Fly patterns

The deer-hair-head sculpin archetype that every Michigan articulated streamer descends from. Slimy and mottled sculpins are the most available forage in Michigan trout streams (about 90 percent of prey in the Anna River), so a #4 to #8 Muddler fished dead-drift and stripped along the bottom works year-round; small Muddlers #8 to #12 serve brook trout, and a weighted #8 takes pink salmon.

Streamers · Swinging flies (spey / switch)

The most-cited Michigan salmon fly: black, olive and purple buggers for Chinook and coho, 'essential' on the Pere Marquette, swung or dead-drifted into staged fish from September through October, especially in off-color water. A #8 beadhead in black, olive or pink is the standard pink salmon fly on the St. Marys and Carp in September, and #8 to #12 buggers serve brook trout and small browns all season. Downsize and slow down for trout, upsize and add a hot head for salmon.

Streamers · Swinging flies (spey / switch) · Indicator nymphing · Chuck and duck

A yolk-sac fry imitation in Chuck Hawkins' spring Great Lakes top five, dead-drifted or swung when Chinook alevins emerge from the gravel in March and April; fish also take it as a caddis larva dislodged by spawning steelhead. Michigan TU notes alevin and smelt patterns are effective in spring on rivers with a prior fall salmon run.

Indicator nymphing · Swinging flies (spey / switch) · Streamers

Feenstra's articulated egg-and-fry: a size 10 rear hook wound with white grizzly marabou, joined by mono to a size 6 egg hook that carries craft eyes, a possum collar, pearl flash fins and a pink Ice Dub thorax. It reads as an egg with a fry attached, which is what drifts below spawning gravel in spring and behind salmon redds in fall. Drift it under an indicator or swing it slow on the Muskegon, Manistee and PM.

Indicator nymphing · Swinging flies (spey / switch) · Chuck and duck

Betts reports large trout and steelhead 'feeding heavily on Chinook salmon fry along the shoreline' of the Muskegon from March into June, when salmon fry, steelhead fry and sucker fry are the bulk of the trout diet. Feenstra adds that sucker fry have a purplish hue, so lavender and pink tones work. Strip or swing a #8 to #12 fry along shallow edges.

Streamers · Indicator nymphing · Swinging flies (spey / switch)

Perfect Fly lists wet flies among St. Marys Atlantic salmon patterns, and Atlantics feed on caddis and midges from mid July through August. A swung soft hackle covers emerging caddis pupae and Sulphurs on any Michigan river; swing it down and across in riffles at dusk, or hang it below a dry.

Swinging flies (spey / switch) · Dry fly · Indicator nymphing