The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report Hey Folks, I’ve been running ragged working the shop and guiding and have been a little behind with the reports I know you are all looking for. So, here it is.  Hex are winding down on the Au Sable and are all but over on the South Branch.  There should be some shorter spinnerfalls and hatches left in the Au Sable’s lower reaches as the hatch sputters to an end. We’re waiting on the Manistee to hold up its end.  Hop...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Fishing School, Fly Tying, Hex, ISO, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report We’ve got our last cold front of the season behind us—we hope.  Fishing shut down for a few days, but now we should be back on track for the goodness of June. The Manistee has some fine brown drake nights in the bug forecast.  And the Au Sable is looking forward to quality evenings spurred on by Iso’s and Suphlurs.  In fact, every angler should have a healthy dose of those patterns in their boxes for the next couple of weeks....

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Tying, Hex, ISO, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Tourism, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report. It’s finally June. The trials and tribulations of May are behind us. High water is giving way to clearer, more fishable conditions. And, best of all, the drakes are started. Anglers can find gray drakes on most of our waters and brown drakes have exploded on area lakes and have made their initial appearances on the River. Sulphurs and mahoganies and caddis still make up the most prominent emergence, but drakes are what we’ve all been...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Hex, Michigan Reports, Tourism, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report. The River just keeps on flowing unconcerned about what we’re doing and unconcerned with what we want to happen. Hendricksons have largely moved through the system, but I surely wouldn’t go to the river without some parachutes and I’d be looking for Hendrickson spinners at dusk.  We’re moving toward Sulphurs and popcorn caddis.  And we’re especially moving toward the time of the evening rise. As much as the afternoon, E...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Fishing School, Fly Tying, Hex, ISO, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Streamer Fishing, Tourism, Trico, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report For all of the most obvious reasons this has been the strangest Spring ever witnessed on the Au Sable River. We’re all in lockdown and our lives are dynamically changed. And though I am in no way tone deaf to the situation, I was doing my best to look at the world through glass half full lenses. Lots of time with my wonderful family. And a lingering early Spring; the first in many years where fish would be eating dry flies and we’d ha...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Weather

April 23, 2020 OPENING DAY The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report It’s nearly impossible to believe that this is already the Opening Week of trout season.  Yet, it feels like a long time coming. Home for many weeks during this long, lingering early-Spring, life has ebbed between accomplishment and adventure and wasted time and boredom.  I have finished house projects, read books, tied flies, caught fish, and even tagged a great turkey.  All of that with my b...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Tourism, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report Ponds are alive with croaks and creaks and peepers are peeping. Fish are moving around the rivers and into the shallow bays and shelves on area lakes. The songbirds are cheerfully back on sunshine mornings. An occasional trout is eating an occasional fly from the surface of our constantly moving Rivers. That’s right, we’ve seen the first fish of the season rise. Spring is here. The black stoneflies have been around for many weeks and ...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Blue Gills, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report This has been the finest August I can remember - cool nights and warm days. Michigan has the best weather in the country right now.  And fishing is, well, really pretty good for late Summer.  Water temperatures and flows are solid, so daytime angling is alright.  Tricos and olives are hatching every morning with young trout taking notice and we’re picking up some fish throughout the rest of the daylight hours. You should be able to p...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Fishing School, Holiday, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Streamer Fishing, Tourism, Trico, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report Somehow the world has turned enough to put us right into August.  Understanding where Summer started to slip away is a head scratcher.  Seems like we just got started and already we’re only weeks from September. I guess it’s because everything in our trout fishing world took so long to get rolling.  Our season was significantly pushed back. We’re set to reap some benefits from that now.  Cool nights and good rainfall has ...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Brook Trout, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Fishing School, Fly Tying, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Streamer Fishing, Tourism, Trico, Weather

The Old Au Sable Fly Shop Fishing Report Well I guess we have to call the Hex Hatch finished for 2019. Sort of anyway.  Our insect hatches never turn of like a light switch; instead, they sort of linger and nag at anglers like a leaky faucet.  It’s hard not to pull on damp, mildewed waders and trudge into the currents one more time hoping for that last spit of bugs and the last late night slurps of just one more jaw snapping brown trout. Just one more last time. Just one mor...

By: Jeff Gardner   Category: Blue Gills, Brook Trout, Brown Drakes, BWO, Dry Fly Fishing, Fishing Tips, Fly Fishing Community, Fly Fishing School, Fly Tying, Hex, ISO, Michigan Reports, River Reports, Tourism, Trico, Weather