The salmon season on the Pere Marquette is now over. It was a pretty good year compared to last year. We received a good amount of rain in September, and October and this rain was constantly moving fish into the river. All the rain kept the river up and brought small pushes of fish in throughout the month of October. Most of the fish were kings, but it also enticed a few steelhead to start to hit the river. With more rain in November, we see a consistent push of steelhead, lake run brown trout, and coho’s entering the river. So if deer hunting isn’t your thing try hitting the river this fall. November is exciting; you just don’t know what you’re going to hook on your fly rod. Resident trout key in on egg flies and streamers especially the brown trout. They spawn in the fall, so they want to fill their bellies before and after their spawning occurs.
Egg flies fished under a strike indicator with a floating line works very well this time of year. You get a nice slow, realistic presentation as the egg flies are floating in the current. This approach will fool many species of fish in the fall. Steelhead especially love an egg fly fished slowly; that is why they came into the river in the first place, to gorge on salmon eggs throughout the fall and winter. Another technique and my favorite way to pursue steelhead in the fall is on the swung fly. This approach is a more traditional way to hook steelhead. It’s fishing a streamer with a downstream presentation of casting on a slight downstream angle with a sink tip and letting the fly slowly go down through the water column with hopes that it swings in front of a steelhead’s nose. The bigger flashier fly coax the predator/prey instincts of the steelhead in which it strikes violently at your fly. If you have never tried this form of fishing with a fly, it’s cool. For more info on it, you can check out my website at www.outfittersnorth.com.
By: Capt. Jeff Hubbard
Outfitters North Guide Service
(231) 898-6246
www.outfittersnorth.com