Muskegon report

[kroppe]

Fished the Muskegon from 1pm - 3pm in Newaygo upstream of the M37 bridge. Weather was great (see my PM report), the river was fast but since I'm not a local I don't know if it is up or down from normal. All I know is that I was surprised how big the Muskegon is. The water is higher than your waders in places, and the current is raging. The river is also wider than I envisioned - at least 100 feet, if not close to 200 feet or more. I'm not a great judge of distance.

Saw lots of kings, reasonably fresh. I was casting to a fish fanning the gravel but couldn't get it to take. The tough part with this stretch of river is that you have to spot the fish from the high banks (75 feet high), then clamber down the banks, get in the river and find the fish again, hoping they haven't moved. Once you're in the water, since it's so wide, it's hard to sight fish. You have to cast blindly into likely looking places.

Talked to a guy pulling his drift boat out at the county park. He had a silly grin on his face and said "the steelhead are in". I think he had a good day, but I certainly didn't see any steelies where I was.

No fish hooked, but had a great day on some new water for me. No crowds, had a half mile of wide open river to myself.

I'm looking forward to the steelhead heating up in a few weeks.

[Erik]

Yes the muskegon is a large river. don't go there much myself. I have a jinx on that river and after the last four trips there with no fish I decided to give up trying to break that one! One thing I did notice during my short but sweet relationship with the Mo, is that it sure looks like it could support natural reproduction very well. Lots and lots of gravel! When we went to the fly fishing expo last spring by swartz creek, we listend a lecture about the Mo. He said the Mo tends to have later salmon and steelhead runs than the rest of the west side rivers. I surely wouldn't know since every time I've been there I've been skunked! Hah!
Glad to hear you had a good day though!

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Phish

Hey there Kroppe! I fished the 'Mo and the P.M. for a few days each of the past few weeks. Don't kid yourself, the water in both rivers is extremely low right now. P.M. Lodge said the P.M. is very near record lows. I take this low water as an opportunity to see the traps and snags in holes usually too dark and deep to look into and to wade areas unreachable in normal flows.
This is the first time in years I could wade across the Muskegon at Pine St. without worrying about floating my hat.
One of the links on this Michigan Sportsman site were on will take you to the Michigan river flows.
I monitor the heck out of that site before a trip. It was interesting watching the Huron near Ann Arbor go from 1000 about the time you and I were pounding it and posting here to tonights levels below 400.

[kroppe]

Jac,

I hear ya. Huron at 1000 cu.ft./s is no fun to wade, especially walking upstream. After getting shot down in flames on the PM and Mo, I sneaked in a one hour session in a honey hole on the Huron before I headed home to wife and family. Got shut down there, too, but it was good to be on the home waters. Half my problem with new waters is that they are new waters. I don't know the high producing holes, etc.

Lately I have taken to a run-and-gun approach to river fishing. That is, I will get in a stream and wade downstream, beating the banks, holes and shallows as I walk downstream. It is much less tiresome than trudging upstream and I can cover a fair amount of water. I wade mid-stream so I don't walk through fish lies, unless the fish are in mid-stream which is not usually the case.

Run-and-gun lets me use my time productively since I have young kids. If the wife lets me out for a 1 hour fishing fix, I'll do it!! Best thing is I'm only 10 minutes from many access points on the Huron, since the river weaves through Ann Arbor and Dexter.

[MPsteelheader]

Those salmon are so dark w/ fungus right now. It seems like the people up there don't know how to fish salmon in holes. Because I went up there 2 weeks ago and didn't see a fresh fish!!! I saw one stringer w/ fish that would be considered dead, down here on the Joe!!! I think that river is very hard to fish because it is sooooo big!!! I say that about the people up there because I think they only fish beds for salmon, and maybe even steelhead. To me thats wrong because that river is the best in the state for King Salmon Natural Reproduction(85% natural). I am against keeping fish off of beds and I don't prefer fishing for them either because most are snagged or foul hooked.

See ya on the River,

MPsteelheader

[Dutchman]

MPsteelheader when you use the term "the people up there" you lump in a Whole bunch of different fisherman!If you would look at the license plates at the landings you would notice a lot of out of state plates. also my son works at the local sport shop in Newaygo and he very seldom see's "locals" buying the "gear" to force feed them salmon.The reason there are so many snaggers on that river is because it was one of the hottest spots when snagging was legal. I guess old habits are hard to break or the people doing it now remember going there as a kid to watch the show.And can't figure any way else to do it. But please don't lump all the locals into that pot. Us "people up here" find it disgusting also! :(