Muskegon River Fishing Report – January 6, 2024 – Newaygo, Michigan

Happy New Year ~!

I’ve been gone for a bit, hence no reports. Time to spend the last of the “holiday time” with my wife and boys. We had fun in both Michigan and Florida over the holidays, with trips to Anna Maria Island and Naples between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Prior to my break the second week of December, we had been fishing mostly trout due to low steelhead numbers.

The Muskegon river is transforming into “winter mode” as of late, with colder days and nights over the last near week, river temperatures dropping down to the 38 degree range and with levels that are still running a bit below average flows for this time of winter.

The best bet for fishing right now would be and is targeting resident Brown and Rainbow trout with indicator nymphing rigs. With not many steelhead around, the trout are your best bet for getting into fish at this time.

It’s feasible to target resident trout with small bobber/indicator rigs, with both fly fishing and conventional gear, it’s simply a matter of putting the right conventional gear together to accomplish this.

With river temperatures warmer than usual for the first week of January, we still have a couple weeks or more of viable trout fishing, as their metabolism hasn’t bottomed out, as it can when river temperatures drop down to the 33-34 degree range.

Spring will be ????? weather. With all the crazy stuff happening with “said” weather, we’re not really sure what Mother Nature has in store for us in 2024.

For now,

Jeff