Nice Day

"When long faces are seen around gravel, always look to the pockets." This quote is from good friend Dane Ward, and it could not have been more true than yesterday. While the locals could be seen hawking gravel looking for fish trying to do the spawning thing, the real biters came from the dark water in and around that same gravel.

I think that the run is really winding down over there. While I hooked a really good number of fish, other folks I talked to were not doing so hot. So goes it I guess. As for the run winding down, the rivers up and down the west side need water bad, and if they don't get it soon the steelhead congregating around the mouths of rivers will reabsorb their eggs or milt and head back out to the big lake. To anyone reading this, get your headdress out and DO YOUR RAIN DANCE! After the big push of fish a few weeks ago, rivers over there have not seen any good numbers of fresh steelhead. Friends fishing the Pere Marquette in the past week have lamented to me about the lack of new fish showing up.

Simply put, a lack of snow has equaled a lack of runoff. Our easy winter has ambushed our steelhead run this spring. Prayer for rain and be courteous out there...


A steelie on "Phil's beach"


Catch and Release


Purdy buck


Phat hen

Chrome Dome

Got out for some fishing/guiding with a friend from Wyoming yesterday. It was some of the best steelheading I ever had. The fishing was plain out of sight. Unfortunately, I spent the whole day with a lingering sickness that started Wednesday night. However, hooking fish after fish after fish will keep your spirits up pretty well I'd say.

Matt had never flyfished for steelhead before, and he still managed to bag 3 steelhead, 1 huge walleye, a few trout, and some "bugle trout" (a.k.a. suckers). After some instruction, Matt got the hang of it and we finished the day strong with each of us hooking a lot of fish.

Sorry about the short report, I am still feeling rather sick and I think some sleep is in order...


Chrome hen from a hole


Matt with another big hen


Myself with a good hen


A salmon head. Dead salmon provide a lot of extra nutrients for the river and the organisms that thrive in and around it.


Matt's handsome buck


Matt's 8 lb + walleye


Nice brownie


One of Matt's "bugle trout." Look how happy he was to catch it haha


Catch and Release

These fish are only a sampling of what was caught during the day. Above all, I got to spend time with a friend that I hadn't seen in a long, long time. Thank goodness for good friends and great times!

Boo-yah!

The proverbial Boo-yah exclamation came into play yesterday, as a couple friends and myself manage to bag a good number of walleye. They were taken from a canoe, in an open stretch of water that was basically foreign to all of us. Others we talked to were not faring quite as well. We did see a couple that were taken on jigs, but casting and retrieving rapala's seemed to be the ticket for us. It sure was nice to get off the ice and move around a little while fishing. The biggest of the three walleye pictured below was 21 1/2 inches, and the other two were 18 1/2 inches long. Perfect eaters.


The first batch of cajun-fried walleye nuggets with a lemon--> NEVER forget the lemon!


Three nice, clean, coldwater walleye

River Time

Spent some river time on the Saginaw today. Managed to land about 25 fish between us, but only kept one. There are a lot of small fish in the river right now. However, they are a blast and we had pretty much nonstop hits and fish between 3 and 6 o'clock. Jigs tipped with minnows seemed to be the key, those using jigging rapalas weren't having as much luck.

This type of fishing will be one of the first I will introduce my kid to. Consistent action for the whole amount of time we are out there is a big plus, as it will help to get him interested in fishing through catching his quarry...