They're back!!!...the Savage Summer Skamania Steelhead-Tarpon of the Great Lakes

All I can say, is that these savage beasts are back!!!!!Could be a massive year for them since last year's drought and heat wave left a ton of  steelhead in the lake that didn't return. With rivers running full and a very cool spring ( bit of a heat wave now, but breaking by tomorrow to normal temps), this could be an amazing year!

We have dates available. Check out our blog archives from July/August/September and facebook pages from past summers for all the excitement...hope to see you! We constantly update our facebook/Instagram posts from the river!

                                                      The amazing salt water/slamon/steel guru-Chis Bamford, with one of the largest summer run beasts we have seen-20 plus club!)- taken on a Procopious Mysis

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , michigan steelhead , selective steelhead. selective atlantic salmon , st.joe skamania , steelhead dreams , summer skamania steelhead

They are back!!!!-Summer Steelhead Great Lakes style!!!-Join in on the Skamania mania

( Dr. Matt Zaccheo with a massive summer run St. Joe beasty mykiss )

It's been 23 years now that I've been chasing , guiding  and have a insatiable passion for Great Lakes summer Skamania Steelhead. And I'm so fortunate that I still sake with excitement when I see these magnificent Washington State transplants form the Washougal river- they are truly the most beautiful steelhead on this planet-bar none! Nowhere do steelhead get to be this large-(mid teens-20lb range) other than B.C., and fight with such a venomous power and aerial acrobatics as our Indiana/St .Joseph strain summer steelhead. They take swinging flies on two handers, sight nymphing and YES!, we occasionally get them to take foam beetles/terrestrials in the meniscus!

                                        ( Indiana spring creeks, the St. Jospeh and Big Manistee rivers get the largest runs of summer steels, and I'm very familiar with them all)

                                     ( Christina from New Jersey with her fisrt summer run)
 So if you are a steelheader that has experienced the cold blistering lake-effect snow and wind chills, you must have a run in with steelhead with shorts and sandals with they amazing beasts- the sheer aggression to the fly these fish have when fresh run is startling!

                                                ( Good client and friend, Gene Kelly from Boston , that had a spectacular day last summer 2017- it was an excellent run of very, very large steels, since Chinook populations are smaller, but everything is running bigger due to less competition for bait fish )

                                          ( Saltwater GT master, Chris Bamford, with a beast of a mykiss, on my Mykiss/mysis shrimp)

Ill be doing the Skamania steelhead tributaries with my Stealthcraft perfectly suited for all types of waters during late June, and all of July , August and into early September.

The fish that have been showing up at the piers this year are following the trend of large and well-fed which bods well for the summer. Indiana/Michigan stocks close to million summer steelhead smolts in three states, and they are alpha steelhead on steriods. 

                            ( Good client and summer fanatic Jeb from Virginia )

You can stay at the Inn/Resort at Harbor Shores right on Silver Beach, St. Joseph Michigan- one hour and 45 minute drive from Chicago.

                 link: https://www.innatharborshores.com/index.php

I highly recommend this resort and have done some hotel consulting there.They have a PGA (Senior open) golf course, outstanding outdoor dining/ restaurants, luxury rooms and spas, stunning sandy beaches ....lots of my clients bring their wife's and families since there is so much to do there. I'm fishing very close to there- plus a casino down the road- Four Winds New Buffalo....tons of fun for everybody- plus the outlet malls and Chicago are very close-by.

I still have a few prime openings in July and August...none of that cold/freezing weather stuff here- this is tropical steelheading!!!..Hope to see you this summer- email or call us for more info.....cheers!...more pics of beetles for Skamania/swinging

( Beetlegeuse !!!)

Cheers!,,,hope to see you this summer!!!

Matt

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Posted in: Big Manistee , gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , Skagit swinging , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

Could be the best/and biggest sized summer steelhead run since 1999!

All I could say is it has been an epic run so far this July!!!..lots of 3-4 year old fish missed running last summer due to the heat and droughts, thus they skipped a year and are coming back supersized, according to freind and biologist Brian Breidert. at Indiana DNR...going to see 20 lbers at the weir and ladders counts- I saw two the other day well over that size-mykiss U-boats!!!!- August will be epic with the cool temps- still have some openings!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , michigan steelhead , skamania steelhead , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

They're Back!!!-Fresh Chrome Skams

ALL I CAN SAY!!!!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , michigan steelhead , skamania steelhead , St , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

The summer Skamania steelhead Gig is starting !

                                   Gonna be a big year! Many fish didnt run last summer due to extremely warm temperatures and droughts/floods . The few fish that have showed up at the weirs in 2017 are enormous, if they forgoed a run year and kept feeding. Still have openings for summer run guide trips- hope to see you!- the pictures tell the story!- see you this summer!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , skamania steelhead , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead , swinging flies

MAGIC CARPET RIDE IS HERE! FINALLY!

\

( JOE SKAMANIA STEELHEAD PERFECTION )

THIS SAYS IT ALL!!!!,,,4-6 INCHES OF RAIN LAST WEEK IN ST.JOSEPH RIVER VALLEY AFTER EPIC DROUGHT/HEAT WAVE , FULL MOON CYCLE SWITCHED ON, BRIEF LAKE TURNOVER ========== FRESH SUMMER STEEL CHROME AND COHO SILVERS SWIMMING HARD UP RIVER AS WE SPEAK!

                                              ( CHROME SILVER JOE COHO SALMON)

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Posted in: coho salmon , gray darke lodge , great lakes salmon , Great Lakes summer steelhead , St Joe Coho , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

HEAT WAVE OVER...AND THEY ARE COMING-!

Heat wave of 2016 hopefully over!...it wasn't "that hot"!, ( I remember three summers ago taking son Peter to Northwestern Univ., along the gorgeous Lake Michigan shorelines for a summer  select soccer camp and my car thermometer read 113 F on the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago- we are now moaning about a few 90 F DAYS!-NEWS FLASH!- TIS THE HEART OF SUMMER EH?...have we become a society of whinny wimps?...hmmm!) But, just say'in,  we have been spoiled by two epically cold summers with lots of rainfall....anyways, everyone got a ton of rain this past weekend, and the summer run Skamania steelhead are waiting for a soon to happen Nor'easterly to stage a new push...holding in 55-70 feet of water stacked like sardines between South Haven and Mich. City...more to come soon.Some fresh chrome are already making their presence if you know where to look for them
( BTW:skammy mysis shrimp pattern recipe coming tomorrow - just got off the river and chill'in)...Na Zdrowie!- August will be an epic month!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , mykiss shrimp , skamania steelhead , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

THEY ARE FINALLY BACK!...AND BIGGER THAN EVER!

After being on the Joe all week and watching them trickle in, they have now officially arrived en masse !...about time!, and they are running as big as ever!..With no  weir/fish ladder trapping them at Berrien Springs like for decades ( they need 900 adults) for broodstock/egg/sperm harvest for next year's plants by Indiana DNR, which they now do on Trail Creek, IN, thus, the fish ladder at Berrien Springs is 'WIDE OPEN' and open for serious summer run steelhead biz-ness!

( Mysis Procopius)

Why the size when our Michigan Winter strain ran so small this past spring run? Basically, the Great Lakes mystery of 'constant biologic change" is always 'trending now',  since alewives ### are down =alewives eat mysis, thus Mysis shrimp ### WAY UP LIKE LATE 1980''S!- prior . so!!!... shrimp are the ideal food source for rainbow trout ( remember they are ocean going rainbow trout- finicky and precise predators), shrimp pack more of a power protein ,selenium, B-12, and very interesting iodine,  than even ale' wives

(NOTE: If you have never experienced these amazing  silver, pink cheeked 'tarpon of the Great Lakes', and call yourself a GL steelheader!, time is now through early September to do so. I personally have a very few good dates open and would love to show you the game. 

All dry lines/ no weight,single or two handers, lots of sight fishing or blind  swinging, whatever your schematics/gig desires. I have dedicated 25 plus years chasing these fish, so I'm confident and read a few books about steelhead!..;)...cheers!, sorry for the cockiness, just love what I do!......na zdrowie..yes I get them to eat dry fly beetles on the surface!

( MY flash back beetle dries..Senyo's ( Hareline Dubbin shaggy dubbing) greased up- rubber floats with right grease, and pushes water!)

here are few video testimonials...cheers!!!- life is great!- get out and fish steelhead, and BE PATIENT AND HUMBLE !!

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Posted in: gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Inn Harbor Shores , Muskegon River steelhead , mykiss shrimp , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

DAYS ARE GETTING LONGER/COTTONWOOD SOON TO FLY!...SKAMANIA SUMMER STEELHEAD MOUNTING THE ASSAULT!

                       ( Christine from N.J. with a massive summer steelhead on the St Joe River- hammered a striped black/purple haze leech)

The days are getting longer- cottonwoods soon to fly. It might be an epic summer run according to Indiana head of the Skamania program- Biologist Brian Breidert. After talking to him last week, he already is seeing a few summer runs showing at Trail Creek, but water temps are still seriously cold and the new cold snap will delay. He thinks we could have two year classes of summer runs- one that skipped a return, so we might be in for some very hefty fish this year like two years ago.

Also, summer runs spend a ton of time off their preferred hunting grounds off the Manitou Islands where the cold waters have amazing food sources like Cisco, herring, smelt and mysis shrimp. So they are not totally "hard wired" on alewives like their winter run cousins.

I will be on the St. Joe and Indiana tribs July/August , thru early September, so would love to introduce you to 'dry line steelhead', swinging in the faster water and dry fly steelhead- "yes I get them to eat surface beetles"...

These are the ' tarpon' of the Great Lakes and in my opinion the most perfect, true to salt water form steelhead you will ever lay your eyes on. Ther battles are full blown aerial displays that no other fish other than Atlantic salmon could compare. If you never experienced these amazing wicked beasts on the fly rod or two hander, you owe it to yourself!

The Big Manistee also gets a very good run and does not get much much attention -  only mostly form the bait guys by the coffer dam. Swinging here is as good as it gets and these fish and their behavior are much misunderstood- I finally cracked the code on these bad boys!

It is a great place and time to bring your spouse and family and stay at this gorgeous hotel right on the stunning natural beauty of  Silver Beach along the sand dunes of Lake Michigan and aqua blue waters.  The beach going family can enjoy a day by the waters while you fish. Also there are wineries, boutique shops/art galleries and excellent restaurants right along the shoreline- a great family vacation!

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Posted in: Big Manistee , gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead

Lake Turnover!...Get Ready, the big Push is Finally Here

( Christine from N.J. with a massive beast summer steelhead from last year taken on a water beetle- will we finally see the 'mother load' come in?)

The next few weeks will tell the whole story. Finally prime conditions are setting up for a fast migration. Warmer waters/thermoclines/lake turnovers should set the stage. All my questions/doubts /concerns and hope will be answered now that the run is a month and a half late....stay tuned. After weeks of the fish staging in 80 feet of water, the pier anglers are finally seeing good numbers and the size of year class we saw last year which was epic! ( 8 fish in the 18/19 lb range landed). The run will last well though September.

 You owe it to yourself to hook one of these beasts on a classic floating line- no chucking lead, t-shirts, shorts sandals and no snow!...cheers!

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Posted in: dry fly steelhead , gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , michigan steelhead , st.joe skamania , summer skamania steelhead