Posts by Chris Butz

The Pine is Heating Up for Streamer and Nymph Fishing! The Pine is currently running very low, but with a decent stain. Streamers has been extremely productive this past week even in the bright sun. Moderate sized flies have been the best with black, yellow, white, and rust all getting attention. Color preference can change…

Trout fishing this spring has been a challenge on the Upper Manistee. After a cold start, we have finally had some extended warmth and this has helped our hatches, causing more fish to look up. It’s been bug soup the past week with the last few Hendrickson spinners finishing up along with sulphurs, caddis, mahoganies,…

Chuck and Duck: The Ultimate Guide to Spring Steelhead Fishing in Michigan Spring in Michigan brings the much-anticipated steelhead run, as these powerful fish return to the rivers to spawn. One of the most effective techniques to target them is the “Chuck and Duck” method. This no-frills, bottom-bouncing approach has been a staple among Great…

After the extremely high water earlier in the week, the Manistee is back down at a fishable level with a heavy stain. Steelhead fishing has been great the past couple of days with a mix of older fish spawning and quite a few bright fish just showing up daily.  This weather “interruption” looks to have…

The Manistee River below Tippy Dam is in great shape for spring. Now that the snow from the last apocalypse has almost left, we are still running a bit high at around 3000 and rising after the rain last night and today. As we mentioned in the last report, the recent and sustained higher flows…

The Manistee below Tippy Dam is in great shape for spring. We are running a bit high at around 3100 and the river has a really nice stain to it. The recent and sustained higher flows have brought in a nice push of steelhead that are in a variety of runs at the moment. However,…

After a long, cold winter we are finally starting to see some signs of spring. Rain and snowmelt earlier in the week have bumped up the flows on the Manistee and given the river a great green color. There is already an impressive number of steelhead in the river and this increase in flows should…

The last few weeks’ warmup/rain cycles have added some much needed flow to the Manistee.  After peaking on January 11th, it is dropping and is in great shape. These bumps in flow should bring us more pushes of fish. Fishing has been pretty darn good the past couple of weeks with fish spread nicely throughout…