Man, it felt great to get back on the Muskegon River today! Some of the toughest conditions one could imagine to prompt the steelhead to cooperate— bright sunlight and icy cold water,—rendered the fishing difficult to say the least, but after a brutally long winter, no fish brought to net would have been just fine for RiverQuest Captain Don Graham and me. With temps in the 40’s feeling like a heat wave, it was if we were waking from an ice-induced coma! As for the steelhead, the bright hen I posed at day’s end reflects the promise of the 2019 steelhead run. Short term, with a spike in daily temperatures forecasted to bring with it a couple days of rain, river flows may well increase as melting snow and ice do their thing. You know, though, as do we, that higher flows and increasing amounts of daylight prompt steelhead to push upstream in response to imperatives that, year after year, thrill us all. Tight lines, and here’s to a wonderful steelhead spring!
Captain Tom Kuieck
