Maitland Low Time To Change Tactics

With all the rain in Oct it brought a lot of fish into the Maitland river system but come November with river levels falling and clarity unlimited it is time to change tactics. I arrive on he river 40 minutes before day brake and  started fishing with the Float rod. It doesn't take long and I produce 3 fish so fast but as soon as the sun rises, nothing.

Thank God for flashes this picture was taken before sun rise

So with the fishing getting slow I decide to go below the 21 highway bridge and fish the tail out with the spey rod. Nothing better then the hit of a wild steelhead while swinging flies.

This fine specimen hit a purple bead head spey tied Woolly Bugger. What a thrill but the day wasn't over yet. I proceeded down the river to the next bend where I meet up with a retired gentleman from Kitchener who was throwing spoons. He told me he tried roe but after 1 hit before sun rise he swung over to spoons and picked up 3 fish. With this information I decided to stick with the spey rod. After about 20 minutes of no fish I decided to add a tandem yarn fly tied to the purple woolly bugger. Well next 30 minutes produced 2 nice fish on the yarn. Amazing they hit the yarn because I was still swinging my flies and not dead drifting them which is tipical how u fish yarn. This is the third time I have tried a yarn fly in tandem while swinging  flies and produced fish.

This fish has been in the river for quite awhile

Underwater Films

I purchased a new Olympus digital camera which can take underwater pictures so here are a couple of my 1st try of underwater videos.

 Here we are releasing my lake run brown.

I will need to find a way to edits these videos if you listen to us talk.

Here is a video on netting a fish

Next is the release of the fish just netted

My final video is of a coho salmon that was in a little side stream of the Manistee. I snuck into the water and caught him swimming by me. Near the end of the video you will see him catch sight of me and decide to get the hell out of there.

So as you can see my 1st attempt not so good but hope to improve my underwater filming and get better videos from here on in.

Manistee Madness

Just experieced back to back weekends with a couple friends in Michingan on the Manistee river. Here are a few picturess of us in search of some fall steelhead from our hyde drift boats.

I tied into this nice lake run brown trout the 1st day of the 1st weekend

Then the second weekend started off with yes!! snow.

But it quickly melted and the day ended with some nice steelies boated

This is the biggest steelehead for me caught and released for the year.