zgrinder on Fin Warrior

I remember fishing in the 3-5's and all I could think about was how I was going to get back in after running with the waves. Glad you got one for table fair Ed. And JDH, agree that is a great approach to run 2 long lines off each side w/o a board just to get something in the water that is easy to manage. Looks like we got a good blow for the next couple of days - time to catch up on other projects I suppose.

NW winds can be hard to get fish to go but you killed it. Lot of plugs in the spread - thanks for the report! Glad you made it back safely.

You killed it last night! Nice big fat king you got there. I fished that same depth of water the night before but south and came up with only one modest king. Nice work.

Nice box of fish. Surprised plugs and meat had no interest. Hopefully your Ninja board gets returned.

Had fun reading your report. Glad you got a few and hope the wait to get back out will be shorter next time.

great king! Thats is what I like to fish for.

Capt. Adam of Reel-2-Reel must have convinced you to load up on Pickled Sunshine flys. He never forgets to mention them in his vids. Nice catching last night. Even though the warm water has piled up, it appears the fish are coming back in after the blow we had about a week ago. Thanks for all the information. You put a good mix out for me to consider on my next run.

It sounds like to me that your success with a little high intensity chaos just bought a few more trips with your wife and son. Good work captain! And congrats to landing that nice size king with a dipsey + SD wrapped around the line. Never an easy chore.

That is a great short morning trip. Jealous you found a nice size king and on a slider of all things. Yep the weather is a com'in.

Took my nephew out for a second night hoping to put him on fish and more importantly, get them in the boat, unlike the previous night. Fearing it would be chunky monkey with the west to northwest blow, we finally left the harbor after the Great Republic cleared the channel and followed her out NW along with another boat. Since last night’s fishing grounds were full of warm water, we decided to go deep setting down in 185 FOW, flip around 180 and follow the waves in. Fin Warrior with the tabs down and throttled down a bit held her own getting out to deeper water. All lines were down about 6:30pm; 2 riggers, 2 Ninja slide divers and 300WS down the chute. The SE troll was quite pleasant and much to my surprise, the lake laid down to manageable in all directions by late in the evening. After 45min of marking a few fish, we hooked up with a nice coho in 165FOW on a high slide diver. Good eater, I wanted another. We continued on in without a bite, flipped around and headed back to deeper water in the opposite direction. In 170FOW we got . . . . another coho the same size on the other high diver. After getting past 180FOW, flipped around again on a NE troll and hit a king in 174FOW on a #3 J-plug with a blue/silver/orange color pattern. The J-plug was sent down after we lost the mag blue dolphin spoon - and the Ninja diver on a hit we never saw. Happily, the Smart Troll probe attached above the Ninja diver stayed on the line with one of the two OR-16 clips (my better probe attachment engineering saved the day). That same DR J-plug set-up went again as we turned around west and again as we turned around SE producing 3 modest kings on the 3 strikes. We decided to push inward after sunset and got a hot rip on the 300WS after re-tooling the business end with a glow mag soda spoon but it came off about the time we got all the backing back in the reel. I was worried the lake would be too rough for someone new to Lake Michigan. But we were blessed with a great night as the lake laid down, found a few coho and small kings in deeper water, stayed on them, my nephew learned the skills of bringing a strike into the boat and has lots of fish to take home. What didn’t work: Moonshine mag Atomic Watermelon on 300WS, mag white spoon (can't remember) and Moonshine mag UV Blue Flounder Pounder on deep riggers, dark spoons on high divers after sunset. Did not run meat this trip simply on how the bites were developing from the get go. # Time Fish Weight FOW Troll Wind Dir. Speed @ Ball Rod Bait Depth Bait Temp Bait 7:12pm Coho 6lb 165 SE NW 2.6 Slide Diver 47 54 Mag Blue Dolphin 7:59pm Coho 5lb 170 NW NW 2.7 Slide Diver 34 59 Similare to Mag Craigs Flounder Moonshine 8:20pm King 5lb 174 NE NW 2.8 DR 20# 54 48 Size 3 J-Plug, Blue, Silver, Orange 8:50pm King 6lb 171 W NW 2.6 DR 20# 54 48 Size 3 J-Plug, Blue, Silver, Orange 9:10pm King 4lb 169 SE NW 2.8 DR 20# 54 48 Size 3 J-Plug, Blue, Silver, Orange 9:20pm Miss 154 SE NW 2.8 Weighted Steel 300 Mag Soda Moonshine Fishing Catch Log 08-08-26.xlsx

I replace the treble hook on all my mag spoons with VMC 9650 X Strong Round Bend and put this on any lure that I am putting down for big fall kings. These hooks have a great bite but some fish still get off - like the one we lost on 300WS with a mag glow Moonshine Soda spoon tonight. I use Gammy 2/0's on just about everything else.

Well done getting on them at 9:00pm. I see the warm water is piling up on shore that will move the fish out and deeper. Going to try to get my nephew out tonight before he leaves tomorrow. It will be chunky.