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Salmon Eggs and How Trout Love'em
| We are always trying to build a better “Trout Trap” here on the Pere Marquette River in Northwest Lower Michigan; evolving, not only trying different flies and different fly fishing techniques, but also different times of the day and year in which to engage the beautiful Brown Trout with a Fly Rod. We do so because we love the way Brown Trout look and the way and where we get to be with them, it never gets old does it?? Mouse fly fishing is arguably the most productive technique for catching larger trout because we get to do it longer than we do for a Hex Hatch or Eggin. Darkness usually provides cover to a fish that doesn’t like to feed in clear, sunlit water, but when they start to starve towards the end of the summer, just before they go into their spawning rituals, Browns will feed without hesitation on the Roe of Early King Salmon here on the Pere Marquette. King Salmon begin to spawn after a short time in the river, and when they do, each and every one of the female Kings will begin dumping their payload like a ship off loading it’s cargo!! In the Kings wake here on the Pere Marquette, a grand population of Brown Trout, (waiting for such an event just like Alaskan Rainbows), line up like a chain gang directly downstream and clean up all the waste and loose eggs from behind the salmon gravels… It is the Pere Marquette’s best hour for hour brown trout fly fishing and it goes on when every one else is fishing the Chinook salmon. Ignored fisheries such as this exist across northern MI and are ripe for the fly fisherman looking to score big with the lights still on!! |
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Like candy from a baby, to a trained eye, a fly fisherman can NUKE the trout morning, noon, and even night on egg patterns that mimic clear water variations of King Salmon spawn on the PM River in Baldwin, MI., and especially in the Flies Only Section!! Being steady and selective will keep your drift a prescribed one, and the fish really do the rest. In waters only 6” deep sometimes, Browns, and even large Browns will feed almost in frenzy to the very next egg coming down the creek. After starving for the later half of the summer, mostly void of good hatches, only taking advantage of Terrestrial happenings here and there, they are offered an all you can eat buffet locally at the corner of Gravel Bed and Tail-Out!! Presentation is semi critical, but if your game is there, so are the inches. Everyone catches fish during a day of Eggin here on the PM, but if you want a trophy you have to play by their rules and keep that cast way above, Drag Free Drifts with clean mending till a couple yards below your target!
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If you are over zealous in your approach, sloppy with your mend, or even wearing the wrong colors… the gig is up!! Approach with the knowledge that the fish can see you as well or better than you can see him; your angle of approach playing a huge role in your success rate. Pattern, rig, and even tippets become as key as using depth finders in a few hundred feet of water because the fish, though feeding without their known wariness, are still doing so in just a little bit of water in often High Sun in water that you can read the date on a quarter a few feet down in!! Earth-tone clothing works very well when your playing stealth on an approach, but the biggest key to Eggin Late Summer/Early Fall is the ability to find a fish that is feeding somewhere within a hundred yards below the “Bait Pile”, before he sees you!! It is much tougher than you think, and not just because I am as big as I am…it is much like a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle on a larger scale….he he Once you get good at Line Control, the inches really start to add up here on the Pere Marquette, and sooner or later you will temp a Donkey and then you really have your hands full!!
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Rod selection can play a little role in your hook up success and so can tippet and leader variation. Water level, flow and even temps will have you making sensitive adjustments to your rig to maximize “Take to Cast” ratios. If you have to spend a hundred casts to pick off a fish that is obviously feeding, that is too long. Well designed rigs, (based one water levels), will trip the “Trout Trap” is less time allowing you to be more successful with not just one every hour, but several pending casting and mending skills!! Often you will find yourself wet wading to these occasions and will find little to NO people doing it, (YET??), as they are all down stream whipping lead or pulling hardware for the would be bait piles, (Female King Salmon), on their way up the river.
In my opinion, the Egging produces more inches of trout in a day than any other technique I run during my guide trips, the average size fish is just a little smaller than the night engagements; but to be true, the largest Brown I ever put a client on was Sam D., that was 28” while Eggin Kings, and my dad got once that was 27”!!! We thought it was a small King till we got close to it… When we netted it, it burped eggs all over the place and you could tell she was really putting it on preparing for her spawn!!! This approach to Fly Fishing in September is an alternative to the busy sections of water where people are throwing lead, lures, and left hooks over water that is beating more than fished. |
Hopper applications work all the way to October, and Tripled with the Egg and Mouse fishing that lasts till the Steelhead show in early October,,, THE GAME IS ON! Rob P. managed over 300” of trout by himself in the front of my boat last year, on Hoppers, Nymphs, Isos, Eggs, Mice, Leeches, and Frogs all in one day/night of fishing!!! Those are very good numbers and happenings and don’t happen every night, but we are usually averaging at least half that most days of the week with the conditions so prime and the browns on the good bite, and NOBODY IS OUT THERE!! They are all downstream fishing the Noid… and I Say Avoid the Noid and Trout fish till you BUST, and in my case it might be pretty soon!!!
Late Summer/Early Fall is without question my favorite time of year. It reminds me more of being a kid than any other time year and leaves me missing and waiting for its return annually. It isn’t just the Trout Fishing that makes it so Grand, (though it is no bad thing either…), it’s the thought of cool of fall just around the corner, the shortened days of summer, the dryness of the ground and the sound of the crickets intensifying…. It really is the total package, and once you add the splendor of the colors changing on the Pere Marquette while fishing browns that are too coloring up beautifully… I just don’t know a better place to be, and I have fished a few!! If you would like Details on any of these Angling Opportunities coming up for Brown trout, or taking the little ones out fishing for the Bigger Kings...Book a trip and lets go for a boat ride this Summer/Fall when the browns are dressed in there Sundays best!! Call Cherie at 231-228-7135
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