Northwest Michigan - July NOOKIES
A trip to the Little Manistee river in NW Michigan with Dansteelieman in late July proved to be an excellent time. With loads of fish and many hookups, we managed to bring an expirence that we thought would be not worth the trip....totally alive. Lets just say hooking an early run king is incredible for anyone that hasn't. These fish are fresh from the lake and fight so hard that they can break 10wt rods like they are nothing. They can jump higher than you are in height and will move so fast you can barley keep up. What an expirence...
When we arrived that Thursday morning, we saw a few locals fishing, but they didn't see any fish move up that morning or even the night before. We anticiptated a trip that would result in a few if any hookups at all. Well, after fishing the lower stretches that morning, we moved upstream and did some scouting. Nobody was fishing at all....we had the stretch all to ourselves. Thank God we went upstream and looked for fish,m every pool was stacked with 5-20+ fish, depending on where we were at. We ended up hooking several fish that day, and landing 4 of them. We got some aerial displays and hot patterns were green globugs and black stones.
The next day we decided we would go where we thought the fish would be. Sure enough, there was fish there...just not as many as the day before. We still managed to hook a decent number, and landed 2 of them, 1 each for us.
The last day we fished the same area, just moved downstream. It was a Saturday, and the canoers and tourists would be around we figured. Early in the morning we settled in a nice run, about 5' deep that had a riffle going through it and a nice deep pocket in the front with wood and overhanging hemlock trees. Ideal holding water for early kings. There was a pod of about 6 fish, and after hooked about 4 of them....many of them moved up to different holding lies. We did manage to find another spot and hook abut 3 more, but that was it. Alot of the fish became spooky and several moved up as well. We ended our adventure and called it a day, we would go home happy.
Every day was beautiful and sunny, with a few passing thunderstorms at times. Still a pleasure to be fishing for early fresh run NOOKIES!
A trip to the Little Manistee river in NW Michigan with Dansteelieman in late July proved to be an excellent time. With loads of fish and many hookups, we managed to bring an expirence that we thought would be not worth the trip....totally alive. Lets just say hooking an early run king is incredible for anyone that hasn't. These fish are fresh from the lake and fight so hard that they can break 10wt rods like they are nothing. They can jump higher than you are in height and will move so fast you can barley keep up. What an expirence...
When we arrived that Thursday morning, we saw a few locals fishing, but they didn't see any fish move up that morning or even the night before. We anticiptated a trip that would result in a few if any hookups at all. Well, after fishing the lower stretches that morning, we moved upstream and did some scouting. Nobody was fishing at all....we had the stretch all to ourselves. Thank God we went upstream and looked for fish,m every pool was stacked with 5-20+ fish, depending on where we were at. We ended up hooking several fish that day, and landing 4 of them. We got some aerial displays and hot patterns were green globugs and black stones.
The next day we decided we would go where we thought the fish would be. Sure enough, there was fish there...just not as many as the day before. We still managed to hook a decent number, and landed 2 of them, 1 each for us.
The last day we fished the same area, just moved downstream. It was a Saturday, and the canoers and tourists would be around we figured. Early in the morning we settled in a nice run, about 5' deep that had a riffle going through it and a nice deep pocket in the front with wood and overhanging hemlock trees. Ideal holding water for early kings. There was a pod of about 6 fish, and after hooked about 4 of them....many of them moved up to different holding lies. We did manage to find another spot and hook abut 3 more, but that was it. Alot of the fish became spooky and several moved up as well. We ended our adventure and called it a day, we would go home happy.
Every day was beautiful and sunny, with a few passing thunderstorms at times. Still a pleasure to be fishing for early fresh run NOOKIES!