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May & June offer excellent opportunities for Muskegon
River Trout. Fly Fishing floating lines with strike indicators behind
spawning Chinook produces nice Trout.
Michigan Trout fishing guides available!

Chicago anglers enjoy the prolific hatches and plentiful Brown
and Rainbow Trout that the Muskegon River has to offer!
Muskegon River Fly Fishing Guides!
Trophy Muskegon River Brown (7/18)
Muskegon
River Fishing Report
Muskegon River
Steelhead
Muskegon River
Salmon

Muskegon River trout guide; Chad Betts
Muskegon River Hatches 
Muskegon
River Smallmouth
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Muskegon River Trout Fishing
West Michigan's Muskegon River offers anglers some of the
best in trout fishing action! With expansive riffles, gravel bottoms,
and prolific hatches, it's no wonder anglers prefer the Mighty
Mo.
The Muskegon River supports large numbers of resident Browns and
Rainbow trout between 12" to 16" with some fish over
20" An average day float on the Muskegon River, anglers can
expect many nice trout to be brought to hand.

The Muskegon is truly a world-class tailwater and an excellent
trout fishery. With lots of room for a back cast, the Muskegon
River has a western river feel, and is a large and broud river.
Both wading and Drift boat trips are available.

Pine St. Riffle offers anglers a Western style trout
river in Michigan
We
fish for Trout with a variety of different techniques including
nymphing, dry flies, and one of our favorites, streamers on a
sink-tip line. The Muskegon River is loaded with salmon fry in
May and early June! Stripping streamers or casting rapalas bring
some of the largest trout of the year, some truly huge Browns!!
Muskegon River ~ Gray Drake Spinner
May, June, July, and August offer some of Michigan's best dry fly
fishing. We are fortunate to have tremendous hatches on the Muskegon
River. The most prolific hatches on the Muskegon, Pere Marquette
and White Rivers include: Caddis, Sulfers, Midges, and the Gray
Drake; our largest may flies.These hatches are peak May through
September.
Click here to contact
us for more information about Muskegon River guided
trout fishing. Pere Marquette River Trout trips also available in
the "Flies Only" section.
Muskegon River Trout Guides 
Muskegon River Tailwater Fishery
Muskegon River tailwater hatches are available during May, June,
July and August. Isonychia, Gray Drake, and Caddis are the primary
hatches during the summer months. There are also Stone flies and
Sulphers in huge numbers during these months. Some of Michigan's
largest Muskegon River Trout are caught during these prolific hatches
on dry flies.
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Trophy Trout of May 2009

Muskegon River Brown Trout- Michigan trout guides (5/27/08) Gray
Drake Spinner 
Muskegon River Trout Guides- Mi trout fishing guides (5/25/09)
Sucker spawn patterns.

Muskegon River Rainbow trout Fly Fishing - Mi trout guides (5/26/08)
Red Ass- soft hackle
Our guides excel in Fly Fishing for Muskegon River Trout. Michigan Trout
Guides on the Muskegon River for Michigan Trout and Smallmouth bass. June
affers tremendous dry fly fishing during the summer monthes. Muskegon
Trout guides offer full service guided fly fishing for anglers- Chicago
trout guides, MI guided trout fishing charters in Grand Rapids. 49505
For fishing
guide, May is a time for trout on streamers
Friday, May 20, 2008
By Howard Meyerson
Press Outdoors Editor (Grand Rapids Press, May 20th 2008)
NEWAYGO -- It was late in the day that Chad Betts let a long cast
go, dropping his fly into a shallow riffle near shore.
..The commotion that followed would have
made any fishing filmmaker proud. There was a flash and a leap and lengthy
struggle.
Betts, a 28-year-old fishing guide and my host for the day, was stripping
line in madly, working a beautiful 17-inch brown trout back to the boat.
The fish was reluctant. It dove underneath the boat and refused to give
in.
But Betts, a Newaygo native and 11-year veteran of professional guiding,
has a deft touch.
...A few more moments and it was within netting distance -- capping off
an excellent day of fishing trout on the Muskegon River.
We had boated and released roughly two dozen trout, a mix of browns and
rainbows up to 10 or so inches. Hardly big fish, but eager and fun to
catch.
Then there were the two larger, dark-speckled browns, running 15
or so and now 17 inches. Fat and sassy fish that made a day of
sitting in the cold worthwhile.
Some would have called the conditions less than stellar this day. Many
anglers steer away from fishing when a cold front comes through. And others
might have wondered why we were fishing the little shallow riffles.
But the little riffles, with just a foot of water, were where the fish
seemed to be. And though we fished both shallow and deep, the big fish
screamed out from the shallows hunting for exactly what we gave them --
streamers.
"I fish streamers in May because there are no hatches unless it
is unseasonably warm. The water is low and fish are dialed in to fry,"
said Betts, the owner of Betts Guide Service in Newaygo.
"Trout key in on bait fish( Salmon Fry)at this time of year."
And that was the game: to entice them with bits of feathers and fur that
resembled bait fish. Streamers are flies that imitate a variety of bait
fish, both large and small. They are fished below the surface using split
shot or sink-tip fly lines to get them down in a current.
The 200-grain Rio sink-tip line we were using has 24 feet of
weighted line married to a shooting flyline. Casting it requires shortening
up, making a false cast or two to get the rhythm and then let it fly.
The flies are cast accross the current into the shallows and other fishy
looking places and retrieved as it drifts by stripping line in, creating
a realistic darting action. Our trip was a relaxing mix of floating downstream
and casting to likely spots or anchoring and casting using what Betts
calls a "slip-strip" method for the retrieve.
That means a steady rhythmic alternating pattern of a strip followed by
a release of line, strip-release, strip-release.
"That gives it a natural look," Betts said.
The choice of streamers were several. We started with what Betts called
a large bunny leech streamer that ran two- to three-inches long,
a fly that seemed to get more nips at its tail than hookups. So Betts
switched us over to a shorter streamer. Most fall into to four broad categories:
the salmon and steelhead fry immitations, the general baitfish
immitations, the sculpins and things like leeches and
crawfish.
"I could live on this one," Betts said pointing to the smaller
yellow mallard flank streamer, the steelhead frypattern that he tied --
the one just retrieved from the mouth of the big trout.
It was the same pattern that hooked the other big trout of the day --
a a wholchunky, full-bellied fish that had gorged itself on steelhead
fry, regurgitated one when it hit the net and was hungry enough to still
be mouthing Betts' streamer.
We had anchored near a gravel bar mid-afternoon. Betts was busy working
the fish in the shallows. It is where the fish come to feed, he said.
Then they return to the pools to rest and digest.
"This is the time of year they go around eating fry in all the little
pockets," said Betts, who cut his teeth fishing the river as a Newaygo
High School student and eventually went to study fish biology at the University
of Michigan. Two years into his curriculum he opted to cut his education
short, succumbing instead to lure of the river and becoming a full-time
guide.
"Guiding gets in your blood. It's hard to walk away," says Betts
who guides clients over 200 days a year whether that is for trout, salmon,
steelhead or smallmouth bass.
"You may fish a river several days in a row, but you never have the
same day twice. You can't put a price on seeing a bald eagle or osprey
come by or being out and enjoying the weather."
Today, we see the eagle, not the osprey. And, of course, it never hurts
to see a client smile after hooking a couple of good size Muskegon river
brown trout.
"I've fished in Alaska and Colorado and what keeps me coming back
here is that the Muskegon River has everything. Here the seasons are all
married together. We have salmon in the fall, followed by steelhead in
the winter. When those are done we have some nice trout and when those
are done we get into smallmouth.
May, Betts says, it time for trout on streamers.
© 2009 Grand Rapids Press. Used with permission.
Muskegon River Fly Fishing
Guides for Trout, Steelhead, and Smallmouth Bass. Pere Marquette River
guides excel is Streamers for MI trout. Mi Trout guides for the Muskegon
and Pere Marquette Rivers during summer trout in West Michigan. Trout-Guide
for Streamers for trophy trout in the west Michigan area rviers including
the White, Pere Marquette, and Manistee Rivers.
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