Heading out tomorrow, any reports would be helpful.

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman

Does anybody have reports for the Saginaw River?

We launched out of Whyandotte around 3pm, and fished up river till dark.

Steve ended up only getting 1 Walleye around Mud Island. Darn wind was hollowing down the river making boat control, and comfort a real pain.

The highlight of the evening was just before dark when I hooked and landed a 4' Sturgeon. The fish jumped out of the water about 2 feet in front of me when first hooked, than proceeded to run up and down the river. My 17' Seanymp has a 80 lb thrust Minkota, and I needed all of it to keep up with the fish as she ran up and down the river.

After a great fight we got her to the top and released her boat side. Sorry, but I did not have the camera equipment along, and it was a bit dark for the cell shots.

We tried fishing down river this am, but the 40 deg temp a 20 mph wind blowing down the river made it less than fun for us.

Perch, and 1 sucker. Best depth was 26 to 27 fow. All colors worked but a glow perch was by far the best. Numbers 5 and 7. I keep a walleye and perch for dinner and they were very good, all other fish released.

Next morning the mud and wind were worse. We took 3 pretty quick below the stacks then had a trolling motor issue which required the dock to fix. By the afternoon the river was pretty muddy. Went out that evening and handlined a few hours and took two fish. One of which was 27" and got put back. Tight lines.

OFF the sagnasty

Doing any good?

Steve

We only managed the one.

We spent most of the time test driving some new electronics, and trying new areas we haven't fished before.

It's good to get back out on the river!

First attempt at posting a picture below.

Next morning I fished the river. Didn't have any spawn so I was using waxies and wigglers. At one of the spots I was fishin a guy caught a loose hen and just let the eggs spill all over. Most of them ended up in the river but I managed to scrape up enough for a few bags. First cast using them I hooked a nice hen. I'm thinkin way cool! Then ended up losing her in the logs Not without a good fight though

A nice guy at wellmans set me up with some steelie skien later in the day. Just enough for a dozen bags. Cool dude! Hooked one more steelhead after that, but believe it or not I lost that one too! I think that one was the hardest loss. She was fresh in the river and really put up a fight. Almost had her beached too. Oh well.

Decided to head back to the pier for walleyes. This turned out to be a good decision as I ended up 4 for 4 on walleyes. I think if I had stayed long enough I could have got my limit, but I figured it was late and theres no sense in being greedy. Heck to tell you the truth I would have been happy with just one

I took some pics. I'll try to get them up tommorow.

Hope everyone else enjoyed their weekend. I know I did

So luckily I'm not hurt but have to launch using the other side with the salt I brought along. So we get about even with the Coast Guard station while idling out the river channel and the CG comes out in their skiff at the same time and checks probably the only boat they'll see all day, us. They are nice enough but never in very much of a hurry. Daves boat passes the inpection and we're off again. Finally hit the river mouth at about 12:00PM, water temp 37. Start out on the bay and the wind which was predicted to be 6 MPH SSW is a good and steady 12 to 15mph and almost due west. We are soon in 2 to 3 footers and taking a few very cold wet ones over the side. We head for the leeward side of the island and try there for about 30 minutes and get nothing. We end up trolling in and out of the river mouth in places where I was catching some nice fish in October using lead core and #5 Shad raps. Running Zuris and Bombers 60 and 80 back at 2.3. Some nice fish in some cold conditions.

But there was a catch to our catch. Brother Dave (because he worked there) noticed on our way out the river channel the first time, that the "Intake Screen" cleaning crew at the power plant was getting ready to clean the screens that fill with shad. They take 3 dumpsters at a time of both dead and live shad out of that immediate area when they clean the screens. A lot of those dead/dying or wounded shad drift downstream with the current and make whatever walleyes in that area go nuts on the feed. We had doubles and triples right before the screen almost every time through.