Betsie & Platte River fly fishing report -  September 8th

That high heat is gone and it sure feels like fall now!  Just ideal weather of late for chasing fresh run Chinook Salmon on the Betsie river.  Recent cool weather and rains have made for some very good fishing since this past weekend.  This has been the week of heavy winds which is helping cool the shoreline of Lake Michigan and bring salmon to the shoreline.  Look for new waves of fresh fish to come thru Betsie Lake and the lower river with every rain or hard north wind.  These are excellent places to streamer fish.  These early fish do end up in deep slow sand holes and leeches, muddlers, buggers, hex nymphs, caddis nymphs and egg flies are all very effective.  Right now the key to success is to avoid fishing gravel runs & section where there is heavy angling pressure.  Also best to cover lots of water for these early fish.   Early Chinooks are staging in Betsie Harbor and this is a great time to streamer fishing in the early morning and late evening.  This is a very streaky area to fish but these silver Chinooks will just crush a streamer at times. 

For information and photos of upcoming fishing - updated July 11th (click here)

September 8th - Brad and Lindsey put a few nice Chinook Salmon in the net today.  Looking forward to floating with them again on Friday.  It sure felt like fall out today with lots of wind and cool weather.  Should be ideal for bringing more fresh fish into river.

September 8th - More of guys from Alabama coming down the river with guide Ted Kraimer.

September 7th - Tim and Bob with some very nice silver Chinook Salmon on the Betsie River.  Found some good numbers and had some good fishing today!

September 5th - Tom and Jim found some nice fresh salmon on the Betsie today!

September 3rd - Finally some cool weather and new fresh run salmon are on the move from Lake Michigan. 

September 1st - Betsie Harbor is just full of fish.  Water temps are very warm but just a great place to streamer fish.

August 27th - Had a nice float trip with the Denny family today on the Betsie River.  Hot weather sure did not help the fishing today and pretty much has stopped to push of new salmon coming into the river.  We did find one deep hole that was full of fish but just could not get one of those silver Chinooks into the net.

A great new Salmon streamer the Spin Psyco that was design by Eli Berant.  The casting squid (in the middle) has always been one of top lures for fresh run Kings and this streamer was designed after it.  It does have weight to it but casts very nice on a 9wt with either a Rio 24' DC Sink Tip (250gr is typically ideal on Betsie) or for longer casts in the lower lakes a Rio OutBound.  We do have all of these in stock and they will be added to our online sales section (hopefully tonight).

August 24-25th - Mike with a couple of real nice early run salmon on the Betsie River.  The last two days we floated a number of different sections and did find some nice Chinook Salmon.  Hooked about 25 fish in the 2 days.  It took covering lots of water to find a few nice pods and many sections of river are empty.  These early fish do really fight and putting them in the net is sure not the easiest right now.

Sage came out with the new TCX switch rod and like all new rods we had to go give it a try!  The 11' 9" 8wt is my new favorite switch rod.  Rod is so light in hand and balanced just perfect with Sage 6010 reel on it.  Was just the ideal rod with a floating line for fishing nymphs and eggs down deep with an indictor rig.  For swinging flies this rod is just perfect with a Rio Skagit lines & the Rio new MOW tips.   We do have 7wt and 8wt in this series in stock.

August 23rd - Susan and Merritt both put some just beautiful silver Chinook Salmon into the net!  That rain a couple days ago was just perfect timing and brought some pods of salmon up the river.  Did not even see an angler and sure enjoyed the day with these two!

August 20th - Some fresh run Chinook Salmon on the Betsie River!  August has been very warm and low numbers of fish in the river.  Of late a few are finally start to come but numbers were still very low today!

Aug 1st - Here are some of our top August salmon streamers.  Our Great Lakes Deceiver & Murdich Minnows are two of our top streamers for trophy trout and salmon.  These colors are very effective on early run Kings - Chart/White Glow, Green/White and Fire Tiger.  This time of year is just a great time for river and shoreline streamer action!  I have put a lot of time the last few years into targeting fresh King Salmon and the streamer we sell are the proven patterns that are in my boat.  These and some of our other top salmon streamers are now in stock and can be purchased online at Great Lakes Deceivers.  

Salmon Photo From 2009 - click here

Salmon Photo Gallery Past Years - click here

 Lake Huron & Lake Michigan brown trout, salmon and smallmouth photos from the 2005 & 2006 season  (click here)

Steelhead photos from the 2005 season  (click here)

Trout photos from the 2005 & 2006 season  (click here)

 Trout photos from the 2004 season  (click here)

Lake Huron brown trout photos from the 2003 & 2004 season  (click here)

Michigan fly fishing opportunities this season include:

• Streamer fishing - always good, especially Spring and Fall
• Hendrickson (late-April/early-May)
• Brown Drake (late-May/mid-June)
• Isonychia (mid-June)
• Hexagenia Limbata (mid-June/early-July)
• White Fly/Ephron (late-August)
• Terrestrials - hoppers and ants (mid-July thru mid-September)
• Salmon (August thru mid-Oct)
• Steelhead (Oct thru mid-May)