wild at heart

jimcr,

actually we only fish about 2X a week, a little more on tournament weeks. 1st trip this year was 4/3 and last was 11/2. King counts have been falling off the last few years. We caught 295 in 07, 231 in 08, 188 in 09, 179 this year. These numbers I'm sure reflect the reduction in plants partly, but its a trend that concerns us. In 07 we rarely saw any bait on the ff so I think we had hungrier fish.This year we saw bait almost every trip. Thats a good sign.

good job Kevin, I need to catch up to your 79% hit to land ratio, and your brown trout total. If I improved 10% that would put another 40+ fish in the boat alone. Actaully I just went back and calculated our tournament hit to land ratio and we were 63 for 79 or 80%. So maybe we need to goof off less fun fishing. Either that or blame all our guests.

2010 ended up being a lot like the last 2 years for WAH.

52 trips 6.2 average per trip

323 fish landed, 452 bites, 71% hook to land ratio

179 kings 3 18#

71 lake trout 13#

15 steel head 9.5#

48 coho

9 browns 3#

1 whitefish 3#

$2502.00 in cash and prizes. Expenses=who keeps track of negitives?

We caught the most coho for a season, also browns. Kings numbers still continue to drop slightly. Overall weight of the fish was down, but I don't track that. Need to work on the "hook to land ratio", we're always in the 70's but a lot of guys say there in the 80's. May and June keep getting better, and July and August haven't been as good.

Fun was at an all time high. 90% of my trips were with 2 of my sons, and it doesn't get better than that. Boat never sputtered and didn't break or lose anything expensive except for that wire rod that jumped out of it holder in 6 footers.

Its Thanksgiving this week, so can I say, "Thanks God, for Lake Michigan and Salmon/Trout"

I heard you but I didn't seem to be getting out very good.

Boat saw Nov water for the 1st time ever. Nice evening. Tried for browns in shallow 3 to 20' with no luck. Water was crystal clear. Winterizing tomarrow then heading north for some serious bow hunting. Just 5 months till the Brown Blast.

what depth of water did you fish, were heading out tomarrow.

Lost my crank for my trailer at the Holland DNR launch last time out, about 2 weeks ago, anybody find one?

I see that Hitman is a moderator on this forum. I hear that you have some strong opionions on this subject, care to share them with us?

Grand Haven had no significant run of salmon this year. Holland and Saug the same but neither gets the amounts planted at GH. Last year wasn't much better.

The past 2 years, even though I've caught the same amount of fish, I have caught more fish in May and June than July and August, and the fish were bigger in the spring for the most part. I caught very few mature/dark fish in Aug.

5 years ago I only marked bait occasionally, but now I mark it almost every trip and plenty of it.

I realize that this was a very weird year temp wise for the lake with how warm it stayed, and last year was similiar.

My feelings are that the DNR plant reductions have worked, along with the limit increase, the bait has come back, and they need to start stocking more again. I think we are hitting what we have so hard and effectively in the spring and summer, that come fall we have very few salmon left.

I know that the DNR will point to an increase in natural reproduction, a number that they est. at over 50%, but I think that pertains to the better rivers up north and not to the Grand, Macattawa and Kazoo. I have "heard" that their are/were not enough salmon in the weir on the L Manistee for the DNR to collect enough eggs for the reduced numbers stocking let alone an increase. Hope this isn't true.

What do you think??????????

can't believe we never saw you as it sounds like we were following you around all morning with about the same results.

Had a great day this am. Set up in 120 because of a report by DirtyDog but didn't hook up till 215 with first steelie. Turned back at 225 and went all the way back to 120(it doesn't take near as long at 4.2mph). No hits, so turned back out on NW troll and took steelies at 122, 125, and 145. turned back to 120 and quit. 6,8,10, and 11# all on orange and green spoons on 75', 150', 200' copper and rigger down 70'. 4 for 4

<a href="http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa24/zehunt/?action=view&current=steellies001.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa24/zehunt/steellies001.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

great job guys

the temp break was only out to 75fow straight out of PS, going from 47 to 59 in about 20 yards, nice slick and lots of debries and gulls. But I think being in so close hurt us because I don't think the fish had moved in that close yet. We managed only 2 for 3, both steelhead with spetacular jumps. Drifted out to 120 with 1 miss on a board but very few marks and a steady 59 degrees all the way out. Tons and tons of bait on the break though.

Last line left in the water saved the 1st skunk of the year from happening. With one left to pull looked back and thought something looked wrong, yeah a release. 6# laker. Fished 160 to 170, lots of marks and bait but no takers.

Good job buddy!!!

Mark, we went out at about 2pm and were going to look for big lakers in that 75-90 range. We only got 1 around 6# and gave up after an hour. Headed west straight out from Saug a caught a nice king about 8# in 155fow and turned north at 160 and had pretty steady action until we were north of Spyglass. Monkey puke(green&gold) went 5 times on 2 coppers and bl. nose JPSlammer mini went 4 times as a free slider on 2 riggers set at 120 and 80. 2 nice steelhead 2 small lakers and the salmon were all between 3 and 8#. We marked a ton of fish and bait. We only fished 6 lines, 2 riggers and 4 boards, dipsys got pulled early. I fished last friday in 160 and did well then too.

went 11 for 13, 3 lakers, 2 steelhead, 2 coho, and 4 kings. All silver. Small spoons, monkey puke and JP Slammer mini firedog. 160 fow. riggers and copper. north troll from Saug to Holland.

If you look at the reports from the egg taking stations less than 10% of our returning salmon are 4 year olds. Most are 3, 2nd are 2 year olds. Our salmon are no longer staying out 4 years. Low forage numbers that cause stress to the fish is the number 1 suspected reason.

great picture. Its 9:30 and I still feel like I'm bouncing around.

what depth was all the action? we couldn't get anything going after 4 in the first hour.

They had 4 or 5 break offs with small fish(5+#) that got caught in the rigger wires. You do the Math.

We started out very slow, listening to Phil and some off the others doing good on the radio down by Holland. We started out 0 for 3 before we got a nice king in the boat at about 8:30. Headed in a little and found some colder water and bait and with a bunch of Coho around that thought they were steelhead. Ended up 10 for 20+ with only 3 rods left to pull at dark. 7 kings with 5 over 12# and 3 coho all around 4 to 5#. Spoons took more than half with Moongolian beef moonshine going 6 times.

good job guys, nice triple picture.

Never saw anything on that big one that "Nick of Time?" had last Sat. Do you know any more? Very curious.