Muskegon River Steelhead Fishing Report – Newaygo, MI – December 2, 2015

A beautiful and very chrome, Muskegon river Steelhead.

The Muskegon river near Newaygo, MI is still running well above average flows for this time of early December, but in VERY GOOD condition for this time of the year and will surely extend our Steelhead season.  The heavy rains that came through most of Michigan over Thanksgiving and the following weekend, have brought the river back to more like mid November conditions -vs- early December.  This, coupled with a rather mild last week and forecasted next week+, will likely set us up for some very good December fishing for both Steelhead, as well as resident Rainbow and Brown trout.

Professor Hillenbrand, with his FIRST steelhead, caught on the Muskegon river

We’re fishing both Steelhead and resident trout with both fly fishing and light spin tackle gear.  Fly fishing options include chuck-n-duck for deeper runs and troughs, indicator rigs on either 1 handed rods in the 9-10′ length, or 11′ switch rods to really cover water, as well as swinging streamers on both 1 handed rods or using longer 2 handed rods for spey casting swung flies with sinking or sink tip lines.

Light spin tackle setups include similar bottom bouncing rigs used with fly gear chuck-n-duck rigs, as well as fishing longer rods with floats/bobbers, to fish boulder strewn runs where bottom bouncing is not an option.

With the moderate weather we’re having now and with both short and long term forecasts being very mild for early to mid December, our fishing season will be extended quite a bit, likely well into 2016.

Present water temperatures still hovering in the mid 40’s.