SUMMER MINUTIAE!!...THE MIGHTY MUSKEGON'S FINEST DRY FLY FISHING

( gorgeous MO brown on a size #24 August WMD midge)

I know...I know!!!!...Michigan IS the dynasty for big mayflies!...Hex/Lithros/Iso/Drakes...you name it!- our big mayfly hatches are the greatest in the world!- also giant streamers and mousing!- bar none!.  I have lived and  fished in many destinations and I can fully feel comfortable in making that claim. 

BUT!...having cut my teeth on small spring creeks for fussy trout since a kid, I have always loved the tiny game...small #20's- 6/7/8x tippets, 2 weights and finicky risers- IT IS AN ADDICTION! ( and good bifocals help also!- modern optometry is a miracle today!)

Since being on the Muskegon for this the 20th year, I have always told my wife, ..." If I could take one month off , it would be August , to fish the Muskegon- the dry fly fishing is at its finest! As long as you don't fish in the heat of the day, are extremely careful with the trout and temperatures..( #keepemwet), our trout rise and feel comfortable even when the waters are approaching the low 70's...-FACT!- ....it has been that way since the days of the 1930's -Swisher/Richards/ Pobst/Mansel...yadda yadda. Our Eagle Lake rainbow strain can tolerate temps well into the upper 70's/80....the Wild Rose and Gilchrist browns feed late or early and also tolerate very high temps. This is obvious by how "fat and rotund" our trout are all summer long- no starving stressed out snakes here!

August is prime midges and caddis time. Trout will ingest hundreds of them a day -cloudy days all day feeding. Little green caddis start the cycle- #18-22, then the mix with cinnamon caddis and the all the time #22-28 midge fishery which is actually taking over as the prime substance forage. My two weights are loaded and ready- awesome stuff ! The bend in the pole a fat 11 incher will give you is epic!

(caddis image- JGMiller)

Early mornings, after cool nights will see awesome Trico hatches from Pine St to Henning Park. One of the biggest F'k ups the USGS did is put the temperature gage in the wrong spot...right on the left side of the dam where warm water usually spills. As the water gets past all the dozens upon dozens of springs below Thornapple high gradients, insect hatches are more diverse, less zebras and incredible hatch matching opportunities with cool water trout refuge areas and larger more wary browns that cruise the flats.

( this August/Sept. brown on the Muskegon is far from stressed and starving like many hot freestoners)

By mid month, #24 BWO Pseudocloeon olives dominate the lower river along with late season Stenonema Cahill's , late Isonychia and zillions of flying ants. The olive activity lasted for me last year well into November and at times the water is covered so thick by rusty spinners and adults its like sawdust and trout sipping everywhere!

Late August/through September is flying ant time!!!!- size 14- through #20- trout eat the shit out of them!!!!- and will move several feet to take them!

Yes its a great time for smallies/pike..night mousing/hoppers on PM...etc. , whatever floats your boat man!

( from Mid August through September- lower river has massive cahill hatches on cool weather nights with rising water)

( smaller Pseudo bwo spinners are rusty-#24- JGMiller image)

But if you like long 7x leaders, fussy trout, and watching trout refuse your fly- or occasionally take it!- August on the Mo is epic!...( sorry guys that know the gig,  which are now saying .."why doesn't he keep his damn mouth shut!)

 Fact is the fish are not all in the San Juan between Dam and Pine, they are spread out everywhere,growing an inch a month- do the math from stocking size- are extremely particular at times and what they feed on- midges and more midges are the staple!, you can have a great summer season!!!

(another late August/early September fatty)

 My point: the more people get out and experience this, the less DNR BS propaganda kool aid they will drink about marginalism and become sheep to the propaganda slaughter . Only thing marginal about the MO in the summer is the marginal understanding and  maximum stupidity and propaganda people have been led to believe by one biologist that has one three goals!- 1. walleye...2. walleye and one more 3. walleye !

Cheers!..na zdrowie..Ga Day Mate !

BTW....For the killers and trout eaters- personally I love our biologist's fish- walleye!...go get a frying pan and catch the rainbows- they are for you!!!. Leave the browns to grow big for the" head game of nods"- plus the small bows taste better!...:)

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Posted in: Blue winged olives , gray drake lodge , michigan fly fishing , midges , muskegon river fly fishing , muskegon river hatches , Selectivity book , stenonema hatch , super caddis hatches

ISAAC COULD BE THE PERFECT STORM WE NEED!...PLUS EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING ALL OVER!

( Summer steelhead and Lake run brown jumping eel weir trap on Trail Creek Indiana-image courtesy of J Mcneill/IDNR )

 

 

Sorry for the long delay in posting !.....between editing my "Selectivity' book for Stackpole and guiding summer run steels and trout back-and forth I've been swamped!
 
The latest cold trend we had the past two weeks couldn't have come at a better time and rescue for "all fish"!!!....We were on the brink of losing every trout , summer steelhead and early salmon we had, had it not been for the cool days, rain and night temps that were freezing in the 40's!

 Now back to the heat and storms.....kinda good for moisture and rain.
 
Latest look at Hurricane Issac looks like its headed straight up the Kentucky/Illinois Great Lakes alley....YEH...HAW!!!.....sorry that I'm cheering on a hurricane, but if this system lingers it could dump lots of "MUCH NEEDED' RAINFALL...especially in those parched central Midwest states where those poor farmers got destroyed this year....Michigan might luck out too!
Latest storm tracker on Issac...bullet is eventually us!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26295161

( WHAT THOSE CADDIS PUPAE LOOK LIKE !....THAT THOSE FUSSY MUSKEGON TROUT ARE TAKING...USE TAN AND GREEN RUBBER TIED IN RIBBING TO IMITATE SEGMENTATION..VERY IMPORTANT IN PATTERN !-J Miller images)

 

 Here is the roundup.
Salmon: Manistee , Platte, Betsie, Pere Marquette , Trail Creek Indiana, St Joe, ...even Muskegon have fish coming in.. Some salmon on Manistee are really dark...came in weeks ago on lake turnover then cooked!
Trout:Caddis, Tricos, tiny olives #26- and 'incredible stenonema Cahill hatches from Thornapple down have the trout heads looking up!. If you are fishing smaller creeks: White and tribs, Bigalow, Tamarack....phenomenal terrestrial action!...you can't beat this time of year.....PLUS!....flying cinnamon ants are everywhere sizes #14's to #24's....trout are feasting now that water temps have dropped.

(round gobie caught at Trail Creek- that's why the Skamania are so big  lately!)

Summer Steelhead/Lake run Browns/coho: Excellent numbers coming in St. Joe and Trail creek in Indiana...!!!

(What those late night trout are sipping...quad spent caddis and left over flying ants...that's September magic!)

 

Storms are coming in as I write this at my office in the Stream building in Newaygo....a very cool place which has allowed me to write the two new books and correspond/network with people all over the world.If you need remote office space for your business/company etc., you have to look at this facility!

(those foggy steam mornings and tricos....yes! Muskegon now has a very viable trico hatch...20 years in the making!)

(T TIME)

 

We still have a few opening during the week for this fall's salmon and steelhead runs which promise to be outstanding based on the big lake catches....ALSO!...SEPTEMBER CADDIS TIME IS COMING!.....my favorite trout dry fly fishing of the year!

(my favorite salmon fishing ...swinging for pooled up" noids" coming any day now!)

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Posted in: flying ants , gray drake lodge , Great Lakes summer steelhead , lake-run brown trout , muskegon salmon , stenonema hatch , super caddis hatches , terrestrial insects , Trail creek , trout and eagle

"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY CAHILLS!"......AND THE MAGIC OF FOG AND SELECTIVE BROWN TROUT

( Dr. Jim Gray- "the Gray Drake doctor" with a fog loving brownie who was a steno connoisseur!)

Last night was a lesson and a remembrance. A hot sweltering Saturday on the Muskegon is the onslaught of the drunken/drug wacked tuber hatch and all the adept kayakers and canoers that don't know how to use paddles...lol . But thank God for impending thunder/lighting storms and most went off scurrying. By 6 pm my clients, Dr. Jim Gray from Ohio and his medical team of associates and sons were up for the challenge and loved dry fly trout fishing. We told them the bad weather was good...sort of!
The weather would probably knock out gray drake action and Isonychia which are very barometric sensitive emergers, but there is one "daily bread' insect that actually loves the bad weather............Stenonema Ithaca...The Catskill White Cahill. Named after the Catskill railroader brakeman Dan Cahill, who it is claimed responsible for the spilling of wild rainbows at Calicoon creek in the Delaware system, this hearty clinging nymphs like the fast runs and riffle/boulder/gravel pocket water to gestate, then migrating to slower runs to hatch. Their emerging nymphs and duns float for considerable distances and extremely relished by the trout.
 Rarely do they create super- hatches...rather they are sporadic emergers that come off, one-by-one all day and from May till October on all Midwest and Eastern freestoners and tail water rivers. They are as white as snow and will catch the eye of even a blind fly fisher and sparrow.
A river "dean" fly fisher of the Muskegon once told me ,'trout don't eat those bugs, they must not taste good!".....BUNK AND BULL!.....trout gorge on their fatty little nymphs, emergers and adults and there bellies are packed with them!!!

( Steno Cahill adult images -top and bottom by the trout sage of the Delaware- Dr. Johnny"bugsy" Miller. In the middle are my cahill soft hackle PT emerger, the emergering Cahill with brown z-lon shucked body and CDC for the emerging adult, and then a true adult pattern....lethal wherever you  steno Ithaca)

 Similar to a trout on a spring creek eating scuds and sowbugs as their bread-and butter staple, so too are the steno Cahills. They also like to hatch on cloudy rainy days like Saturday...even with storms. I've only seen one super-hatch spinner fall of these insects on the Muskegon in 2009, early June on that very cold spring when white clouds of spinners were all over the riffles from the Gray Drake to Mafia House run....it was an amazing sight!
Some of the best Cahill hatches and large browns rising I've experienced was in August and September in the lower Muskegon near Bigalow when every dun and emerger was slurped up by big fat browns and rainbows.

( Steno nymph water- fast oxygenated, boulder/gravel - target the slower water below these areas for emergence)

When the fog rolled in last night before dusk, the trout went crazy for the stenos. You could barely see, but Dr. Jim let his emerger and soft hackle nymph dropper float right into a less cautious 20 inch plus brown that jumped 3 feet in the air when hooked on 6x tippet ...we had to drop and chase with anchor up to land this surprised fierce fighter. I've fished that run all spring and didn't know that hog was there till the fog made it a comfortable player.
 I recall several dense fog days on the Catskill Delaware on the ultra- selective trout water of the main stem at Baird/Parker pool. A foggy, drizzle afternoon turned selective fish into easy targets as wave after wave of blue-winged-olives got gulped up by the most selective risers....it was a day of dry fly action I will never forget. Last night had all the makings of it but darkness and zero visibility came quick.
Also, the dense air of fog makes hampers mayfly emergence and flight, thus many adults float for great distances making them very vulnerable to the trout that feed in the negative phototropic conditions similar to night.
Morale of the blog!: when a dense fog warning is in the weather forecast...head out to your trout stream fast....drive slowly!

( Mr. Dombrowski- the Polish wonder kicker for the Harvard Univ. football team with a summer hog from last August- several dozen fish were taken on that first cool fresh run of suicidal "bulls in a china shop" fish that destroyed the purple haze leech!)

SUMMER STEELHEAD UPDATE:......Good numbers have begun to show up around the piers and a few have started to ascend the rivers. This year will be an amazing year if weather conditions are favorable since stocking numbers are at a peak from 3-4 years ago. The St. Joseph and Indiana tributaries should produce some gargantuan fish up to 20 lbs like last year. We are booking at a good pace and still have a few openings in prime July/August time....these fish are truly amazing!!!!...they are the tarpon of the Great Lakes

NOTE: NEXT BLOG WE WILL TALK ABOUT THE GIANT POTAMANTHUS YELLOW DRAKE MAYFLY- A JULY/AUGUST HATCH!

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Posted in: brown trout , cahills , Delaware , fog and fly fishing , gray drake lodge , michigan fly fishing , muskegon trout steelhead , selective trout , stenonema hatch , summer skamania steelhead , trout and eagle