Muskegon River Fishing Report – Newaygo, MI – May 21, 2015

Muskegon River Fishing Report – Newaygo, MI – May 21, 2015

Brett, from west Michigan, with a chunky Muskegon river Brown trout taken on a streamer.

Muskegon river fishing is still pretty good for spring steelhead when we cover water and key in on late spring spots for “staging” (those fish that have yet to spawn), spawning and “dropback” steelhead (those that have spawned and have dropped back off spawning grounds to feed before heading back to lake Michigan). 

Trout fishing with streamers and sinking or sink tip lines on 6-7 weight fly rods has been productive as well, but best on cloudy days or low light conditions such as early morning or late afternoon-evening.

Cinnamon Caddis have begun to emerge and some fish are “looking up” for them, but mostly Rainbow trout and Steelhead that have been recently stocked by the Department of Natural Resources.   If pursuing them, we’re going to use 4-6 weight fly rods, with leaders tapered down to 3-4# test, with #16 Cinnamon Caddis dry fly patterns.  We also have a few black stone flies emerging, but that hatch should be done relatively soon. 

Salmon fry are swimming in the slower moving water near shore and both trout and smallmouth bass are keying in on them.  We’ve seen a fair number of smallmouth as of late and they’re always a willing biter and great fighter.   When fishing fry patterns, we’re using 4-6 weight rods, with either long leaders (10-12′) tapered down to 4-6# test, or with 8-10′ sink tips, with a slow sink rate of 1-2″/second and with tippet again in the 4-6# test range.

As water temperatures warm up, we’ll see more hatch activity and the onset of our best dry fly fishing, which is the month of June.

Present water temperature in the 56-57 degree range.