Fishing on the Pere Marquette River has been hard this fall. The poor fishing really kicked off with the lack of king salmon in September and October. As October rolled into November, we experienced unusual warm temperature’s, which really held back the steelhead run. As mid-November arrived, we finally received the weather we needed to bring steelhead into the river. Lots of wind and rain was the recipe to get the ball rolling. Unfortunately, though it didn’t happen. Small pushes of steelhead have been entering the river, not anything to write home about.
What we are seeing is small runs of fish entering the river and the truth is to many of these wild steelhead are getting killed before making their way up stream to spawn. I usually have nothing against killing fish, but this has turned for the worse. With such a lack of fish, all we are doing is decimating the numbers of this wild fishery. As anglers, we need to act on this! Even if we like to harvest steelhead for the table, it’s time to see the big picture. One fish a day for a while could build up a future of steelhead for us all to enjoy for a longtime. We need to educate everyone that fishes this wild fishery or we will lose it. The guides, anglers, and the business owners all need to pull together to protect the future of not only this great river and this terrific game fish, the steelhead. As we move into December, hopefully, the run will be late, and fishing will become much easier.
Right now as I write this it’s has been a lot of work. Covering a lot of water each day in hopes of finding a few fish. It’s more like hunting than fishing. The swing bite has been good this year, because of lack of salmon eggs. The steelhead don’t have much to feed on. So they’re focusing on what ever they can get a hold of for a meal. Egg flies and nymphs have been good when water is low. Try stones, hare’s ears and hex patterns. Eggs try smaller nukes in more natural hues like Oregon Cheese and Golden Nugget.
So I hope that you will read this report and realize it’s the truth. It’s our future and by letting fish go means that it can live for another day. Someone else can enjoy hooking it and most importantly it can have the chance to spawn. Just remember this is a wild fishery so when it does get in trouble no one will be there to back the truck up and dump more into the river. For a weekly report, you can check out outfittersnorth.com.