Pere Marquette River Fly Fishing

The Pere Marquette River (PM River) was home to the Michigan grayling as was most of the cold water streams in northern Michigan. Before the logging era the Graylings were so abundant and easy to catch that there are pictures in history books of wagons and barrels full of the tasty little fish.

Unfortunately between the loss of so much spawning area from the logging industry, no regulations on catching them, and the old time way of thinking that there is so many fish you could never catch them all, they were wiped out of the PM River. The U.S. fish commission tried to reintroduce them after the loggers were gone and the rivers started to clean themselves out in the late 1800s but failed in their attempts.

The first fish that were replanted in the Pere Marquette River to replace the grayling were the brook trout in the late 1870s.

Then the U.S. Fish Commission received fertilized German brown trout eggs from a German baron and planted them In the Baldwin River. This was a main tributary to the Pere Marquette River in the 1880’s giving it the distinction of being the first stream in the U.S. to be planted with German brown trout. The next major planting was rainbow trout (steelhead) from Washington State. The browns and steelhead took very well to their surroundings.

Then in the mid-1960’s there was an effort to reduce the excess number of alewives (an ocean forage fish that had no major predictors) they were getting so bad they were washing up on the Lake Michigan shore lines every year. The fish entered through the Saint Lawrence Seaway through the locks as the ships passed into and entered the Great Lakes.
This opened a new Great Lakes fishery . The Michigan DNR with guidance from the Fisheries Division planted silver salmon (coho) from the west coast in some of the northern Lake Michigan rivers and streams including Ruby Creek, a main tributary of the big south branch of the Pere Marquette River. The study worked as they didn't know if a fish that lived its life in salt water and spawned in fresh water would make it in a total fresh water environment.

They then planted the Chinook (King Salmon) in the Aniseed River and the Platte River, never in the Pere Marquette River but the fish migrated into the cold, fast moving, clean-gravel bottom waters and created a sustaining run of king salmon which to this day is an outstanding fishing habitat. The Pere Marquette River is one of the only free flowing un dammed cold water rivers in lower Michigan, and has the best salmon and steelhead runs of the free-flowing rivers in the state. Michigan designated the Pere Marquette River a Michigan Natural River in 1970 and the U.S. Government gave it a scenic river designation in 1977.

There is more to the Pere Marquette River then just fishing. The wonders of the PM River are everywhere for a person to just admire the beauty of the tall pines and hardwood forests. The Pere Marquette river in its grasp is a spectacular view.
The Pere Marquette River a true wonderland!