A Day on the Water

Tippy Dam parking lot was full Tuesday morning, the crowds thinned out as the afternoon wore on.  A few guys with no interest in being considerate of other anglers, one guy wading out 8 feet farther and obstructing everyone else. Lots of fish jumping, nobody hooking anything except Jeff Bonin fishing the most difficult water and landing 6.  I moved in by him and was 2 for 2 in the late afternoon.  He was using brown and olive rubber leg jig patterns that is the inspiration for my similar brown pattern, he was trailing a bead 30 inches behind it.  He...

A Hot Yellow 10mm bead got all but one of the hits on a 3 for 5 evening on the Huron River below Flat Rock.  Various colors of 8mm beads and a white opal bodied wooly bugger got a trial the at the normally more productive position trailing 30 inches behind the big 10mm bead.  One fish took an 8mm Glow Apricot-pink spot bead.  The fish were mostly silver, 24, 14, and 20 inches in that order, Steelhead run smaller in the Huron with many eager skippers in the mix.

March 25, I landed only 2 out of a total of 6 fish I was pretty sure were fair hooked.  A couple of others seemed they were likely foul hooked. Plagued by Leader Line and Operator issues.  Only saw one fish that I lost, that was a sleek big bight hen who fought stubbornly, then ripped off a run with a slashing leap at the end.  She hit a #6 Golden Nugget Bubble Egg fish as a trailer 3 feet behind a bead.  All the other hits were on Jigs: #8 1/64 ounce Black Stonefly Jig, #6 1/32 ounce Brown Rubber...

March 22nd and March 24th evenings: 1 for 4, then 4 for 4 on small steelhead.  8mm BigHole UV Orange bead got all the hits.  First evening, using a barbed #6 hook held 1 of 4 fish. Next evening, using the lighter wire #6 hook with the barb broken off held all four fish hooked.   Biggest and last Fish.  These fish run out or Lake Erie and run younger and smaller because the feeding in Lake Erie is not very profitable.  We get lots of skippers.  A fish with a head as big as this one would weigh twice as much...

This time in late spring is when to expect, hope for a good bite on Little Black Stone Flies for steelhead or trout in Michigan.  March 12, I didn't see any bugs fluttering across the river but the guy bottom bouncing next to me got a big male steelhead on a #6 stonefly pattern.  I put a stonefly jig pattern under my bobber.  I had been pounding good water for hours with one steelhead hooked and lost on a dark Brown Rubber Legs Jig pattern.  The second cast with a black stone jig got the first steelhead and over an...