The One Inch Minnows of Spring

by Kevin Feenstra, Feenstra Guide Service

Recently I went fishing, and it was extremely cold. In these bitter conditions, I spend a lot of time fishing pretty large flies. Some of these flies imitate natural minnows, such as shiners or sculpins. Others are attractors that imitate nothing in particular and have so much flash that they look like they fell off a Christmas tree. (In fairness, I have tied flies out of things that fall off Christmas trees and Easter baskets). However, as we head toward spring, Michigan rivers will awaken with renewed life. Among this rebirth is a new generation of minnows. Imitating smaller minnows has a lot of advantages from an angler’s perspective. Although there are many ways to approach fishing in the spring, fishing small baitfish matches our hatches. This is one of the most versatile methods of fly fishing from late February until late May.

Through much of the winter, our rivers lie dormant. Once the water temperatures drop into the mid to lower 30s, there is not a whole lot that changes from day to day. This is a real advantage for winter fishing; if you find a fly that is effective for steelhead or trout in late December, chances are, it will work until late February or early March. As soon as water temperatures begin to rise in the spring, you have to take a more fluid approach to the fishing as the preferences of both resident trout and migratory steelhead change.

At some point each winter, we have some warmer days that translate into snowmelt. During the initial period of melt, there is runoff from the melting snow. This influx of water is very cold. In large rivers, it can cause water temperatures to drop a little. In smaller systems, snowmelt can make the water significantly colder. It might seem warm to you as an angler as you fish in the sunshine. However, for fishing purposes, you must still consider this to be winter fishing below the surface. Present your flies slow and deliberately during this time. This initial wave of cold water subsides, and eventually, water temperatures rise. During this warming period, fishing perks up and can reach great potential as water temps hit the upper 30s.

As the river reaches the upper 30s, three things start happening that trigger activity in the fish and change their feeding preferences in rivers attached to the Great Lakes. Some steelhead, which have been in the river all fall and winter, spawn quickly when water temps rise a little. The smell of steelhead eggs immediately brings some resident trout onto the feed. At the same time, our first significant hatches occur—early brown and black stoneflies begin to migrate to the river’s edges and eventually crawl out of the river to hatch. These two events trigger some great fish activity, and the third event is a real boom to the fishing from the perspective of one who loves to imitate baitfish.

As we hit the upper 30s, salmon eggs laid in September and October hatch into fry. King salmon fry are most common, and they grow quickly to one or one-and-a-half inches. Salmon reproduce a tremendous amount of fry around the state of Michigan. Of all the minnows that I see, the fry of salmonids are among the most vulnerable. Often, they sit at the edge of the river, fairly high in the water column. This general lack of wariness makes them pretty easy targets for the trout and migratory fish.

At the same time that these salmon fry are present, we have a resident family of minnows in our streams that activate as water temperatures rise. These small fish are called darters, and they are members of the perch family. Although they are starkly different in behavior from salmon fry, they are similar in size and appearance to a salmon fry. The net result is that many of our rivers are suddenly full of a couple of families of small minnows. Though only distantly related, these minnows can be imitated simultaneously with generic flies.

Though water temperatures have risen, it is still pretty cold water late in the winter and early spring. As the water hovers in the upper 30s, the fly needs to be presented close to the bottom to draw the attention of any large predatory fish. Cold water by itself will make game fish inconsistent in their feeding patterns. Furthermore, as salmon fry pop from the gravel and join the native minnows, they are a small target at one inch long. A large fish simply won’t burn very much energy to catch a small minnow.

Presenting to late winter fish offers some versatility, and you can use a couple of methods. One great way to catch fish with small minnow patterns is to fish them as though they are nymphs. You can float them under an indicator or bounce them along the bottom. Unlike nymphing with traditional nymphs and eggs, it is less essential that the fly be presented in a straight line. Game fish are expecting minnows to swim irregularly. Therefore, always allow your minnow pattern, which you are fishing as a nymph, to swing at the end of the drift. As the fly breaks free from the bottom, it may draw the ire of a steelhead or trout looking for a vulnerable meal.

While indicator nymphing with minnows, you can fish them with traditional split shot methods. However, one great alternative is to weight the minnow with a tungsten bead or barbell eyes. This will cause it to be the weight of the system

and puts the minnow imitation very close to the bottom. A good variation of this is to use a standard nymph above the weighted minnow on a dropper—this is a great cold water tactic for sullen fish.

Another method employed for late winter fishing is a deep and slow swing of small flies. Using a fly with some barring, tied with grizzly marabou or hen hackle, you can effectively imitate salmon fry and darters. Using a sink tip line, cast the fly perpendicular to the current, and mend it to allow it to sink. The fly should be weighted. As the fly touches the bottom, it slows down, and then it accelerates as it breaks off the riverbed. This sequence makes a small fly a worthy target, even for a big fish.

Later in the spring, water temps rise into the 40s, and the salmon fry continue to grow. With the warmer temperatures, trout and post-spawn steelhead are likely to move after a streamer, and you can now effectively fish them with a streamer stripping method. Salmon fry congregate in increasing numbers in the inside bends of a river system. And so, it is good to avoid the temptation of always fishing the good-looking, woody, or rocky side of a river and instead focus on areas that are off the current when you strip a fly. Many brown trout are caught in the early spring in areas that are nothing but sand on the bottom. The reason for this is the presence of juvenile salmon.

As we head toward the end of April, those one-inch streamers are still the main focus of fly fishing opportunities. The king salmon fry begin working their way downriver pretty quickly, and they grow very quickly. However, by this time, another food source is starting to replace them. This secondary food source is remarkably similar. After spawning in the spring, steelhead eggs hatch in a matter of days or weeks, and their fry quickly reaches an inch in length. Steelhead fry are very similar to salmon fry. The main difference that I see is that salmon fry tend to be more elongate, whereas steelhead fry tend to be more compressed (fat) when they are small. You can imitate steelhead fry very easily with similar flies that you used for imitating the salmon fry for all practical purposes. However, steelhead do have more orange on their fins, and I tend to incorporate a hint of copper or orange flash into the pattern to imitate these minnows.

By the time the steelhead are hatching, water temperatures are in the high 40s, which is the main difference that segregates them from salmon fry. In the cold water of late winter, a passive and deep approach is best with the salmon fry. However, as steelhead fry become available, the water is at a prime temperature for any trout in Michigan’s rivers. This makes active presentations the best.

These erratic presentations can be as straightforward as a wet fly swing where you simply cast a fly out with a down and across presentation. Unlike late winter swung fly fishing, you will want to activate, a.k.a. twitch, the fly as it swings across the current. Spastic twitching of your patterns is a great way to take trout, especially in our tailwater rivers.

Another great active presentation is stripping a streamer. As the water temps start to warm during May, I will frequently use two streamers with the front pattern imitating a steelhead fry (approximately one inch) and the rear pattern imitating a salmon fry (two inches plus). Because steelhead fry have orange in them, you can make the front fly very attractive with orange or copper flash. While stripping this tandem through slow or gravelly areas, a big trout will often follow the flashy small front fly, only to turn and smack the larger rear fly. This style of fishing is a marriage of an impressionistic attractor fly with a larger natural.

Spring continues to yield opportunities with these small streamer patterns. One of the most overlooked food species that trout gorge on is sucker fry. There are several native species of suckers, and each species spawns during a specific time frame. For this reason, there is always a range of sizes of their progeny available, which range from less than an inch to upwards of two inches by late May. They are quite different from the salmon and steelhead fry, often appearing lavender or light purple when small while becoming a tan or mottled brown as they grow larger. They can be incredibly numerous, forming clouds around the edges of rivers. By fishing purple wet flies along the gravel with a twitching wet fly imitation or stripping larger tan streamers through traditional trout areas, you can match this hatch well.

In summary, one to two inches is a very effective size range for streamers in the spring. The temptation for many streamer anglers is to overlook the smaller food sources and throw larger flies. If your large flies aren’t working, these small baitfish imitations will save the day. On a side note, fry patterns can be very simple. Many of the patterns incorporate a little gray, gray olive, or camel colored craft hair, a touch of flash, and a little dubbing. In a pinch, you could easily fish a wooly bugger with these color combinations and be successful.

Last May, I was fishing on my own on a day that clients had canceled due to pandemic concerns. I was fishing for trout and catching some small fish while fishing one-inch minnow patterns. The thing is, everything eats fry, big and small. As my small fry swung through some fast water, the line went tight, and a large drop back steelhead rose out of the water and ate my lunch before stealing my dignity and breaking my line. After that encounter, I caught trout, smallmouth bass, and a walleye, all with a one-inch gray, olive streamer. Small streamers are a versatile, pleasant way to catch various fish in our great Michigan trout streams.