JohnIt’s only the second month of 2023, and I’ve already gone steelheading twice as many times than I did in 2022. And if my calculations are right, that means I’ve gone a grand total of two times this year lol. Between work, family, and mostly prime fishing spots being 1.5+ hours away, there’s not much time that can be contributed to fishing in general. So any opportunity I get to wet my lines is no short of a miracle.
The First Trip
The target river was the Pere Marquette. I honestly don’t fish this popular river much, so I had to reach out to my buddy Justin for one of his spots because I had no idea where to go – so thanks Ja! The idea was to get to a spot on the river before the sun came out so I could make the hike and hit a handful of areas I thought seemed like they were holding fish. I only had until around noon before I needed to make the drive back home. At a minimum, even if I didn’t fish, I wanted to at least find some areas for future fishing trips. Plan was set, all I had to do was carry it out.
It was around 4:00 AM and I’m already in my truck, ready to go. I type in the spot that I want to go into my map app and start taking off. Long story short, it wasn’t the correct spot at all. I ended up on the side of the road, adjacent to someone’s private property. At that point, I had no internet service so I couldn’t remap to where I needed to be. I just knew I had to go north, so that’s what I did.
Unfortunately, going north wasn’t working because I ended up getting stuck at deadends in these small lakeside neighborhoods. Thankfully, forty-five minutes later, my driving leads me to the top of a hill where I received internet service. I plug in my correct spot and take off. By the time I get to where I wanted to go, the sun was out and parking lot was half-full.
Even though I was late, I still managed to get out to a couple of spots I wanted to check out. I also managed to get a snapshot of this part of the water:
The Second Trip
It’s early February and I reach out to a few of my friends to see if they want to tag along. Only one of my buddies had time to go. So 4:30 AM, we’re already on the road. We’re thinking it’s going to be cold, there won’t be a lot of people there, and we should be the first people there. After nearly a 3 hour drive, there were already two vehicles in the parking lot; I applaud them of their dedication.
It’s about 7:30ish and the temperature was hovering around 12 degrees fahrenheit; quit chilly. I honestly didn’t dress for this temperature, but in my defense, the weatherman said mid 40’s. I figured I’d just keep moving around to keep my body warm.
So we set up our gear and head to the water. I’ve got the jitters because the water looks superb and I’m overly excited to get my line wet. Some two hours later, I’ve switched my leader to three different poundages, I’ve used every color bead in my arsenal, and I’ve gone through every type of my fly in my selection – no fish. I didn’t feel too bad though because it seemed like everyone else on the river had the same luck as I did. Regardless, I keep on fishing. Not sure what else to do, I slip on an 8mm Bloop Master Roeshi bead and tie on a size 4 Raven Speciality Hook. A few casts later, I slip on some snow on the rocks I was standing on so body naturally falls backwards. Long behold, this same movement accidentally sets a hook on a fish and I’m on! Honestly, it wasn’t a great fight, but it did take me five minutes to pull in this buck:
Excuse my amateur photos, it’s merely for a little context.
So now my spirits are up, thinking the fish are going to turn on. Three hours later with no bites, I’m contemplating whether there is any more fish in the river. Maybe I caught the only one? Thus far, I’ve only see one other pull in a fish. Is it still worth fishing? I then remember this trip is nearly a miracle, so I talk myself into figuring out what to use.
I look into my bag and realize I forgot I had tied some Pink/Fireball Pautzke’s Fire Balls. I figured, “why not?”. I hook one on and a few casts later, I can see that I’ve got a fresh steelie on the end of the line. It was an odd fight though. I was looking at my line and it was straight across me, but the fish was 45 degrees down river from me. Come to find out, my swivel caught someone else’s stuck dead line in the water. At one point I couldn’t reel in the fish anymore.
My buddy sees that I’ve got a fish on and runs over. The hen is not hovering on the edge of the drop off where shallow turns to deep. I honestly thought I might as well just break my line cause there’s no way to physically pull in the fish closer. As I’m still debating though, the fish gods had my back and the steelie for towards the shore and my buddy scoops him up. What luck. I didn’t take pictures by the water, but you can still see the silver on this after I got home:
And that concludes my first two steelheading trips of 2023. Huge fails, couple of lucky fish, and memories to share. Can’t really ask for more. Hopefully you enjoyed my stories and there are more trips this year!
Happy fishing!
