News and Events

Bookings

Now is also the time to book us for the upcoming trout season and the late August/early September king salmon season. The Manistee River is famous for the August kings, and it's a short season!

Fall trout and steelhead season is the most popular time in our fishing year. Many guests book this upcoming year's dates when they leave the previous year. Call us to see if we can get you on the water this Summer and Fall.

Guide Jay Niederstadt returns to Schmidt's

After two years of pounding nails, Jay has decided to return to a fly fishing guide's life. Jay, wife Chantal, and their two daughters are building a new home in Manistee. Jay will return to work in late August of 2007. Right now Jay has openings, but that won't last long! As soon as the word gets out, he will quickly fill with his long-time clients. Call us to book!

Want to sell an old fly rod?

Many of us have many, many fly rods. Most of us are "equipment junkies" as my wife calls it. It's hard to justify a new rod when we have 8 or 9 rods, of which we may use 3 or 4. Recently a customer asked if we would take a rod in on trade. This began a discussion among our staff about how to handle this kind of stuff. Staff member Brian Pitser suggested that our company open an E-bay account and offer to sell our customers' old rods for them if they wanted to buy a new rod from us. We tried it out, and to our surprise, we sold his old rod for a very attractive price. We used the funds from the old rod sale and applied it to the price of the new rod and.....bingo, new rods for old!

Do you want a new model from Sage, Winston, Redington, Temple Fork? Bring us your old rod, and we'll photograph it and put it up on E-bay. Whatever it sells for, you use that money to put toward the rod model of your choice. We charge no fees for this service.

Schmidt Outfitters First in Michigan to Deploy Sage Casting Analyzer

Schmidt Outfitters was the first a couple years ago to use this technology in a real life setting in our Advanced Fly Casting Schools with Ray Schmidt and Bruce Richards. Developer Noel Perkins along with Bruce Richards sold the product to Sage last year. Sage fine-tuned the program and equipment to sell to it's dealer network across the country. Ray spoke to dealers about this tool at the Fly Tackle Dealer show in Denver last September on Sage's behalf. Ray said, "This is a valuable tool to help a good caster become a superior caster as it allows the caster to see his or her cast analyzed in a format that is easily understood. This, along with digital video, will change casting instruction forever." The analyzer is used at Schmidt's in our advanced fly casting schools and can be used anytime you want a critical review of your fly cast.  Stop by our shop and get yourself analyzed!