River Pattern Guide

Best Flies for Manistee River

The Manistee River is one of Michigan's largest and most productive trout and salmon rivers, flowing over 190 miles through the forests of the northern Lower Peninsula before reaching Lake Michigan ne...

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11 recommended patterns

Nymph

San Juan Worm

Love it or hate it, it catches fish — lots of fish.

Sizes 10–16

Nymph

Green Rock Worm

The Green Rock Worm imitates free-living Rhyacophila caddis larvae — the bright green caterpillar-li

Sizes 12–16

Streamer

Zonker

The Zonker uses a rabbit strip tied over a Mylar tube body to create a baitfish imitation with incre

Sizes 4–10

Streamer

Clouser Minnow (Trout)

Bob Clouser's iconic dumbbell-eyed minnow pattern, scaled down for trout water. The weighted eyes ma

Sizes 6–10

Streamer

Kreelex

The Kreelex is a simple but flashy baitfish pattern made primarily of metallic lateral scale materia

Sizes 6–10

Streamer

Double Bunny

The Double Bunny uses two rabbit strips — one on top, one on the bottom of the hook — to create a wi

Sizes 2–8

Streamer

Autumn Splendor

Mike Schmidt's Autumn Splendor is a balanced leech/baitfish pattern designed to be fished on a jig h

Sizes 8–12

Wet Fly

Picket Pin

The Picket Pin is a traditional stillwater wet fly that imitates damselfly nymphs and emergers. Its

Sizes 10–14

Wet Fly

Woolly Worm

The ancestor of the Woolly Bugger, the Woolly Worm is a palmered chenille-and-hackle pattern that ha

Sizes 8–14

Terrestrial

Inchworm

A simple bright-green chenille or foam pattern that imitates the caterpillars and inchworms that dro

Sizes 10–14

Nymph

Squirmy Wormy

A controversial but devastatingly effective pattern using a squiggly silicone body to imitate aquati

Sizes #10–#14