Muskegon River Fishing Report – April 18, 2015

Muskegon River

George, from west Michigan, with a true BRUTE of a Brown trout.

The Muskegon river near Newaygo, MI is running a bit above average flows at this time, but showing signs of dropping each day.

The Muskegon river spring steelhead run is in full swing, with many fish having already “spawned and gone”, others in the process in certain areas and many who have already spawned and have either dropped back into nearby holes to feed for a bit, or began their return journey to lake Michigan.  We also have “staging” fish, those that are near spawning grounds, but not yet ready and they will rest in comfortable lies until mother nature calls.

We are pursuing fish with primarily fly as of late, with both “chuck and duck” method of bottom bouncing flies through runs with 10′, 8 weight rods, using 8# tippet, or fishing floats/indicators on 11′, 7 weights, with either big floating line or strip casting shooting line, also with 8# test and a mix of egg/bead and nymph patterns, such as green caddis, hares ear, small hex’s, black stone flies and small fry patterns.  On real windy/rainy days of last week, the use of long spinning rods and bobbers proved to save the day with some good fishing while, most forms of fly fishing we weather challenging.

George, from IN, with a sampling of his day fishing the Muskegon river spring steelhead run.

With very warm temperatures the last couple days, the river will warm quickly and we could see continued good fishing for a while.

Present water temperature in the upper 40’s.