Muskegon River Fishing Report – Croton, MI – June 22, 2015

Muskegon River Fishing Report – Croton, MI – June 22, 2015

Dennis, from Chicago, IL with a stocky Muskegon river Rainbow trout that took a dry fly.

The Muskegon river near Croton dam and the general Newaygo, MI area is running slightly higher than average flows at this time.  The heavy rains that came through Michigan 7-8 days ago, brought the river up quite a bit, but it has been dropping regularly since that time and is presently running a bit over 2000 cfs.

We are still getting Caddis and Sulphur hatches in late afternoon and early evening, along with some dusk-dark Gray Drakes, but they have not been the “producer” that we’re used to over the years.  It has been an odd early summer of weather and water conditions in most all rivers in the Midwest and Michigan, but so goes Mother Nature at times.

Recent outings have produced mostly smaller fish, as the large Brown trout that we got into earlier in the spring, have been most likely focusing on fewer, bigger meals, such as small trout and baitfish.    We have seen some nice trout rising to dry flies. but they’re inconsistent and not tolerant of poor fly presentation when the opportunity does present itself.

Day time fishing has been best subsurface, whether it’s swinging wet flies with long leaders or short sink tips, as well as indicatory nymph fishing “shoots” and tailouts of gravel bar runs.  The streamer bite has not been very reliable, but both trout and smallmouth bass are there to be caught when conditions are best, such as dawn, dusk or overcast days.

With a fairly tame weather forecast over the next week-10 days, we should see the last of our hatches come on and conditions improve for the onset of our summer Smallmouth bass season.

Present water temperature is in the mid 60’s