I had a wonderful fly casting school this week with a father and 18 year-old daughter Melissa and the next day I couldn’t breath! – I was coughing and choking so hard! Still amazed how young ladies pick up fly casting and trout fishing so instinctively! (See our next Hallowed Waters Podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hallowed-waters/id1606667042 starting backup in July after our June mayfly break: It will be my first women’s podcast ( told my wonderful madam guest to go easy on me since I’m a virgin on this subject-and not too politically correct with the proper gender sensitive lingo and having had all stoic old white dude authors as guests pontificating the deep meanings of our cerebrally twisted and self-induced ethereal and enigmatic subject matters-God help us poor chaps!) The subject: ” A Lady’s Passion for Fly Fishing – Their Legacies in Trout and Salmon Fishing around the Globe” – feat: one of the finest women’s’ fly fishing historians and publishers
River Flows have recovered nicely after the scary and brutally low flows we had all of June due to unprecedented droughts – the good rains we had earlier in the week really helped since we were going at a scary 990 ( one point dipped to 774cfs-frightening for this river!- should be about 1400-1800 cfs for this summertime low period)
CFS FLOWS-1380- Water Temperatures 64 and holding nicely – Thanks to Consumers Energy turning on the cold water bubbler earlier than they are mandated to ( and I usually have to scream to get them turned on every year) when we had the 90F heat and drought conditions- BIG!!! thank you Consumer’s Energy!( its usually July 1) – Also when we have droughts and no run-off water the ice-cold ground/ spring water flows are tapped into-thus keeping river temperatures lower
Hexagenia going strong up North on sandy spring creek rivers and the boys are banging on the big brownies and on each other at night by pissing each other off “who is beating who” to their nights spots- not envious of that crazy stuff at all! 🙂 We had a great mayfly and caddis season on the Muskegon -gray drakes were quick!- but it was good to see them slowly building back up again after their almost complete disappearance of them in 2021 after the heaviest gray drake hatch cycle in modern history in 2020 ( see my complete analysis of this in my “Ebb and Flow” column titled : “Noah’s Drakes” https://hallowedwaters.com/uncategorized/noahs-drakes/ – Shows how climate change’s volatility is wreaking havoc with mayfly and aquatic insect hatches around the globe- another excellent piece appearing on Patagonia’s site by author Sautner is worth the read:https://www.patagonia.com/stories/dude-wheres-my-hatch/story-136295.html
On the positive note we had excellent sulpher and caddis hatches this spring along with golden stones-We now have hatches of waning Isonychias-newly started White Cahill Stenonema-Tricos- Tiny BWO’s and golden stones- 2nd brood of Caddis on their way! Terrestrials starting on the small Huron Forest spring creeks that we fish
Been a very good year class of larger browns and rainbows in the river that have now become selective due to all the available food choices they have- The Muskegon is one of the richest and diverse food sources I’ve ever seen thus makes things very complicated
Image of a cool Steno I took on the glass as the smoky sun was reflecting off the wing
But waiting for more summer steelhead to enter the river- we had a fabulous year in 22! I still have a few open guide dates
A stunning summertime steelhead taken by Chris Bamford on the Scandi swing near the surface on a classic colored West Coast Tube fly when I guided him- I took this image
Cheers!- be safe and cool- hope your air is breathable!
Matthew Supinski