killerbe20

Racine fishing has finally started to heat up! Great mixed bag catching everything except browns. The steelhead and cohos are big and feisty and we are finally seeing good numbers of three and four year old kings. Friday 7-29, left the dock at 4pm and were back about 830pm with a four man limit, threw 3 back and lost another 5. Fished 75-100 fow just south of town. Mostly 3 and 4 year old kings with some nice cohos and steelheads mixed in. Fish literally came from the top to the bottom. Blood Run wire divers were the best 90,140,200. Down riggers (49,59,69), coppers (32lb-150,250, 45lb-300) and leadcore (3,5,7,10) were catching their share of fish too. A few fish on spoons, but the vast majority were on spin doctors and flies. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/gallery/files/1/7/5/0/70984.jpg' alt='70984.jpg'>

i was hoping to never have to go down that street. Facebook and all the forums are enough for me!

I'm superstitious about using any of that stuff on the boat around the baits. I'm just crazy though, ask my wife!

Patience and lots of phone calls! Sometimes it does not matter what you do. You can't catch what is not there. I agree with bumping up the speed and going on a recon mission. Find an area you feel comfortable with and work it. If nothing happens, keep going again. Time can be a factor in this. Most charters only have +/-5 hours dock to dock to try and find a boat load of fish. If you are out all day, you can spend more time searching. If there are fish and they just are on a negative feed, thats when patience comes in. I have confidence in the baits I present to the fish. I try not to get too crazy changing baits. There definitely are times when bait changes can help but it can also be too much. If the fish turn back on you may have taken off all your clutch baits. I have taken the leash off of heavy bait changing guys just to get back to the dock scratching my head looking at whats on my rods wondering if we ever really gave ourselves a chance.

I eat just as much LT as I do salmon, if not more. Definitely prefer smoked lake trout over smoked salmon.

Usually start with 50+/- feet and cut back as needed. I will fish it down to about 10 feet until i feel it is not as productive anymore and then start over. for me, I feel it is easier on the water to cut off a couple feet of bad line and re-tie instead of changing out a 10 foot section all the time.

Haven't bee reporting as much as I would like to be this year, being busy isn't really a bad thing! well, I'm sure everyone knows fishing has slowed way down since two weeks ago. Tough fishing the last couple of days but there are still some fish out there. Basically the same deal on Weds and Thursday, both afternoon trips. Weds fished on the Tension Breaker and finished 9 for 10, on thursday on my boat and was 8 for 11. Both days we fished inside and outside of the second hill. Both days were an even mix of lake trout and salmon. Some really nice cohos and kings out there but they are far between. UV Spin Doctors with teal and mirage flies on divers and downriggers deep have been the best. Chartruse flasher with a green fly and Super Slim Cheap Sunglasses on coppers (Blood Run 32lb-200, 45lb-300, 350) have also been half way decent too. Sorry no pics this time

Lake trout are awesome in a fish boil. Its very similar to a white fish boil. I also cook it on the grill. Make a tin foil boat and place the fillet in it. Salt, pepper and coat the fillet heavily with brown sugar, add some butter on top of that and cook on the grill until it flakes.

I feel your pain, Russ! this week was the toughest and most inconsistent fishing i have seen all year and probably last year too! Hopefully it will turn around this week.

I was/am running a Big Weenie McLovin fly behind the paddle. It has been very consistent ever since the Morris tourny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCTXhRciJ7k&feature=player_embedded

yeah, i thought about calling you jim. i would have loved to have gotten together with you! unfortunately it was a very uncertain trip. thought i was going to be up there early in the day on monday but didnt end up getting in until 9pm. then fishing at 430am and wasn't sure if i was fishing in the afternoon or not. once i found out i was only fishing in the morning, i wanted to leave as soon as i could to get back to Racine. Long week with the boat. From Chicago to Milwaukee and every where in between in less than a week. I was glad to come back to work today for some rest! i plan on coming back up to Milwaukee for Brew City, quite possibly sooner. We will definitely hook up then if you don't make it down here.

nice fish terry!

just saw the full 333 standings, we ended up in 7th.

Brought the boat up to Milwaukee to fish a couple charters on tuesday. Ended up not working out for me to fish the afternoon trip but had a blast anyway. Had a 430-930am charter on tuesday with 3 other boats. Finished 14 for 25ish and that was the low end of all four boats. Not sure about the others, but we could not keep them on the hooks. Great mixed bag of cohos and rainbows with a few trout and kings too. One boat had a pair of 14 and 15 pound kings. Sounds like the boys in the afternoon did not fair quite as well. All four boats powered straight out to about 150 fow. Marked TONS of fish and bait but everyone had a hard start. Best action for me was 160-190 and everyone else was in the same general area. Chartruse Protroll with a homemade green fly was the best on a 7 color and 150' 32lb Blood Run Copper. Green Dot and White UV Spin Doctors on the Blood Run wire divers were also working. And once again the new Blood Run Dreamweaver Paddle with a Big Weenie McLovin fly was doing pretty good way down deep. Great time and can't wait to fish Milwaukee again. Its fun to have new sky lines in the back ground once in awhile.

Russ - I am planning on fishing both contests for Salmon-A-Rama. Hopefully that plan still follows through. The two in a boat is probably one of my favorites of all the contests around. I am not sure how we fared in the 333 for the Morris. It included the 70 AM boats too and they had some good catches. I doubt our 33 pounds were even close.

Lots of fishing last weekend and lots of water covered pre-fishing for the Morris Invitational out of Winthrop Harbor, IL. Weds we fished Racine and had a huge number of cohos plus good numbers of the other species needed in this contest. Fished the edge of the hill alittle south of town 100-150 fow. Wire divers near the bottom with Spin Doctors and Mirage flies and good action on the surface with stingers. Thursday we figured we needed a second and third spot so we fished different waters. Fished off Kenosha, then off Waukegan, and finally all the way south to the R4 reef. Never thought I would see the Sears Tower from my boat! We had decent coho action nearly everywhere we fished with the exception of Chicago. Fun to catch fish, but not what we were looking for. Friday we definitely knew that fishing Racine was our best option for the contest. Started out great with some really nice fish. Three species and all good size fish. Unfortunately we could only pull 11 fish out of our spot. Others in the area were throwing fish back but it just wasn't for us. Good weight for our 11 fish but you need the points of all 15. Ended the day in 22nd out of 30 boats. Saturday we decided we were too far gone to make a run at the top so we decided to stay close to Winthrop and just try to find three big fish for their 333 contest. Ended up finding a sweet spot straight off Winthrop in 222-240 fow. Completely different lake than what we had been fishing. Found four species plus really decent size fish. Good action on boards on top with stingers. NBK UV Super Slim on a downrigger 69. And the stud was the new 11'' UV ''Blood Run Edition'' Dreamweaver Paddle down 230 on a rigger. This thing took many fish including our biggest king and a nice trout with literally minutes left to fish for our 15th fish. Awesome contest! anyone ever considering it should definitely give it a shot next year. We may not have won but we came down with some good Racine mojo. First and third were Racine boats, congrats to Hawg Gone and Stormtrooper, with Fuzzy Bear taking second. Many other Racine and Milwaukee boats finishing out the top 15.

big difference i notice on my boat is the thru hull marks while under power and my transom mount does not

full moon right now isn't helping either

Last year was my first year running the Dreamweaver plugs. I did quite well on them in the fall. I am not much of a plug fisherman so if i can get them to work, they must be good! I am looking forward to trying their captains plugs. Similar style to the Ace-Hi plugs.

started in Racine two days ago! Thursday afternoon were still limits, but tougher. I heard Friday afternoon was really tough. Yesterday I struggled and caught a very very tough 12 fish. I could have walked on the amount of fish that were under the boat. I just hope it starts up again before Thursday for the Morris tourny in Winthrop Harbor!

Door County is my vote! Sturgeon bay overs a huge variety of fishing. Salmon on the lake side, bass in sturgeon bay (plus lots more) and walleye/perch on green bay. not to mention all the other fun stuff to do including FISH BOILS!

seems like you have been doing quite well. I would be careful changing too much when things are working for you and your boat. Sometimes people lose their mojo chasing what others are doing and end up really frustrated and confused. Its happened to me before on tough days. I have some good friends/captains that are excellent fisherman but we fish totally different. What i do won't really work for them and vise versa.

snubbers are more of a personal preference. I usually use them on divers but have occasionally run without. No real difference that i have noticed.

Crazy fishing out of Racine right now. All the cohos you can ask for. Its like May fishing in the middle of June. Limits are being caught in 45-60 fow, out on the hills and earlier this week out past 200 fow. yesterday after noon most everyone fished 50-80 fow with 50-55 being the best. For me, the majority of fish were on deep downriggers and Blood Run wire divers. "wrapped" laser light saver Spin Doctor with a mirage fly was really hot 69 out on a diver. Chartruse Pro troll with a green/teal fly was next best near the bottom on a downrigger. Took a few fish on high boards and 150 foot 32lb BR copper with standard coho rigs but I think the high, middle of the day sun was driving them down.