Muskegon River Fishing Report – Croton, Michigan – May 10, 2015

Muskegon River

Chuck, from west Michigan, with a sampling of his day on the Muskegon river fishing for spring steelhead.

The Muskegon river below Croton dam is running above average flows after the heavy rains over the past 2 days filled the upstream reservoirs, which required significant water releases out of Rogers, Hardy and Croton dams.

We are in the last days of our spring steelhead run on the Muskegon river and Rainbow and Brown trout fishing will reign in the weeks ahead, as we see big hatches of Caddis and Gray Drakes as water temperatures rise.

Nate, from Grand Rapids, MI, with a chunky Brown trout caught recently while fishing for Muskegon river steelhead.

The fly fisher will have plenty of options as far as techniques to choose from over the next few weeks, including stripping streamers with sinking or sink tip lines, swinging wet flies with light sink tips or just longer leaders, indicator nymph fishing, followed by the first viable dry fly fishing of 2015.  Most fly fishing anglers will be using 4-6 weight fly rods and tippet will vary depending on which technique is chosen. 

We are on the front end of seeing thousands of suckers migrate to spawning grounds and begin their annual spawning season, which will prompt resident trout to post up downstream from the suckers, where they can sip tiny sucker eggs prior to major insect hatch activity.

With the big jump in water levels over the last 12 hours, it will be prime streamer fishing time, but this won’t last long.

Present water temperatures in the mid to upper 50’s.