Chris Izworski, reporting from Michigan on the current state of the Rifle River this Tuesday morning in mid-June. The gauge at Selkirk reads 250 cubic feet per second at a height of 1.7 feet, which places the river in the mid-range for summer flows through Ogemaw County and the Recreation Area corridor. Water clarity is good. The river is not blown out, not skeletal. It is fishable in the old way, which is to say you can read structure and expect trout to hold where they ought to hold.
Showers and thunderstorms arrive this afternoon with temperatures reaching 74 degrees, then cooler tonight under a chance of continued storms. Wednesday brings rain showers under mostly cloudy skies and a high of 71. The weather is not settled, which in mid-June on the Rifle means the evening hatches may compress or stall, and the morning spinner falls may come and go without ceremony. You fish around weather like this, not through it.
What Is Hatching
The sulphurs have thinned but have not vanished. Sporadic Ephemerella dorothea appear in the late afternoons, size 16 and 18, pale yellow bodies with dun wings. They are not the blanket emergence of early June, but enough rise to them in the soft pockets below Moffatt Bridge and along the bends upstream of Greenwood Road that a Sulphur Comparadun size 16 or a Light Cahill size 16 will draw fish between six and seven thirty in the evening if the storms hold off.
Brown drakes are in the water. Ephemera simulans, size 10, with mottled brown bodies and cream underwings. They emerge after full dark, which this week means after nine fifteen, and the best chance to fish them is in the wider pools below the campground access at Devoe and upstream near Grousehaven. The trout take them with purpose when they appear, but the window is narrow and requires you to be in position before the light goes. A Brown Drake Paradrake size 10 or a Stimulator size 10 in rust will serve.
Isonychia bicolor are present but inconsistent. These are slate-bodied mayflies, size 12 and 14, with dark wings, and they emerge sporadically in the faster runs during midday and again in early evening. A Dun Variant size 12 or an Iso Comparadun will take fish when they show, but you must be watching for the rise forms, which are quick and singular.
Where to Go
Grousehaven upstream to the M-33 bridge remains the most consistent stretch for dry fly work. The river here is varied: fast riffles, deeper runs, undercut banks shaded by tag alder and cedar. Fish hold tight to structure. Work the seams and the soft edges below logs. A general attractor pattern in the middle of the day, a Stimulator size 14 or an Elk Hair Caddis size 14, will bring fish up if you cover water methodically.
Below Moffatt Bridge the river opens and slows slightly. This is where the sulphurs linger longest and where you can find rising fish in the evenings if the weather allows. The campground access at Devoe offers good entry for the lower pools, which fish well with nymphs during midday when the surface is quiet. A Pheasant Tail size 16 or a Hare’s Ear size 14 under an indicator in the deeper slots will produce.
The Recreation Area holds water worth your time if you are willing to walk. The trail upstream from the Ridge Road access follows the river through cedar swamp and open hardwood, and the fish here see less pressure. Bring a small dry fly box, a spool of 5X tippet, and low expectations. The Rifle rewards patience, not volume.
The Practical Read
This is not a river that announces itself. The Rifle does not give you long glides of rising trout or hatch charts that hold across years. It asks you to fish the water as it is, not as you imagine it should be. Mid-June places you between the sulphur abundance of early month and the Hex madness of late June and early July. The brown drakes fill part of that gap, but only after dark, and only if you are willing to fish in near-total darkness with a headlamp turned off.
The gauge reading today suggests stable flows, but the forecast rain will nudge things upward by Wednesday evening. If you fish tomorrow, go early. The afternoons will be wet and the evening window uncertain. Thursday may fish better if the rain moves through cleanly and the water stays clear.
For live conditions, forecasts, and access notes across Michigan trout water, visit michigantroutreport.com, where the network updates daily with gauge data, hatch reports, and the practical details that shape your day on the water.