Michigan Fly Fishing Report | Nomad Anglers RSS

Well if you haven't figured it out yet, winter is here. Most of our rivers have locked up in the last few weeks, which can be good or bad depending how you look at it.  Locked up rivers means less ice and slush mix floating down the river that poses hazards to boats and wading anglers. Fishing closer to dams or fast moving usually means less ice slush and chunks in the current. The water coming out from under the dam is usually a touch warmer a the discharge and has to travel a few miles before ice starts to...

While the weather seems to be up and down with temperature the trend has been towards the cooler side and the water has started to creep down around 33 degrees in most systems. It's safe to say most of the fish are in their winter holds and should be fished accordingly.  Lately we've been focusing on slower holding water with either structure or depth. The rivers are still low and clear so the shallower runs that we are finding fish in usually have some sort of structure that they are holding close to. Log jams and boulders are great places...

Rainy days and low water?  We've had a lot of damp rainy days the last couple weeks, but really haven't seen enough rain to raise our rivers up. The good news is that we're getting just enough to keep a steady trickle of fish coming up the river systems. This fall has had a really good steelhead run so far, especially when compared to last year!  We are starting to see some of the fish settle into winter holding spots and get a little color to them. There are still some fresh fish pushing up river so we have been...

I sent out a text to the crew on Thursday: "Anyone want to fish tomorrow?" All I got back was "I wish, man" or "I'll be tied up with work". I'd be flying solo. I don't mind fishing from the boat by myself from time-to-time. It can be very meditative, and I'm able to explore different spots that we'd normally ignore. Usually I end up casting to a void, but sometimes you end up discovering new "ninja" spots that no one fishes. I digress... I launched the boat at first light with nothing but two spey rods in the boat....

We are just coming off of another great king season. The salmon have completed their annual migration up most of the rivers in West Michigan and were in good numbers despite low water. There are still a few straggler fish that are just starting to spawn but will taper off in the next two weeks. A good group of steelhead have also come into most of the rivers following the salmon run.  We are catching a lot of our fish by swinging streamers with spey rods or by floating egg flies behind the remaining spawning Kings. Most of our fish...