Manistee River Trout Fishing, Night Fishing, Mousing, Midnight Creeper, Frogs

Transitioning to Fall

August 12, 2018/in Michigan Trout, River Reports /by Chuck Hawkins

Transition to Fall Fishing

August is the time that we transition to fall fishing. Towards the end of August, we start to wean ourselves off terrestrials, mousing and smallmouth and begin to think migratory fish, salmon, steelhead, and muskie. Between now and then our focus remains on resident trout and smallmouth bass.

Pine River

August and September is prime time for the Pine River, Lower Michigan’s most unique river. Cold, fast and the lower peninsula’s most prolific rainbow trout fishery, the Pine River is a blast to fish. In summer the Pine fishes very well with foam hopper creations. As the water begins to cool in early fall the streamer bite can explode. Fishing smaller offerings that are heavily weighted in natural colors. If you streamer junkies are looking for one more streamer excursion before switching to migratory fish, the Pine River should be in your sights. We don’t have a lot of days available in August and September but check with Cherie to see what’s available.

Streamers for Kings

By the end of August King Salmon are in our rivers in good numbers. This is streamer time for these fresh brutes. While rarely a numbers game, the pull from a fresh king slamming your tight line offering is something you’ll never forget. Throwing streamers in low light then switching to smallmouth is a fun day on the water. If you want to give this a try make sure to have plenty of Flash Monkey’s tied up.

As we move into September Kings and Muskie take center stage. Steve and Tim generally have available days for king salmon fishing below Tippy Dam. This is a great venue for beginning anglers and kids. Lots of action sight fishing for big fish.

Garden River Salmon

If it’s salmon you are looking for the Garden River in Sault St Marie, Canada, is a special place. This is private water owned by the Garden River First Nation. I’m there usually there from around September 10th to the end of
the month. The earlier dates are perfect for children and beginners as most of the fish will be pink salmon. There will 100’s of them and they are fun to catch. We offer a two-day special, one adult and one child for $1000. The later dates are when in addition to kings, we start to hunt cohos and steelhead. These trips are three days and run $995

Muskie Fishing

If muskie fishing intrigues you Jon Ray and Ed McCoy have a September venue that they fish every year. The area is in Michigan but shall remain unnamed unless you have a serious interest in capturing one of these elusive, apex predators! Contact us about open dates and more information.

Manistee River Fall Steelhead

Finally, a quick reminder, fall steelhead is the highest demand time of year at Hawkins Outfitters. Jon, Ed, Jeff and I might have a few days available, but not many. Our newest team members, Steve and Tim have days available. If interested give us a call to check availability and then get some days in the calendar.

Years ago, Kirk Deeter stated in Field and Stream Magazine that Michigan is the best state in the union to fly fish mainly due to the great fly fishing for a huge diversity of species. The transition to fall fishing is the epitome of that. Trout, smallmouth, muskie, salmon, and steelhead. So many fish, so little time!

Give Cherie a call to book any of this at 231-228-7135

Tight lines,

Capt. Chuck

2017 Salmon Fishing Garden River Recap

October 6, 2017/in Destination Travel, Fly Fishing /by Chuck Hawkins

Salmon Fishing Garden River

Garden River 2017 Recap

Fly fishing on the Garden River First Nation for King, Pink and Coho salmon, along with steelhead is the best in the Midwest. The reason is privacy, this section is private,owned by the Garden River First Nation, a band of Ojibway Natives. No one is fishing where we are! The lack of pressure makes the salmon more likely to eat a fly and the steelhead beyond willing!

The Garden River fly fishing in 2017 started with a run of very large pink salmon. Usually when we have larger than normal pink salmon the numbers of fish is less than normal. That was not true in 2017, it was huge run of pink salmon. Fresh fish continued to move up the Garden River until the end of September!

Weather Struggles

Garden River Steelhead

The dominant characteristic of 2017 season was the lack of rain and high air temperatures. The last significant rainfall was in the week of Sept 10th. After that a couple of small thunderstorms was it. The rainfall in the week of Sept 10th brought a nice run of large king salmon upstream along with a nice surprise, steelhead! For the next 10 days or so we had great fishing with all species available.

The Garden River Fly Fishing was humming right along until mother nature threw us a curve ball, 5 straight days on 90 degree temps and a continued lack of rain. This shut off the fish tap and started reducing water levels. The fishing suffered accordingly. Most noticeable was the lack of steelhead.

Salmon and Steelhead

The day that the weather broke we had high temps in the low 60’s with clouds and drizzle all day. That brought in another small push of kings but not many steelhead. That gave us enough fish to finish our Garden River 2017 adventure.

Many thanks to all of the anglers that fished with us up north in 2017. All in all it was a pretty good year. Weather hurt us a little but didn’t kill us!

Most of the customers rebooked their spots so we have limited availability in 2018. We have Sept 8-10, 4 spots. This date may be reduced to two days as it is prime pink salmon time and great for kids. Call for details of reduced pricing for children. On Sept 20-22 we have 4 spots available. These are prime time for all species with historically steelhead start showing up. Available dates are subject to change. Learn more about the Garden River on our Travel page.

If you have any questions or want to book one of the remaining openings give Capt. Chuck a call at 231-228-7135

2015 Garden River Fly Fishing Recap

October 5, 2015/in Fly Fishing, River Reports /by Chuck Hawkins

Garden River Recap 2015

Garden River fly fishing for King and Pink salmon in Sault St Marie, Canada is some of the best in the Midwest Region. Garden River fly Fishing for Salmon on the First Nation is the best in the Midwest. Why? Privacy is the reason. We fish very close to the mouth of the Garden River on First Nation lands giving us first shot at King, Pink and Coho salmon and steelhead all on private property. Due to the proximity to the St Mary’s River the fish are fresh and much more likely to take a fly. The lack of any fishing pressure adds to that success!

In 2015 the season looked to be dismal at best. When I arrived in Sault St Marie my native friends told me there were no fish at my two favorite beats. This was unheard of in the 16 years past. So needing fish by Saturday, Thursday I went to the public part of the river, right below the falls, Eleven Mile. There I found enough pinks to catch fish on Saturday with the family trip I was running. Friday we spent the day checking the river on the native lands. We found enough fish up at high in the reserve on private land to keep going. Saturday we started our Garden River guided fly fishing trips.

As the days went on Pinks and kings constantly dribbled in almost every day. Fly fishing for salmon was pretty good, not stellar but definitely good enough as clients continued to rebook their spots for next year. It was interesting to see fish moving upstream very late and in very low water.

Rain was hard to come by on the Garden River this year. We had only one decent rain mostly just beautiful warm blue bird days. The one rain event we had was the night before the kids trip on Sept 19^th. That moved fish! We had a push of pinks and kings and hooked 11 steelhead in two days.

The last three groups saw change every day. The fish moving up river were constant, small in numbers but we saw them every day. They would immediately start to spawn ,creating new gravel fishing opportunities. The best situation you could find was a hen working gravel that attracted the traveling males. You could get a few shots at them and if successful the fights ere epic.

The late run and the low water made the streamer fly fishing for king and pink salmon slow this year. They just weren’t spending much time in the pools. We did get a couple of really good king salmon but not the numbers we normally get.

Though a little more difficult than usual the Garden River produced good fly fishing for king and pink salmon and at times for steelhead.

We have limited availability for 2016, right now I have two spots on Sept 14-16, two spots on Sept 21-23, and two spots on Sept 28-30. Thes dates are subject to change. If interested contact me at [email protected].