Flat River Fishing Report RSS

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...

Fall is a time of change and presents many opportunities for fishing. We have been fishing multiple river systems across the state. The Grand, Muskegon, Pere Marquette, and Flat River have all been producing fish for us in the last couple of weeks. The best part about the fall transition time is the abundance of opportunities for the angler. Warm water, cool water, and migratory fish are all in the rivers at the same time. In the last two weeks we've fished for smallmouth, egged for trout behind kings, sight fished carp, and swung flies for salmon and steelhead.  Keep in...

Over the last couple weeks we've seen rain showers and cooler temperatures move in. We're finding most of our smallmouth congregated around rocks or mid River structure. We have found that the bass in both the Grand and Muskegon river systems have started to migrate and school up. Being that most of the smallmouth are grouping up, you may have to do a little bit of searching to find where they're at. Once you find them, focus on that stretch and look for similar areas that other schools might be using. For flies we've been using small to medium size...

Over the holiday break the water level was still up and the water temperature was down so I took advantage and chased some trout on our local waterways.  The trout seemed healthy and happy to play.  Smaller streamers, nymphs, and foam bugs all worked well.  The first heatwave is behind us but we are entering that part of the summer when more heat is sure to come.  With that being said I'm sure the focus of our fly fishing will switch over to warm water species.  Personally I have not focused much on chasing smallmouth around but I did hook into...

As we roll through the dog days of summer and maybe start to think about the season ahead, there is plenty of good fishing opportunities around the state.  Locally the bass fishing has been pretty good, despite the low water on the Grand River, Rogue River, and Flat River. Bite windows have been most consistent early in the morning and late in the evening on top water flies (zudbubblers, gurglers, mr wigglys, boogle bugs, etc). As the sun comes up, focusing on deep subsurface presentations have produced some consistent bites.  Despite the low water, nymphing has been productive for trout...