Manistee River Sunrise – on the search for steel
Sunrise in the morning steelhead anglers take warning. I love the fall colors and this morning they were on full display.
Picture of the Day – Barred Owl along Manistee River
Had the pleasure of photographing for the first time a Barred Owl. This will be something I don’t think I will ever forget, if you get the chance ask me the story. It’s a whopper to say the least. Makes no sense to type it out here, as nobody will believe me anyway. But one of the more jaw dropping events I have ever seen, while trout fishing the upper Manistee. Thank you Mrs. Barred Owl for sharing your morning with us.
Picture of the day – Dragon fly I think?
Hard to tell what I was shooting yesterday as this creature started to unveil himself, but pretty sure I was shooting Mr. Dragonfly. Just amazing to watch mother nature work, wish I would of had more time to watch the whole process.
Picture of the Day – 15″ brown on a dry fly
Ed McCoy and I ventured down the Manistee River yesterday throwing around one of the standard early season dry flies the Medium Brown Stone (video link) . Ed and I drummed up some nice fish on the boon dog, and then setup and zapped some smaller fish eating Hendrickson spinners. Here is a picture of Ed holding a nice 15″ brown that could not let the stimulator go by. Used a 15mm Canon Fish Eye lens for this photo. Some of the most overlooked dry fly fishing of the season is early May. No crowds and plenty of chances at decent trout.
Always Interesting on the Manistee River
What is always interesting about fishing, is for the most part you never know what your going to catch. I try my best to keep everybody on their toes when we are our there casting. As you never know what cast will result in a fish of a lifetime or just something different. Well yesterday we had an encounter with Esox Lucius other wise known as the “northern pike”. While the big ones of the Manistee (over 40+”) I do not see very often and my couple quick encounters always seem to get off, this 30″ specimen was hooked about as perfect as one can with such a toothy creature.
Honestly if one was going to target big Esox the next couple months are about prime, from now until there spring spawn. As the big northern pike will use river mouths and warm water discharges from the many harbors and ports along the michigan coast for their winter hunting grounds. While I personally don’t find them as the strongest fighters, there aggressive nature makes them a great target on the fly. And anything that decides that my flies are good enough food items to eat is always cool with me!