The healing after the flood comes with a silver lining. May's splendor is too intoxicating to the senses to ignore...especially if you are fly fisher that revels in the beauty all around the forests and woods, and also what you have to chase and admire...May's bounty is relentless. Our new waters on our Michigan rivers after the floods are flowing  full and rich  with a deep  marl tannic stain like we have never seen....the low drought conditions and pathetic and sickly flows of the past are over for a long time as we watch one massive thunderstorm system after another dump life giving rain to our river habitat which are 'English-like chalkstream downs', that will replenish our deep subterranean aquifers for years to come. 

We fail to realize how important our amazing riverine topography of sand Michigan has that nourishes every drop of water and store it for the future like spring creeks, only to give out a slight desired alkalinity that makes our rivers and streams the most fertile river systems 'in the world-bar none!"- with mayfly, stonefly and caddis life- not to mention midges and scuds and everything our trout, steelhead and Pacific and Atlantic salmon need for survival. Our rivers remind me of the rivers of my youth in northern Poland along the "podmorski" Pomeranian  shoreline of the Baltic rivers that had the same topography of sand and dense forests, marshes and bogs, with rivers having native wild browns, sea trout and Atlantics.

So for us on the Muskegon, here is the new and exciting  bounty and opportunities of spring "finally being sprung-well over two months behind", we will be basking in. For each of us that really cares about or rivers , and given all the grief and despair 2014 cursed us with from the start.... we can now say,"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger"... eh?...through hardship comes peace and prosperity.....that's the silver lining through it all.
NEW HABITAT- This is perhaps the most exciting part of what the flood gave us.What big tailwaters lack for trout structure is large wooded/woody debris that provides 'brown trout condos' like found on the PM and other smaller lunker brown streams like the Big Sable. Well!...the flood's destruction of docks,boats etc. also gave us giant oak trees and stumps/roots from 30-60 feet  deposited on the shoreline everywhere...giant trout condominiums/lunker structure even a dynamite blasting fund structure campaign of tens of thousands of dollars couldn't provide-( like they have done on the Au Sable and other northern rivers). Also the high flows cleaned gravel in faster gradients, deposited silt in slow gradients for silt burrowing mayflies that could repopulate the river from Croton and Hardy that are loaded with Hexes and Brown Drakes. BUT!...the real biggie is that nuisance aquatic green vegetation - the water eel grass/foil and junk that came from warm low flows that turns the river into a weed bed in summer is most likely scoured and gone, witn clean gravel remaining. Ther is no question that the years of 1999- through 2004---then again in 2011/2012 heat waves was a serious 'ugly head rearing of global warming"- these aquatic weeds prospered in those years couple with very, very low flows- the floods and cold winters kicked there ass- they are nothing but trouble for aquatic insects since they choke out their food supply. With them gone, insect populations will skyrocket-especially the beloved caddis of which the Muskegon is shrouded in literature.These are just some notable changes you will immediately see for the positive.

STEELHEAD- we have at least another glorious month of steelheading, both fresh fish still coming in due to the ice conditions of Lake Michigan, to the tons of fish in the system spawning now and the drop backs that love to take a swung intruder with a vengeance.Good numbers are still being taken by pier trolling fisherman that are still headed up to spawn weeks from now. With the high cold flows and no heat waves in sight, , we will have steelheading until Fathers Day like the last time the Great Lake froze over to 90% in 2003? (or 4)...please correct me.
HERE IS SOME REALLY GOOD NEWS!....they stocked our steelhead smolts before the flood....bingo!...instant blow down to Muskegon lake and Lake Michigan in very high and muddy waters that protected 60,000 smolts form the walleye and bass predation they normally get in the clear waters. Was down at Lake Michigan seveal times in the past weeks after the flood and the waters were mucky brown...I bet we have 90% plus survival of smolts that normally get butchered in the river, lake and near shore areas by predation and clumsy and thoughtless worm dunkers...the run in two years will be EPIC....new buzz words...' epic and biblical '! 


HATCHES-My biggest fears from an epic flood are that mayflies, stoneflies, caddis etc. will get washed down river prematurely before they could hatch and insect species destroyed, silt covering them and suffocating them and washing them up on dry land once the waters receded. Well I'm happy to report that yesterday, Mother's Day, the Muskegon gave birth to several Epeorus Pleuralis -Quill Gordons, in the same middle of the river spots I have seen them for several decades- this was a major triumph and blessing knowing the bugs survived. The Quills hatch in the dead smack middle of the river and that was a very rest assuring sign. The sulphers, march browns , gray drakes and olives will be starting any day, along with the caddis. With the cold and wet season, we should see amazing gray drake hatches like we had three years ago under the same type of weather...lets hope!!!
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Catch Information

Species:
Atlantic Salmon


Brown Trout


Chinook Salmon


Rainbow Trout


Spotted Seatrout


Walleye

This Fishing Report was submitted on 5/16/2014 9:10:08 PM by Seamus and last updated on 5/16/2014 9:10:08 PM.

Location

7522 S Gray Drake Bluff
Newaygo, MI US

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