PM Steel – photo by Brad Turner

I spent Monday floating the Pere Marquette River with my friend and fellow fly fishing guide Brad Turner. Brad taught me much of what I know about fly fishing many years ago and inspired me to pursue guiding which eventually led to career 2.0 at Wolf Creek Angler. We try to get together and fish whenever we can so following a great couple of days on the MO late last summer this time it was back to my home waters of the Pere Marquette for steelhead and streamer fishing.

We floated the fly water on what turned out to be a gorgeous spring day with near perfect water conditions. The first hours were spent trying to find a streamer the fish were interested in which proved to be quite a challenge. We didn’t move a fish for the first two hours. Though I’ve had some EPIC streamer days on the PM over the years I’ve also had plenty of days like the way this one was starting out where it’s just not happening. I ran through my tried and true PM favorite patterns unsuccessfully and finally found something that worked with a Wilson’s Articulated Sparkle Minnow. We moved a few, hooked a few and landed a few over the next miles including a couple of 20″+ fish following right to the boat but opting out of the eat. A frustrating scenario but definitely what has kept me throwing streamers all of these years. The visual aspect of streamer fishing a river like the PM is something we miss on the MO. Streamer fishing on the Missouri is  still a blast but there’s something about bombing the banks and the structure on small water like the PM and seeing those big browns emerge from their hidden lies to chase down a streamer that gets your heart racing and makes you throw until you are too sore to throw anymore which was definitely the case yesterday.

It was after lunch time before we decided to try some steelhead fishing and as is usually the case with Brad he had us fishing some spots I never even noticed in my years on the PM, the second of which yielded a couple of hookups and one bright small female to hand (though not to hand long enough to get a picture). It’s been a long cold winter in Michigan and the new fish are just starting to move into the system so we were excited to see this fresh chrome beauty.

It was back to the streamer for a few miles, working a few steelhead spots along the way. The action definitely slowed towards evening though I did hook a steelhead on the streamer which resulted in a screaming reel battle which I lost.

As night began to fall we did find a couple more fish willing to play and it was near dark when I landed the biggest steelhead of my career after an epic battle which included plenty of coaching from Brad. I’ve had some great fights on the MO with some sizeable rainbows and coached clients through many a fight but I had forgotten just how powerful these fish are. What a rush and what a great day on the Pere Marquette!