A s February comes to an end, we can say goodbye to another winter steelhead season. The winter steelhead fishing here on the Manistee was pretty consistent as far as the fishing and fish numbers. With good numbers of fish around all winter that gives us a good outlook on what to expect for our spring season.
March is the start of the spring spawning migration and is what most steelhead anglers sit around thinking about and waiting for all winter. You can expect to have new fish showing up each day and numbers to grow throughout the month. Typically air temperatures start to warm up helping the river warm and snow to melt causing flows to increase which are all things we need to help pull the fish into the system.
We use a wide variety of techniques in March to catch steelhead. We primarily fish floats with center-pins and float rods and switch rods with floats for the fly anglers until the water starts to get big from runoff. Then it’s time to get out the bottom bouncing gear whether it be a fly rod or spinning gear. Once the water gets big, bottom bouncing is a more effective technique to use.
There is a variety of offerings you can use but vary by how you fish. For the float angler, you can use spawn, trout beads, wigglers and jigs, and wax worms. As the month goes on, and we start bottom bouncing, using various colors of yarn flies whether it be a rag style yarn egg or glo-bug style. We also use a variety of nymph patterns this time of the year, such as hex nymphs, green caddis, black and brown stone-flies, salmon fry, and buggers. These are all things every steelhead angler should have in their arsenal.
Look for new fish to show up in every water influence we get, whether it be snow melt or rain. It should be a good spring run here on the Manistee, and March is a great month to get out and shake the winter blahs. Remember the best time to fish is when you can. C-ya out there, tight lines and high fives!