April on the Manistee brings warmer air temperatures, high water, and our spring steelhead. This is the time of the year most steelhead anglers wait all year for. While the peace and serenity of the winter fishing is behind us we have to get used to the crowds that the spring steelhead run brings. With longer days and the run off from snow melt and rain, we see new fish showing up every day.
April is a month that one can employ many different techniques to catch a steelhead. Float fishing early on with centerpins and fly rods to swinging big streamers with two handed spey rods, and the most common approach, bottom bouncing with spinning tackle and fly gear. All of these techniques will work to catch a steelhead, but some are better than others depending on water conditions.
As the month starts we are still fishing the holes and runs where the fish are holding as they make their migration to their spawning gravel. I prefer to use centerpins and float rods for this using beads, spawn, and jigs for my offering. As the month goes on and the rivers start to rise, we blow the dust off the bottom bouncing gear and get the pencil lead out. This is the most common and easiest way to fish for steelhead. 9-10 foot fly or spinning rods rigged with running lines or 8-10 pound mono main lines to a swivel with a pencil lead weight and a 5-7 foot, 6-8 pound leader to your offering. Yarn flies, beads, and nymphs such as green caddis, hex nymphs, stone flies, and small minnow patterns all work well.
It’s been a long winter as we all know, so dust off the rods, replace the lines on your reels, load your fly boxes, check your waders for leaks, and head out to your favorite fishing spot. It should be a real good spring fishing season going well into May. So get out and enjoy it, remember take out what you bring in and use care when releasing your fish, they are the future of our fishery.
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