Late summer in August and early September Northern Michigan offers some excellent fly fish for both of these fish. Recently we have been doing well with both! Smallies just love moving water throughout the heat of the summer and are very aggressive feeders.
Of late afternoon streamer fishing has been excellent! Lots of different baitfish and sculpin patterns have been very productive of late. When the sun comes off the water its topwater time! Hard to beat hard bodied poppers but also mouse patterns are very effective. Still a few dark hex around and smallies just love to rise to these big mayflies.
Daytime has not been producing a lot of brown trout of late but that will change in late September when good streamer fishing starts. Currently the night time bite has been very good swinging mouse patterns.
With current low summer water many of our big browns are still very nocturnal and mousing is producing. This time of year it’s getting dark much earlier and it’s time to start by 9pm. Should have at least a couple more good weeks of mousing and can last all the way till October some years.