Three in three

One of the great things about this area of Michigan is that in less than an hour we can be on two other great rivers that fish good for steelhead ,salmon,trout and smallmouth, so for fun and a change of pace we did the Three in Three, three different rivers in three days. Day one- Big manistee which is about 35 miles north.Great river for all style of fishing, big water moderate flow and full of logs, lots of fishy spots to hit and plenty of logs to lose hooked fish.on this day it was Matt Dunn from fishbeer.com and I. Just to make sure we covered all the bases ,we swung Streamers, fished indicators and threw hot-n-tots .Fishing was a little slow but we hooked a couple and landed one nice steelhead

Manistee river steel

Day two was the Pere Marquette river, which is my baby, i love this river not only because its my home river, the sheer tranquility of this river is unbelievable. late fall is quite nobody around and you normally have the river to yourself. The order of the day was fishing floating lines, indicators and egg nymph combos.fishing was fair with most fish ramming logs and brush, although we did manage one that couldn't find any wood.

Pm river chrome


The last day of three was spent on the Muskegon river.the muskegon is about 45 miles south of us and fishes great in the late fall. the "MO" has a later run of kings than the other two rivers so fish will be located around spawners late in the year. The method for the final day was to swing streamers only, of course i always carry a indicator rod just in case we need to mix it up.We slid the boat in and started fishing pockets where spawning kings used to be ,but nothing was around to hold steelhead there,although there were some spawning cohos and i actually had one eat my streamer as i watched of course i jumped the gun and never got a hook in the fish.Later in the day we managed a small steelhead on the indicator rod,that saved the day of the only steelhead hooked. three great rivers in three days what a week.

Great lake council of the federation of fly fishers-tying expo 2012

On Dec 1 Kevin, Austin and myself will be down state in Holt,Michigan for the annual fly tying show.This annual event is a great chance for folks that tie flys or if your just learning to see some of the best tiers in the state .well known tiers like Mike Schmidt from anglers choice flys, Bear Andrews and others will be showing some great ties. Kevin will giving a seminar on carp and Smallmouth of Beaver Island and tying some carp patterns. For more info go here http://www.fffglc.org/

Capt.Kevin Morlock

Capt.Austin Adduci

Capt.Steve Martinez

Last week my good friend and fellow "swing junkie" came up for a few days of steelhead fishing, along with some other childish behavior.  Typically when Scott comes up for a fishing trip, it snows in July,  thunderstorms and rains in February and late fall it goes high sun and t-shirt weather, same goes for this trip, high sun, warm temps and clear water made fishing a challenge to say the least. Swung streamers for a couple days, one day on the Muskegon and one day on the Pere Marquette. We managed  one steelhead on a indicator rig and one brown on the swing along with Beers at the Rendevouz bar, more Beers at Johnny's,  12 pounds of pulled pork sandwiches, five pound of Barbs homemade cookies and one lost fish of unknown species. All in all with a couple of other small trout in between things it wasn't horrible. 

November winds

The winds of November can really howl here in west Michigan,so when it does a trip to lake Michigan is always a great opportunities to grab some cool shots of  giant waves, not as big as i had hoped but still pretty cool.

Tis the season

I dont know, Maybe its the fact that i have just spent 8 hours of my life that i will never get back ......Shopping, and when i say shopping i'm not talking leisure stroll up in down the aisle looking at shit, i mean throwing elbows,kneeing women wearing sweatpants in the thigh, ill kick your ass if you take that waffle iron from under my hand shopping..Tis the season. I need to go fishing!.wood to stack before snow hits the ground. going fishing. carp skiff to winterize before freeze up...i think ill go fishing. looking out the window this very second i can see the snow starting to fall and it reminds me...bring a extra fleece.....could be cold on the river! 

Steelhead on the Brain

Here are just a few Pere Marquette river steelhead from this fall. 

Great Fall steelhead 

Don with a Pere Marquette steelhead

the Master with steelhead greatness 

Dave with a pm river rainbow

PM river steelhead

A day in the life of a guide

Steelhead fishing here on the pere Marquette river can be awesome most of the time....it can also humble the hell out you too, making you wonder if you really have a clue as to what your doing! This was one of those weeks,a few hook ups on egg flys,nothing on the swing and one to the net on a hex nymph oh well it was some great weather.  Oh we caught some suckers too.

Fishgasm

I have been writing in a journal for the past few years when it dawned on me, Dumb Ass why not record it in a blog, so here is my legacy, the semi coherent ramblings of a fishing guide, on everything from fly fishing to whatever else. Enjoy and i will try not to offend anyone!