November is the best month of the year in Michigan if you enjoy the outdoors. Most people consider November as deer hunting season, but for anglers the hunt is on for a different type of species. Fly anglers hunt for silver. Silver, as in fresh from the lake, wild Pere Marquette steelhead.
We start to see the steelhead entering the river towards mid -October. This year the water has been quite clear, making fishing tough on sunny days. We look forward to some rains to bring water levels up and make the river a little dirty. Steelhead fishing should continue to fish well into the winter months.
For flies in November, I mainly focus on the swing, using big streamer patterns for jolting strikes. I prefer leech patterns in a variety of sizes and colors. For nymph fishing, try more natural color egg flies. Oregon Cheese, Burnt Orange, and Creamy Delight can work well. For nymphs, try smaller hex, leech, and stone fly imitations. I prefer to fish my egg patterns or nymphs under floats with fat floating lines this time of year.
For the swing, I use a floating Skagit line and T-14 Sink Tip in various sizes, depending on water depth and speed. You can check out my website for fly patterns and tips on setting up your sink-tip rod for steelhead.
Hopefully, this steelhead season will be as awesome as last fall. Last fall we saw a good number of fish in the river and they were BIG fish. Just remember these are wild fish, so please practice catch and release and if you fish bead eggs, please keep them out of our flies’ only section of river. Thank you and tight lines. For more information and a weekly report go to www.outfittersnorth.com.
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