Surf fishing is good now

If there is anything that turns me on, it is prowling a secluded Lake Michigan beach and casting bait or lures over the edge of the first drop off. The results of that one cast can be explosive.

This is the time of year when most of the coho or Chinook salmon have moved upstream but some stragglers may be caught from shore. The occasional brown trout or steelhead is also a possibility although the steelies are about ready to move upstream to follow the spawning salmon.

Of these two species, the brown trout are most unpredictable. Brown trout numbers have dwindled in recent years, and it would be nice if the DNR planted some fish.

Fishing such spots can be a hit-or-miss fishery.

Rivermouth fishing can pay off from now through times when it is too brutally cold to fish. Many anglers can be seen fishing off a mouth as the wind gusts and drives bone-chilling cold rain or snow into your face. Sometimes the action is good enough to make fishermen fight the cold weather until they limit out on steelhead or browns.

However, most of the time, the fishing will be strictly for steelhead. A brown trout is a bonus. Anglers must learn to read a rivermouth in order to know where to fish.

Watch to see where the river current meets the lake water, and the current flow often depends to a arge degree on wind direction and wave action. Often, a sand bar can build off a river mouth, and the current will curve one way or the other around the sand bar.

I remember once when me and a dozen other fishermen found a school of fall steelhead and a few browns off the Platte river mouth pm a foggy day. The fish could be seen swimming only 10 yards away, and every fish seemed to weigh six to 10 pounds. A few of the browns were even larger.

We used spawnbags tied with orange or yellow mesh material, and we added one or two tiny Styrofoam kernels to the egg sack. This helped the bait to float up just off bottom.

Bait produces mostly steelhead while spoons work best for brown trout,

Our fishing rig was simple. We ran our 6-pound line through a 1/4-oz. egg sinker and tied the line to one end of a barrel swivel, We then tied in a four-foot length of 4-pound leader, tied on a hook, baited up, and cast into the water where the river current and lake water met.

The bait would roll along bottom, and usually it may roll only a few feet before we felt the tap-tap-tap strike as a steelhead picked up the bait. We'd give the fish a bit of slack, let the line come tight again, set the hook, and then watch the explosive jumps of an angry and wild fish.

We hooked a few brown trout that day, but most of the catch were steelhead. If a spot stopped producing, we'd move 50 to 100 yards down the shoreline as we continued to fish the river current flowing into the lake.

Often, the fish would hold on the deep-water side of a drop off. Deep is a relative thing. Where we were hooking fish that day was only five or six feet deep, but the fish were on one side of the sand bar and we were on the opposite side. They couldn't see us, and they seemed to act like an outfielder camped under a high fly ball waiting for the bait to fall down to them.

Once the bait hit the water the fish would grab the spawnbag. We didn't get a hit on every cast, but rarely did we make three casts without hooking a fish.

Try casting spoons in the same areas.

We also experimented with casting 1.4-oz. Devle Dogs or Little Cleos with a silver, silver-blue, silver-green, silver-orange or pearl-colored spoon. The lures would be cast out past the fish, allowed to sink, and retrieved just fast enough to bring out the best action. It seemed to work best on the brown trout in that school.

Timing this event is a crap-shoot. It often happens sometime after early October. Either develop a local and reliable contact in your favorite fishing area, or try it on weekends.

A river mouth can get crowded, and if your neighbor hooks a fish, it's important to get the bait or lure in fast to avoid a serious tangle. Two or three lines tangled by one fish creates a great deal of wasted time for everyone concerned.

Fishing the surf is fun. Lots of fresh air, usually a good group of guys who are willing to help each other, and if one hits the right day, it can be some of the most exciting and spectacular light-line action of the year.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors