Finally made it back home this week from North West Michigan and chasing Kings on the Betsie River. What a wonderful surprise to find in lower Au Sable – Coho run is going real good! Lake Huron numbers have really grown the last few years and these fish are doing so well. These fish are just moving into the river now and there are some real nice pods now. Some of the pods (15-20 fish) are just moving upstream together and not hold well. Most are nice bright fish are not anywhere near spawning yet. Look for these fish to hold in the deeper gravel runs as the water temp of the river continues to drop. Yesterday i fished the lower river and landed a couple real nice Coho and both swinging leech patterns. Had some other nice chases and did well on purple and orange/lots of flash. Will be posting streamer photos this coming week.
Atlantic Salmon are in the river now! Not in big numbers but did find a number of them to fish to. Had beautiful silver hen come off a log pile and grab a swung streamer but pulled on first jump. Got completely ignored by a few with just no interest in what i was fishing which does happen a lot with Atlantics. Few little young steelhead around which these always come first. For those looking target steelhead Nov/Dec is the time.
The lower river is very low and extremely clear right now. Have not seen it in this condition often this time of year. Didnt really think Coho or Atlantics would even run river in this low of water but i was sure wrong about that! In these conditions need to adjust your presentation and methods of fishing. Stay back and fish well in front of boat. Small streamers do get noticed big time. Easy to get down without lots of weight. Sinking leaders. Wade fish.
Beginning of October used to be billed as streamer time by myself and others. Weather is everything to river fishing and right now its not streamer time for Big Browns on the Au Sable. What we need is couple good fall storms with some rain and cold temps. That would kick these Big Browns into pre spawing mode and looking for more food. Weather looks like summer the next few days but then change to some October type weather. I have rescheduled a few trout trips this week till better conditions arrive. Streamer fishing is tough enough and doing it poor conditions is not good. My current places to fish are the lower Au Sable for Coho/Atlantic Salmon or the Betsie River for Kings at Frankfort. Still plenty of Kings in Lake Michigan just waiting on some rain.