zgrinder on Fin Warrior

Well done!

Thanks for the report. Fin Warrior gets wet on Tuesday. Hope to test what is biting around Holland this coming weekend.

Glad you landed at least one. It will be 8 more days before Fin Warrior is in the water. I assume the sand bars you refer to are the ones created a couple of years ago when we had the massive blows.

Likely the last troll for the year. Fished mid-day in 180-240FOW. Found a slick with a number of gulls sitting in the water. Ran up and down that with no luck. Finished the day with a small SH on a full core and a coho that did not trick the SWR down deep. Save it for dinner tonight. Tried fishing up high with long lines for SH or coho and one down deep but found little action. Fishing in shorts with no flies in the middle of October was a gem! Will begin the prep for next season. Fin Warrior

Set lines at 4:30pm in 110FOW half way to Saugatuck trolling south. Found multiple clusters of arcs on the fish finder down 80-100' but could not get any takers. Once I got past Saugatuck, I stopped marking fish. What started as a NE light blow became a 12-16kt steady rip NW that was not in the forecast. I would not have bothered with a trip if that was known. Pulled lines early and came in. There were at least 5 other boats fishing similar water. Talked to one that picked up 3 kings right at dusk but no action prior to that. I would like to try again tonight if I can trust the 10-12kt SE forecast. PS buoy indicates some colder water is coming back in. And no freighter traffic out of port Holland tonight.

Fished off of Water Dog last night straight out of Holland. Lake was calm till dusk when the wind picked up. Set down in 140FOW and kept heading west as we set lines. Found some decent marks in about 190FOW but not much beyond that. Riggers were set down 110'-115' to find cold water but they did not get bit. 300' copper with a Wonder Bread spoon on the business end took a shaker and a small king that we decided to keep around 190FOW. 250' copper had one on that got off as we were removing the board. High and low dipseys did not get touched. Appeared we were one of 4-5 boats out for the evening. Typical fall fishing between the big blows.

Nice report. A 15lb king would make my day!

After the other night working to get in around a cargo ship, I worked the internet and came up with a site, marinetraffic.com, that at a no-cost registration will allow tracking of 5 vessels. Just so happens there are 5 cargo ships that operate out of port Holland: Calumet, Cuyahoga, Great Republic, Manitowoc and Saginaw. The site provides for setting up a fleet of 5 vessels to track. Unfortunately, the settings cannot be saved so whatever information that you prefer to view has to be reset each time. Not a big deal. My plan is to check this site for inbound/outbound traffic before piloting out for the night bite. The most active cargo operations are by the Undaunted/Pere Marquette 41 tug/barge platform (see https://boatnerd.com/pictures/fleet/peremarquette41.htm for the amazing story of the history of the two vessels). We saw this cargo operation coming out of the harbor while fishing on the 3rd moving what I believe was scrap iron from Padnos Co. I will be tracking this operation separately. The tug/barge is much smaller, not taking up the entire channel and is in and out much faster. Much easier to maneuver around. Hope this is helpful. Fin Warrior

Pulled out of Holland about 4:30pm and motored down to Saugatuck for the evening bite. Set down in 120FOW trolling south. A few suspended marks on the plotter but most were near the bottom. Took a 5lb king about 6:00pm on a spinny/blue-green fly (old Siggs Rigs) down 80'. About 30min later, same rod went off but lost it about 30' in back of the boat. Guessing it was about the same size. About 7:30pm began moving set-up around for the night bite. Took the flasher off the meat rig and went with just the DW white glow bait head, charged it and put it down 99'. It got bit very quickly. Another 5lb king that somehow also got into two other lines. One was quickly undone, the second not so much. Did not pick up anything else and marks were few. Janet was a little on edge coming in at dark in front of the Great Republic as we had a hard time picking up the bow lights - aft pilot house no problem. We had plenty of safe distance - not something I dare take chances on.

That is a great story. And great work by your crew to get all the gear up to square up the trolling line and boat the fish. Nice work!

Many thanks for all your posts to the community who fish on the East side of the lake. They are much appreciated by me and the members who post here. I note that my fishing friends in IL prior to my 2008 move to MI are not sharing the same fishing reports as the MI side of the lake. So I am rewarded to have the MI network. Have a great off season and much fish luck in 2022. For what it is worth, at a social event tonight in downtown Holland, I heard there were some large catches in South Haven in 120FOW. The info is sketchy (third hand) but I may run down there tomorrow as anywhere around Holland continues to be for some reason a no-bite zone.

Appreciate the detailed report.

I noticed a fair amount a couple of nights ago. I suspect the thermocline is rebalancing. I downloaded the temp data from the lowest probe on the PS buoy and it is obvious the colder water is coming in. I am hoping that will set up for a good king run in the coming days.

Fished from 5:00ish to dusk Monday and Tuesday. Monday fished 115-145FOW looking for big kings but I was blessed with lake trout, caught and released 3. All came in about 125FOW on high divers down about 50', aqua fly and a blue silver spoon. Found some nice bait balls off the sliders. Ran over them twice, one pass at dusk but could not get any bites. Marks were plentiful. The chatter on 68 was the same, marks but no bites. After sunset the fish finder came alive with marks and small balls of bait. I got nothing but a big tangle that I left on the back of the boat until the following morning. I must admit, getting all the gear squared away and retied at sun up with a big thermos of coffee is very satisfying. Tuesday decided to start deeper in 160-190FOW. Very limited marks and no bait. Came in to 120FOW for the dusk bite. Had one rip on the SB dipsey tipped with an aqua fly during a hard turn to port but it came unbuttoned rather quickly after a short run. Lots of marks in the 45-60' range. A couple of comments on 68 that running fast, I assume 2.5-3.0mph was getting action but not sure what the action was. Appears the fish are biting up north but not so much around Holland.