Fall Steelhead

[Little John]

The salmon are starting to darken up and there's lots of loose roe floating down stream now. How many of you guys are out taking advantage of what can be the best steelhead fishing of the year? The Big Manistee, Betsie, White, Grand, Muskegon, and even the Clinton River near Detroit to name just a few should all have good to great numbers of hungry silver bullets holding at the tail-outs of most gravel runs. What’s been working for you this fall? I’m pretty fond of egg imitations like “glo-bugs” or yarn flies but am not to proud to admit that I’ll drift fresh spawn when needed. But my favorite way to catch fall steel is on weighted in-line spinners, similar to the Arctic Spinner. The bonus is that you’re just as likely to latch onto one of those old dark male kings, a crimson buck coho, or a beautiful brown. They’re all in the rivers right now! Are you?

[Surface Tension]

Hey John I thought I'd drop in and saw your thread on Steelhead. Its been a while but I used to head to the LP for the Spring Steelhead runs on the Little Manistee, Betsie rivers. Your post brings back some good memories of those days. I keep telling myself I have to get back down there and continue what was once one of those annual traditions.

[Little John]

The Betsie used to be my favorite river until it was written up one too many times in the magazines. The upper dam blowing out didn't help any either. I started out fishing her with a buddy from college back in '84. We went to college at Lake Superior State in Sault Saint Marie and would fish the Betsie over Christmas break every winter. The winter hold overs were even plentiful back then. We would start at US 31 and work upstream to the dam. We tossed home made spinners made with worm weights to cover water quickly, looking for aggressive fish. We could sometimes fish the entire stretch with out seeing more than a couple of other wader clad popsicles. We would sometimes hook double digits on those cold Dec. and Jan. days...

It changed in the mid-late 90's. We had to get up earlier each year just to get a spot on one of the better holes. Until guys started fishing in shifts, even during the night. We called it combat fishing back then. But fish numbers were still high enough that you could hook double digits. The spinners were gone and replaced by easily tied flies like glo-bugs (egg flies) or spring wiggler patterns.

Now I fish steel once a year with the same guys as before. But we usually fish The Big Manistee now. Opting for bigger water to squeeze into. We long cast floats with long rods that cost as much as our college cars were worth. Now it's more about seeing each other again and remembering how it used to be. Oh yah, we still manage to catch a few fish too and have a trophy that is given out at the end of the week for big fish. In college we used to give out trophies every weekend for...well that's another story not for this forum.

I can't wait to try out the Little Atom Nuggies and Optic Stealths on Steelhead. The Fiskas jigs would be dynamite too for drifting under a float, but I would cry every time I got hung up...

[Surface Tension]

John, I had heard about the dam. I started making a few trips per Spring there in 77, hadn't been back since the late 80's.

Yarn flies is all I used back then and still do.

I'll have to look into the Little Atom Nuggie.