IT'S ALL HAPPENING !

The amazing fall season is here!!!!!...king salmon finally coming in good numbers...we pool fished swinging flies all week....browns sipping tricos and bwo small olives in evenings...now pilagding eggs...steelhead soon to arrive!

NOTE:..CHECK OUT OUR THREE FACEBOOK PAGES FOR SEVERAL UPDATES DAILY ON WHAT IS GOING ON!!!....PAGES '
* SELECTIVITY TSS-TROUT, SALMON STEELHEAD....PAGE '
*GRAY DRAKE AND TROUT AND EAGLE'....AND PAGE
 *MATTHEW SUPINSKI.......CHEERS!...NA ZDROWIE

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Posted in: Blue winged olives , brown trout , gray drake , great lakes king salmon , Great Lakes steelhead , muskegon river fly fishing , tricos , trout and eagle

ROAD TRIP...FRESH SALMON AND STEELHEAD....EXCELLENT TROUT FISHING/HATCHES..TOO GOOD!

Tonight, while driving thru a monsoon rain flood, Tornado warnings / watches on my way to do a seminar in Pittsburgh at International Angler...then going to experience tomorrow the new global "cooling", I think there is a million dollar book expose on " how to survive the global climate change and be a fly fishing guide- or not!" Seriously, we went from a cold summer, to a hot early fall, to "ice age' coming in next week. ...if you don't think migrating salmonids are confused..I'm sorry- they are!

Summer steelhead still trickle in on the St. Joe...the big newcomer will be the 450,000 stocked Platte River wild cohos that are a month late...both in IN in Trail Creek and the Joe

Midge and caddis stuffed browns and rainbows are sucking in mega bugs below Croton to Newaygo- lower river has steno/heptagenia hebe cahills and tiny Pseudo bwo's...last week saw the river temps rise ..but now will drop...fish on the MO feed on the surface until 74F due to all the dissolved oxygen...BUT!...fight them quick,,,hemos for fly out of mouth...only take pics when water is below 68F..."TRICK"...fish barbless, and when they come into your gel rubber net...they pop out on their own..90% of time!..as soon as they bounce off the trampline net!..:)

Salmon...this big flush of water will move them fast!

Please check out my three Facebook pages...Yeahh..Yeah!..I KNOW ALL THE REAL BAD ASS COOL DUDES DON'T DO FACECRACK!...whatever dude!....but nobody reads blogs anymore..almost gone the way of the Yellow Pages..:(..SORRY!

SELECTIVITY TSS is a good Facebook place to start...cheers..na zdrowie

OOOPS!...forgot, I'll be at International Angler tomorrow night...Paint Creek Rod and Fly Festival...Clinton Valley TU Saturday Sept. 13.....West Michigan TU- Steelhead Symposium- October- Founders Brewery...Casters Fly Shop..Dave Hise..Asheville North Carolina, November 28/29...and PA Steelhead Association - December 10th..all clinics and stream side events

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Posted in: aggressive steelhead and Atlantic salmon behavior , gray drake , Great Lakes summer steelhead , midges , summer skamania steelhead , super caddis hatches

THEY ARE BACK...FINALLY!...THE GRAY DRAKES

FINALLY!.....could be a very good year for them...they need lots of water and moisture...something we have plenty of....Tonto say,..." when mosquitoes  big like elephants and biting white man ass of kemosabe...gray drakes-siphlonurus -GOOD!"

HERE IS AN AMAZING EMERGENCE SEQUENCE SHOT BY THE BUG DOKTOR-JG MILLER AT 3 AM ISH....THE MOST PASSIONATE BUG CHASER NEXT TO TED F. I HAVE EVER MET...DUDE LISTENED TO HEAVY METAL ALL NIGHT TO STAY AWAKE AND GET THESE AMAZING TERRA FIRMA SHOTS...they don't emerge on the water thats why you will never see duns-only spinners 

AND IF YOUR TIMING IS RIGHT!...THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF MALE/FEMALE RATIO...RIGHT AIR TEMPS, RIGHT PATTERN, RIGHT DRAG FREE FLOAT......BINGO!...(NOTE:DON'T IGNORE THE MORNING SPINNER FALL..;)

DOUBLE PATTERN- THE GANG BANG DRAKES- BIG MEATY FLY

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Posted in: gray drake , gray drake lodge , mayflies of Michigan , michigan fly fishing , muskegon fly fishing , Muskegon hatches , siphlonurus gray drakes , trout and eagle lodge

COMING THIS WINTER

More news to come!

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Posted in: gray drake , Selectivity book

THE WINTER THAT WASN'T!....OR MAYBE STILL COMING?...LET'S HOPE

( Canh Tran from Chicago last Friday with a model perfect hen)

 

( Son Peter with his first steelhead on the swing Christmas Day...first totally solo...proud Dad!)

( YEES!...FINALLY!....out this spring after waiting centuries!)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!....SO ...is global warming here to stay?....hmmmm... so tough to say. Good news is we have water and excellent flows- Muskegon at 3,000 cfs- haven't seen that in a long time. Fresh steelhead are coming in, full moon coming and looks like spring will be early. So we would like toi see snow or we will have another dry year. But nobody is willing to predict anything. Bottom line, we are fishing all winter like always. Catching winter steelhead is our passion. AND... we have some good slots still open for SPRING STEELHEADING and have a WINTER STEELHEAD SPECIAL on our web site. So get out and enjoy winter....a big snow storm is brewing as I write this ,,,,YUMMY!

( lethal in winter ....my Mykiss Shrimp...tie them down to 12,14,16 on Daichii x120 scud hooks

winter; smaller =better- even on Mo!)

 

( saw first stonefly crawl on the snowy bank today....1/2 inch of snow isn't exactly snowy...but a half foot is coming!....HOPE)

( my version of the steelhead bugger...very effective winter fly)

( Ice man cometh...the Senyo laser dub minnow...hot!)

( big buck on #14 mykiss shrimp)

( Can't beat the new KAST GEAR gloves and stuff....combine them with the Perfection of Patagonia...and you bake while winter steelheading!)

( Had a great time fishing my  yearly pilgrimage to the hallowed  PA. Letort limestoner over New Years ...the gorgeous and aggressive/active wild browns and the 6 incher that took the 6 inch Roman Moser sculpin- that little guy just graduated to Selectivity school 101 !)

( LOVE TO SHOW BIG BROWNIES!... good client Tom Terry from Chicago with a Wisconsin Lake-run with Pecz the spey man on the swing!)

 

cheers!!!!!...hope to see you this spring!~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                          

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Posted in: brown trout , gray drake , great lakes winter steelhead , Letort Spring Run , michigan steelhead , muskegon trout steelhead , mykiss shrimp , trout and eagle

October steelhead....understanding transition time!

( top steel on a mini-me leech- also, considerable 'nose/lip bumping" of flies on the swing can result in outer mouth hook ups- happens often- let fish take the fly-don't hook set!)

Water levels are perfect after the much needed rain we prayed for!. 1900 cfs and rising on the Muskegon...that's a flood compared to last week's 870 cfs. Tons of salmon are still coming in and so are the chrome silver poaching nomads of fall....Autumn steelhead!
 Since their olfactory sensors are on overdrive from the sexual spawning attraction of salmon eggs and milt, they still have the aggressive/active bait fish 'kill and eat' drive firmly implanted in them.
 They are lovers of the 2-4 feet deep slack/shallow run lies behind Salmon redds. You can easily swing or nymph this water with spey or switch rods with long belly Delta taper floating lines and more traditional spey casting methods.

("mini-me" leech and otter translucent egg dropper- 'hopper /dropper for fall steel swinging")

 At this time of year, you don't have to dredge with heavy sink T-14/t-11 heads and Skagits....not necessary till water temps drop in the 40's and fish lie deeper. Its "skinny water' time and easy pickings for the steelheader and the steels themselves. Its amazing how far and high up in the water column steels will take your fly at this time....all Great Lakes swingers tend to place too muchg empahsis on 'deep dredging"...no need.
Enjoy this time of year and get the 'drug tug' you've been waiting for!
Be patient and work confident holding lies thoroughly.....some people give me crap fro how long I work these holding areas...but!...they produce in the long run!.
 Fall steelhead are preoccupied by a lot of issues at this time;avoiding large king salmon with teeth ready to take a chunk out of them!, for getting too close.......trying to find the rtight comfort zone of a lie, avoiding anglers and boat traffic during heavy salmon periods and always on the look out for a meal.
Also, the power of "green caddis' larvae is deadly at this time since steels see good numbers of dislodged nymphs from female salmon digging.

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Posted in: caddis , gray drake , Great Lakes steelhead , Muskegon River steelhead , Otter eggs , spey fishing , string leech , swinging flies , trout and eagle lodge

H20=CHROME AND FRESH FISH..NO BRAINER

(swith rod and swinging floater)

"what doesn't kill ya makes you stronger"....that about sums up this year!. Worst drought in a hundred years, worst heat ...and FINALLY!....RAIN!...OMG , thought we would never see it!
 River bumped finally up to 1700 cfs from a dismal 860 cfs. And guess what happens....fresh salmon, chrome steelhead, aggressive browns and last night in the 70 degree evening, a dot winged caddis hatch!
 It only can get better!.....let the good times roll!

                                                                   ( matching the salmon egg hatch- Otter soft milking egg style-pegged bead system-switch rod and floating delta taper line)

( Jerry " venus" Demailo - from Cleveland - a brown trout magnet- every time he comes up he hits a nice egg poaching brownie!)

 

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Posted in: caddis , gray drake , great lakes king salmon , Great Lakes steelhead , Muskegon River steelhead , Otter eggs , Sage One switch , swinging flies , trout and eagle lodge

THE PERFECT STORM....HERE THEY COME!....ON A MAGIC CARPET RIDE

We go from Lake Michigan water temps at the beach from upper 70's....yesterday water was 46 F....bloody freezing. The 'magic carpet ride for migration' has come mates!.
 We mormally have several offshor wind lake temperature inversions through the summer....but none for a month now.
 So....look out!....the last of the summer steelhead runs, and fresh salmon are knocking at the river mouth doors with this one. Plus cool and wet weather all week....AMEN!
oh yeah...the video?....been watching too much BBC America ...from vulgar chefs, to soccer commentators....even weathermen all sound better and sexier when they speak...BRIT-ISH!
Cheers Mate!

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Posted in: gray drake , Great Lakes summer steelhead , lake turnover , muskegon salmon , off shore winds , summer skamania steelhead , trout and eagle

SUMMER SKAMANIA STEELHEAD EATING TERRESTRIALS?,,,,,AND FINALLY!... COLD AND RAIN!

We finally got what we prayed and wished for!....cool, cool rain. How the daytime highs go from the upper 90's to the upper 50's F is just the continued saga of the global bizarre climate change roller coaster....but we needed it bad!. It has poured rain in Michigan for the past 48 hours and much welcomed. Water levels are rising, river temps. are falling and the remaining summer steelhead and caddis hatches are poised and ready to roll!....next weeks highs are expected in the uppper 60's/70's...what a relief.
SO....what's this garbage about summer Skamania steelhead eating terrestrials?....YEP AND MORE .....YUP !....wouldn't have believed it myself to be honest.

 It all started weeks ago on Trail Creek in Indiana when guiding several clients in log overhanging pools and hot steamy weather. Crickets, beetles , inchworms and hoppers were all over in the sweltering hot heat. I saw an inch worm fall from the log jam and ...WHAM1... the swirl take of a huge summer run destroying it. With Doc Davison and that crazy YOU TUBE video we posted, the fish hammered a brown caterpillar off the bank.

 This week, guiding several clients from Chicago, Roger Nordy caught his first summer run on a beetle imitation that hit the water and his chrome beast went three feet to inhale the offering with a vengeance. If you want to try and catch 30-40 ich steelehead on a floating line and terrestrials....which by the way is way too cool!....that's what I've been up to and loving every minute of it. Trail Creek is a limestone spring creek and real cold water in its upper stretches in the 50'sF....those steelhead act like large spring creek rainbows with all their curiosity.
STATUS OF THE SUMMER STEELHEAD RUN:....Now that we are getting rain and colder temps , The St. Joseph, which had the hottest and driest conditions in a century, should start to see its summer steelhead run finally start up since it got a few fish in June.
Since the Indiana spring creeks are cold and ready for migration, the Lake turnover of temps. is all they will need to bring in the remaining steelhead which are still huge in number.
I will be guiding summer runs thru early September. The bonus at this time of year are the huge 300,000 stocking of Coho Silvers that take place there which bring in big runs of these perfect fighting beasts that readily take the fly if you've experienced them in in Alaska...hot fish!
MUSKEGON TROUT:...now that the waters are cooling , we should start to see the August thru October mega hatches of Green and Cinnamon caddis. The trout have survived well despite the heat and on my trout/smallie trip on Thursday morning with Dave Richardson we caught browns and rainbows  in the middle of the river targeting tricos and tiny olives- Cahills were also emerging all day in the rain...the insects are still on the rocks and cooler water will spur their emergence. Todd at the Trout & Eagle already saw a few salmon porpoising in the pools.
 We go from hell heat to freezing polar fleece fast and quick....crazy stuff.
NOTES: I still have a few dates open for summer steelhead if I've piqued your interest....it's a blast!...and the best of summer is yet to come my friends. Every body should experience the hottest fighting game fish in the Great Lakes....hands down no contest!
 Cheers!

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Posted in: beetles , dry fly steelhead , gray drake , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , Muskegon trout , summer skamania steelhead , terrestrial insects , Trail creek , trout and eagle

SUMMER SKAMANIA STEELHEADING....INDIANA SPRING CREEK STYLE...HILLBILLIE LINE FISHIN!

YEEE- HAHHHH!...video says it all!...alligator mud wrastlin...its a blast!

 Watching steelhead open their white mouths and eat green caterpillars falling from trees is way to cool!....that's country boy, Doc "Steelhead" Mike Davison do'in a little mud...the ultimate topless fish porn wrastlin!...extremely hot and humid...water temp 59F !

The Finale!....fish in hand...Doc Mike finally got descent and put his shirt on! NOTES.....We finally got cooling weather and lots of rain...the summer steelhead run is about to start in a big way....also caddis hatches on the Muskegon as waters continue to cool...August can only get better then the sweltering weather of July....river levels finally got flows!

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Posted in: gray drake , Great Lakes summer steelhead , Indiana Skamania , summer skamania steelhead , terrestrial insects , trout and eagle

got rain?...FINALLY!...SPRING CREEK SUMMER STEELHEAD....NEW YORK'S WILD TROUT MECCA

( Tom Terrry from Chicago with his fisrt summer run fun which jumped into a tree on its first leap from an Indiana spring creek on a pink scud last weekend)

( Client Dave Richardson from Virginia and his first summer Skamania steelhead- also...great to see water flowing again!)

So sorry!...for the long delay in posting. As you are well aware we have been in the grip of the worst drought and heat wave in a century.The whole country is dealing with it but I'm glad to say we are over the hump with the big storms we had the last two days and cooler weather coming.Laurie, Peter and I  spent the first two weeks of July at our family's summer home in the magnificant Catskill mountains of  of New York- a wild trout mecca! The ice cold tailwaters of the Delaware and Neversink, with their deep mountain ice cold reservoirs with several hundred feet deep bottom draws made these rivers ice cold. Air temps were hitting the 100 F  range and both the West and East Branch and the Neversink upper tailwaters were 42 degrees.

( view from our families place in the Catskills)

( The amazing Neversink River of New York- a fusion river: mountain freestoner, spring creek and ice cold tailwater all in one....PLUS!.... the birthplace of American Fly fishing....Theodore Gordon/Hewitt and La Branche...this is Americas 'ground zero' of fly fishing...above a wild Neversink brown, the spring creek like waters and the steep falls at Fallsburg)

I spent each day chest deep and chilly, watching wild brown trout sipping sulphers, olives and stenos in the middle of the afternoon as the waters warmed to the prefered low 50F range. Their fisheries are managed for wild brown, rainbow and brook trout which are splendidly colored and fight like mad....also ultra super selective .

( Angler chest deep on the West Branch....44F water...air temp 95F...tailwater fog)

( West Branch sulpher sipper..."drive by style".... only my guide/friend/sansai/trout coon dog, and Catskill trout master...Johnny"Miller Time" Miller can figure out...he has finally figured out how to crack these big selective/reflective sippers feed...incredible habituation behaviour is taking place here on these extremelly "hammered to death" fish...since this river was the only fishable place on the east coast!...except for spring creeks.)

 On the way back, I got to stop by my childhood wild trout classroom...the Wiscoy Creek in the

 southern tier Allegheny mountains. I fished here last 31 years ago when I lived in Niagara Falls and it is here I learned of the selective cunning nature of its exclusive wild brown trout.

( Wiscoy terrestrials..."da box")

( I love bohvines...if you talk to them like puppys they follow you all day...my pals!)

( New York does an amazing job of public access and wild trout management)

 It is a cow pasture spring creek/freestoner that runs through Wyoming County- "little Switzerland' of western New York. The water levels in all the New York streams were very low due to the drought but things gave changed with the rains.

( Pota mayfly shuck)

( Peter walking the Wiscoy Crekk Falls...we stayed at the Wiscoy Creek Lodge...a spectacular log cabin...go to their web site...big thumbs up!!!!!!... a true forest setting an hour and half south of Buffalo)

AND NOW!....after many prayers answered the rains have come and my pursuit of summer steelhead  with my clients from all over the nation could not have come at a better time. The "Skamania Alley' of Michigan/Indiana got anywhere between 2-4 inches of rain with the storms depending on location....the mother load of summer runs are yet to come!.

The St. Joseph remains too warm for fish yet but will change. I'm concentrating on smaller spring creeks and some private new water I've obtained. Those creeks are icy and have good flows now.
Muskegon Report. It got really brutal in early July- so did all the blue ribbon wild trout waters of Michigan's PM/Au Sable where water temps hit 70's...that's all changing.
The Muskegon bubbler only had so much cooler water and the cooler nights and lower daytime temps will gradually get things back to normal...if normal exists anymore! The trout are concentrated in the deeper pools andfast shallow riffles due to the river hitting a brutal low and hot 797 cfs...now 1,090 after it hit 1800 cfs after the storms. They are sipping #26 olive rusty spinners in the mornings and evenings and the tiny green caddis is starting up. The rocks are covered with cinnamon and green caddis larvae/pupae and the rest of the summer thru October should see massive caddis hatches. Their has been no trout die offs noticed and the trout that are caught are still fat and healthy despite the heat from the caddis pupae...please exercise extreme caution when fishing till temperatures cool further!!!
 Heard reports of summer king salmon coming in Litle and Big Man and PM Lake.
 I think we are over the heat hump and more storms and showers are predicted even though temps will climb again... the rain buffer is the key!....Cheers!

( high water Skamie box...some of Greg Senyo's masta egg eating minnows...and more master Senyo creations...a monument will be built to this Great Lakes steelhead flyt tyer....all of us are humbled next to him!...no blowing smoke!)

STILL HAVE SOME OPEN DATES FOR SUMMER SKAMANIA STEELHEAD AND THE "SUMMER TROUT EVENING SIPPER SPECIALS" THAT WILL LAST TILL OCTOBER!....SEE YOU ON THE RIVER!

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Posted in: gray drake , Greg Senyo , Indiana Skamania , muskegon river , Neversink , New York wild trout , skamania steelhead , summer steelhead , terrestrial insects , trout and eagle , WEST BRANCH DELAWARE , Wiscoy Creek