Fishing Report 8/1/25
Where is the summer going?!
Temperatures have finally broken from the stranglehold of heat we’ve endured the past couple of weeks. Last night, I was out on the river mousing, and the air temperature dipped all the way down to 42 degrees—it was cold!
Water temps are starting to drop and are no longer the concern they’ve been since June. Trout are looking up for terrestrial patterns, and there’s something undeniably fun about twitching a rubber-legged foam fly and watching a wild trout charge it out of nowhere. Fishing around log jams, tree tips, and under bushes and branches has been most productive this week. Cloudy days have brought better bite windows, with fish more oriented to center-river seams and drops.
Boardman (Ottaway) River Report
The Boardman has remained consistent the past couple of weeks—a great place to wade, fish, and hit several spots in a morning or evening. If you want to explore it, concentrate your time around the lower-light periods: 7AM–Noon and 6PM–9PM have been best. As always, clouds are your friend on the Boardman. The water is clear, so focus your efforts on areas with depth or structure.
Late summer is a great time to downsize your setups—think 3- and 4-weight rods. Fish have been responding to smaller terrestrials like Hippy Stompers, Chubby Chernobyls, the Yeager, and flying ants. If you’re confident in your casting, generic droppers like pheasant tails, hare’s ears, and Pat’s Rubber Legs can produce. On flat, calm water, use a dead drift. Otherwise, work in some twitches.
If fish aren’t coming up, go down. Nymphs or small streamers can be very effective, and swinging soft hackles in riffles and along edges can also produce.
Upper Manistee River Report
It’s terrestrial time on the Upper Manistee, and it’s a blast to fish right now. Hatches aren’t the focus, though tricos in the morning and BWOs on cloudy days have fish looking up. When a hopper, beetle, or ant drifts overhead, they’re ready to react.
Try a two-fly rig with a foam-style attractor and an ant behind it—that combo has been deadly. Everything is in great shape from the upper reaches of the Deward section all the way down to the 131 access.
Flying ants, beetles, small hoppers, Hippy Stompers, Chubby Chernobyls, and Yeager flies have all been effective, and we’ve been finding some solid trout looking up the past couple of weeks.
Lower Manistee River Report
The Lower Manistee below Tippy Dam has been solid for smallmouth. They've been looking up for poppers, surface bugs, and frogs in the early part of the day, then chasing baitfish patterns in the afternoon. Cloudy days have been better, but the bite hasn’t always been easy—we’ve had to work for them, and some fish have just been "window shopping" the fly.
Top surface producers have been Soft Chews, diving frogs, Boogle Bugs, and a variety of poppers. Murdich Minnows and other baitfish patterns have worked well subsurface.
Summer-run steelhead are holding in transitional runs, cruising over the sand, and staging in creek mouths with cooler water. Smallmouth fishing should stay strong for the rest of the summer until early Chinooks begin to push upstream in late August.