One week I am standing on the West Wall at Matunuck in Rhode Island, tossing epoxies to crazed albies and the following week I am back in Michigan receiving a punishment from a fresh fall Chromer. Wow, and it was only the 8th of October. A wetter than normal fall resulted in earlier and more substantial runs of steelhead on the Lake Michigan tributaries in Western Michigan this past few months. Along with the steelhead were better than average shots at lake-run browns. Just imagine stepping into the top of a deep run, popping a leaping 9lb chrome hen steelhead and then taking an 8lb brown on the very next cast. Or the pain of losing a 10lb plus hook-jawed lake run brown after just releasing a decent 5lb female brown. Having spent the last 10 years or so fly-fishing the smaller tributaries of Lake Michigan, I can only think of another year, 1999, that has rivaled this past one. And the bonus has been the warmer than normal temps that keep the chrome pipeline pumping fish upstream.In addition to indicator fishing, I have been tinkering with something new the last couple of years, float tackle (i.e. center-pinning), and am finding it quite enjoyable. For those unfamiliar with float tackle, try an picture a large arbor fly reel filled with mono with no drag system, and the spool running on a couple of precision ball bearings. Pick one up and you will notice that the reel will ?spin? unassisted for minutes, as if it had an internal motor. The advantage of this system is that you can extend your float, or drift, by allowing line to free spool off the reel to carry your offering downstream with little drag. Throw a few mends here and there and you can fish 100? of water, drag-free. The real excitement starts when you hook a fish with no drag system to assist you, truly a one-to-one contact with your adversary and pressure can be applied by fingers on the rod hand or palming the spool with your free hand. Standard rigging is similar to indicator fishing except the indicator is substituted with a clear plastic or balsa wood float. Weight is added to the leader and on the terminal end; one can run egg flies, nymphs, streamers, small jigs, and even various forms of bait. If you have a chance to try ?float-fishing?, be careful because it?s highly addictive.
flyfishmich — wow, some beautiful steelies … i gotta be honest .. several years ago while steelhead i saw a few guys with “weird looking fly rods” .. and they were seriously lighting up the run … they were hooking 5 steelhead for every 1 of my hook ups … As i drifted my measley 30 feet or so, these guys were getting triple that distance if not more .. with dead free drifts .. it was a no brainer .. i thought, i gotta get in that game … i then came to find out that these were center pin rods and not fly rods … but when we boil it all down … its exactly the same thing in my book (assuming only flies are used) … and i view it much like spey rods … this system was developed in england many moons ago to serve a specific need that the traditional single handed fly rod and even the spey rod could not meet … as any steelhead knows, many times a swung fly is just not nearly as effective as a dead drifted fly …. and the longer the dead drift = the better chance of hooking a fish ….
i do all of my steelhead fly fishing with an indicator and many times i rig up EXACTLY like a center pin setup with tappered weight etc… to achieve a desired result … so, i gotta be honest .. i have been on the edge of going center pin for a few years …. because in my eyes — even though it’s not OFFICIALLY considered fly fishing because of the mono line … i consider it fly fishing because at the end of the day a guy with a fly rod using an indicator and a guy with a center pin ARE doing exactly the same thing …. now, if the guy with the center pin puts bait or egg sacks on the hook, that is a different story ….. heck i even know guys that spool up mono on their fly reels during the winter to ease the icing issue …. so, at that point … we are really just splitting hairs as to what is and isn’t fly fishing ….
sorry to ramble — i just think that its interesting how when i first saw these weapons in action i thought “wow, that is an amazing form of fly fishing” .. then someone said to me, “that’s not fly fishing” ….. fast forward to these days and everything has come full circle … i believe that as long as flies are being used with the center pin or traditional fly rods .. it is fly fishing … but that’s just me …
i’m definately sold on center pin … bar none, no questions asked … this setup in the hands of a good fisherman … hooks the most steelhead …. i definately see a center pin setup in my future …. and, like you, i don’t have to be either or … sometimes i will fly fish with a single handed rod, sometimes a double handed rod and sometimes a center pin rod ….
great fish tale —
Very nice steel. I am definately planning on fishing for steel in MI in the near future.
Really nice looking fish and good read. Lake Mich really seems to be a fantastic fishery, would love to check it out sometime soon. It is inevitable that one day I will own a centerpin outfit. Fished with a pin fisherman a couple weeks ago and he caught 5 steelhead to my 1. Besides the crazy long drift he got, the coolest thing to me was as you mentioned, the direct contact to the fish….no mechanical drag….just his palm and pinky finger.
p.s. I heard you really put it to the albies out on the wall. Glad you hit it right. The wall and the breachways can really break your spirit at times. The blues and stripers out on the beach saved my trip this fall. I was more exhausted from standing on that wall in one spot for 10 hours than I ever have been pounding several miles of steelhead river in a day.
mich man
beautiful fish. So many rivers, so little time.
Yes…a week of casting at the WW was punishing on my upper body…elbows, wrist, shoulder. In part, carpal tunnel, tendonitis, and a herniated cervical disc contributed to my interest in float fishing. I cast directly off the reel, with the spool revolving, and find the casting as enjoyable as the fishing. Its popularity in the Great Lakes region has increased exponentially over the past couple of years, as people are starting to abandon the standard “chuck ‘n duck” technique so commonly employed.