August 31st 2022
Well I think it safe to finally say we think the heat wave is gone! That was a hot June, July, and half of August, with evening temps finally falling the trout fishing has really picked up all across the state. Over this last weekend I was able to sneak away from the shop and head up to the Au Sable for a couple days to get some fishing in and to catch up with all the dudes over at Gates Au Sable Lodge!
We spent most of our time up north trying to force a streamer bite, which we had some luck moving a bunch of fish and also hooking into a few mid teen size browns. Most of our fish came from dry fly fishing on the holy waters, we had a morning Trico and Blue Wing Olive hatch which should stay pretty strong into this coming weekend and carry on through next week. After the hatch bugs left us around 12pm we switched up to a purple haze size 12.. That fly was the key to every bite for the rest of the day.
If you do head up there this weekend the main flies I would have in the box ready to go would be a Trico size 20, Blue Wing Olive size 16-18, Purple Haze size 12, and have some iso's just in case, we saw a couple flying around so any day now they could get a good afternoon hatch of them! Along with dry fly fishing and streamer fishing we snuck in some indy nymphing which got us some good bites in the afternoon once all the bugs went away. We kept it really simple and easy for our rig, top fly was a euro mop fly in cream color and a sexy waltz as the dropper, kept us on fish almost all day till the sun went down past the trees and we switched the dropper to a black squirmy worm which kept getting us bites till around dusk.
If you are heading out bass fishing instead this weekend bring your streamers! Bass are getting on a better feeding as of lately then they were during the heat wave. A lot of mid class bass have been caught on trips with my clients with a couple giants mixed in if you get lucky. All the bass that we have caught in the last couple trips has been on 3-5 inch streamers in white, olive, black and rust. Most of the fish we have found them deep in holes during the afternoon and in the morning out feeding on flats/ close to the bank. So make sure you have a wide range of colors with you and really look for what bait is in the area you are fishing.
Also with water temps finally cooled down, I do have dates open for Trout around grand rapids. If anyone is interested in catch some GR trout on dry flies feel free to hit me up! For more info check out our guided fly fishing trips page or email me at Christian@nomadanglers.com
I hope everyone has a great labor day!
Like always, good luck this weekend and have fun.
- Christian Gradowski