Muskegon River Fishing Report – Newaygo, MI – May 4, 2016

Muskegon River Fishing Report – Newaygo, MI – May 4, 2016

Tom, from Chicago, with a wonderfully colored up male Steelhead from the Muskegon river that he caught yesterday.

The Muskegon river near the town of Newaygo in west Michigan, is running above average flows at this time and due to come up more with the rains that have hung around most of today.

We are in the final phase of our spring steelhead run and this new water will most likely bring in whatever adult steelhead are left in lake Michigan that have yet to make their annual spawning journey up their natal river.

With steelhead numbers thin, recent trips have been a combination of morning steelhead and fishing trout afterwards.  We had some good trout come to net last week and prior, but they have been harder to come by as of late with dropping and clearing water conditions……and a lot of angler pressure from all over west and north west Michigan, as people flock to the Muskegon in search of trout.

The days ahead will tell us a lot about the rest of our spring and early summer fishery.  From post sucker spawn, to the first of our late May and early June hatches, much will be determined by water temperatures.

It’s a mixed bag of fishing techniques right now, with small rod+small streamer rigs, to heavier rods with 250-300 grain lines and bigger streamer flies.  Indicator nymphing is putting out some really nice trout over the last week+.  We were getting some last weekend with lighter line, steelhead indi-rigs and we have some very healthy Rainbows swimming around the Muskegon river.

Present water temperature in the 48-49 degree range, which it seems to be stuck on for a few days with the cooler weather that has moved in.