lake Michigan tributary fishing.
Last summer In-Fisherman’s Steve Hoffman visited us on Beaver Island to shoot a carp show.
I forgot how big that last fish was, you have to love it when everything falls into place.
Steve sent the following:
I fished the trout opener this weekend on the Muskegon River with Carston and Annie from South Africa. All in all it was far from a horrible trout opener. We managed a few hookups on steelhead, netting one and the trout fishing was really good.
Annie caught a really nice brown right off the bat and Carston followed up with a big rainbow, this was along with a gob of smaller ones. It kept us busy.
We started at Croton Dam on Saturday floating down to Thornapple, saw a few steelhead but not many. Sunday was Thornapple to New Bridge, same scenario with us landing some good browns but there were less steelhead.
For some time the PM and other area rivers have been chuck full of baby salmon or fry as they are properly referred. I’m sure there are newly hatched steelhead alevin already in the rivers with many more to come.
These alevin and fry are greedily consumed by the steelhead, trout and anything else that might enjoy a delicious sliver of protein. If your fly box doesn’t include a few patterns that mimic small baitfish your missing the boat. I often fish these patterns as the trailer on a egg drift rig or as a small streamer worked close to the bank and around cover.
Over on the Indigo site we have three solid patterns: the Alevin Martinez, Baby Salmon and Blueburg.
Steelhead fishing on the PM has actually gotten a notch or two better over the past two weeks. It seems that the recent rains have brought in a fresh bunch of new fish.
Along with spawners there are also lots of opportunity for drop-backs and trout.
Our “hot fly” the past few days has been the Ted’s Latex Caddis (pictured below), a cousin to the Ted’s Slingshot Caddis. The Latex version is tied with the band from a latex glove and a sparkle pink dubbed head.
