The last couple weeks it’s been all about high water on the Au Sable. At times this is a good thing and can produce some excellent steelhead or trout fishing. Of late its been up and down – from decent bite to no bite. River was starting to get back to a good high level when heavy rains came back yesterday. The lower has flood gates going making the Steelhead fishing tough. Foote Pond is still ice covered but it starting to get rotten and melt with some very high water and temps around 37 degrees. Look for this to climb fast next week and should bring more chrome fish.
Currently the cleanest water is in the upper river and it is fishable but very high. We broke out the driftboat today and gave our streamers a shot looking for a Big Brown. Shocking how river in this section below should be so small!
Did find a few active Browns in this flood water but not that many. Black was by far our best color. Had a good one chase and others were like this one.
As we we went down stream conditions did get worse and action dropped off. Slower sections were out of it banks flowing thru the woods.
On the way back home I did stop and check on the Big Waters of Au Sable below Mio Dam. The only good news was the flood gates were off. If those come on it typically takes much longer to cleanup. Water was very dirty but not totally mud. I wouldn’t recommend fishing it till drops and clears up a little.
Calling for cold weather and maybe a little snow/rain next couple days. But then look at next week – looks like spring weather!