The Fly Fishing Santa

December 18th, 2015

It wouldn’t be Christmas around here without dusting off the Fly Fishing Santa video and bringing it out of the vault.

Merry Christmas and may your stockings be stuffed with steelhead.

The Fly Fishing Santa from Third Coast Fly on Vimeo.

Streamer Fishing for Michigan Steelhead Series

December 15th, 2015

Way back in 2010 I put together a series on streamer fishing for steelhead. If you happen to find yourself with a free hour, here you go: 1) Gearing Up, 2) Fly Patterns, 3) Reading Water, 4) Water Conditions and Finding Patterns, 5) Presentation Styles, 6) Fishing Basics and 7) Are We Missing Fish?

michigan steelhead streamers

Pere Marquette River Fishing Report- December 10th

December 10th, 2015

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.

fly fishing michigan steelhead michigan fall steelhead

Northern Kentucky Fly Fishers

December 8th, 2015

I was on the road last week to give a talk to the Northern Kentucky Fly Fishers (NKFF). They asked me to give a presentation on fly fishing opportunities in Michigan. This was a great project to make me think about the almost limitless waters Michigan has to offer. To give some focus to the presentation I decided to make it my Michigan Top Ten.

The NKFF is a great club and group of guys and I appreciate them inviting me down. At their meeting they were discussing an award they had recently received as a result of some of the charity work they do.

For what it’s worth here is my Michigan Top Ten list: 10-near shore (stuff like salmon and trout in Great Lakes harbors), 9-guided trip in an AuSable boat, 8-hex, 7-salmon, 6-egging for trout, 5-mousing, 4-big smallmouth, 3-big streamers for trout, 2-Great Lakes carp and 1-steelhead.

Below are a few of my favorite slides from the presentation.

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