slickwater

Yes Leland is great right now. But if there are salmon in little traverse bay at petoskey then there should be some in grand traverse bay.

What kind of temp did you guys have. I know it was 67 120 ft down just before the weekend. I think when salmon are in that warm of water they are very sluggish and are only active at peak times.

I filleted green label herring on one side and left the other with the back bone still in it. Both sides are not very firm and on occasion the strip will rip out of the meathead. I started out fishing with pre cut strips and there are nice and firm. I've even caught more than one salmon on a strip.

I'm wanting to know if there is any way to firm and toughen these strips? I have them in a salt,borax water brine.

I tried to get some answers on another message board but no one could answer my question.

I don't think it matters what species the eggs come from. But if you think about when you are fish whitefish in the fall the whitefish are keyed in on salmon eggs. I don't use steelhead eggs for whites because I don't get very many in the spring to use them for whites. But I use to get eggs from a guy up in the U.P. Of Michigan that had a special recipe for eggs for whites but he died and the recipe is gone forever. He used steelhead eggs.

When should I stop using meat rigs in the fall? Do I still use them after the salmon go shallow and are staging at the mouth of rivers? Or are they only for deep water.

I don't buy egg cure anymore. With king eggs, if they are in the skein I strip them out of the skein and dry them off and the put in a ziploc and cover with 20 mule team borax and that's it. They will keep in the fridge for about a year. With steelhead spawn I never cure them. I just freeze them I small batches just enough for a couple days of fishing. For eggs for whitefish I cure the same way and just boil them until they will stay on the hook.

It should be herring. Because it is from fish on bait.

Could any other fish be used with success, such as shiners or small suckers? maybe injected with herring oil?

I've used smelt before and caught couple salmon on them. You have to remember salmon only eat certain prey. Suckers work for lakers because the prey on them. As far as I know salmon don't. The only prey I have heard of salmon eating are; alewives, herring, smelt, sticklebacks and gobies.

Well there was no blood in the package. But now the brine is red. I had a hit last night on one of my meat rigs and missed the fish but when I brought the rig in to reset the herring was ripped out of the head and was still attached to the hook. It was tore right out of the bait head and there was still a piece of it still pinned with the toothpick in the head.

That's what I was thinking. The herring could have sat in the warehouse before they put them in the freezer.

I did exactly what John King says to do whith filleting and brining the green label herring I got from my local shop.

But I think they smell like they are starting to rot and are soft and the scales are coming off when I handle them. They are firmer than when I filleted them but not anywhere like the strips I have been using. Any ideas why this could be? They have been in brine for 3 days.

I have been using 17# for years and the only break offs I have had are when a fish goes into another line. Plus I used 12# last year on a couple spoon rods and never had a break off. But now I just switched a couple rods over to 25# for fishing meatrigs. I surf fish for salmon in the fall when they are staging at the mouth of a couple rivers and I only use 10# there and have landed salmon over 25 pounds on it.

I got the new smurf mamba bti flashers and matching smurf meat rigs. I will see how they run with strips first. John Kings websites are www.michigansportsman.com and www.michiganangler.com

Ive been running strips on my meat rigs. But my local tackle store just got some green label whole herring.

Should I run them whole or should I fillet them like John King does in one of his videos? Most of my meat heads can't run whole. But I just ordered 2 super magnum heads from John King. If I fillet them would the one fillet be a little short?

Should I brine them with big weenie brand brine or John Kings method.

Turfwrench, I'm with you. I fish ports that don't have the salmon like Manistee, Frankfort or Ludington. Catch what you can. That's all I can do. Like yesterday we only caught one 20# king and lost one. But most of the boats around us never caught a fish.

Today broke my streak of limits, and after talking with a few guys my seven fish were pretty good today. I don't have a problem finding fish, I am trying to focus more on larger fish. I have had an obsession with limits, if it wasn't a limit it was a failure, however now I am looking for weight. I am mainly looking for a new challenge, also looking to put weight on tournament boards versus just numbers.

Friday I am going to run nothing but flashers and flies with 24" leaders....

That's quite a goal. Only wanting to catch limits or your a failure. If I said that I would be a failure everytime I fished. Not very often where I fish does anyone catch limits unless you fish by yourself.

As long as I'm catching fish that's all that matters.

Should I run 20# line with 12" flashers and meat or will the 17# I use now with 8" flashers work fine?

I think when I run two next to each other the flasher get tangled with the line blow back from the other rigger rod. I run flashers 20' back. Should I run the higher flashers farther back.

Do your meat rigs glow? That would be the only explanation I could thinkof for your meat shutting down prime time.

On Sunday both meat heads were UV heads. And the fishcatchers, one was white glow and the other was green with blue tape.

Here is what I do. I always run at least one meat rig, sometimes 2. I prefer some type of glow rig. I believe meat brings fish into the spread. Even if i don't get hits on the meat, the rest of my spread does better with meat in the spread. Most of the time meat produces. If i want to cheat, I will have meat day and just run all meat rigs. That is a lot of fun!!

How do you keep from tangling when running all meat rigs? Everytime I have run 2 meat rigs next to each other I always get a tangled mess. Oh I keep forgetting, should I run 20# on my rods instead of 17# when I get some of the 12" flashers for meat rigs?

First thing in the morning I like flies first thing, little more aggressive and little easier. As soon as the bite dies its all meat on divers and chute

I'm not worried about morning fishing. Just late afternoon and evening. On Sunday we started fishing and 4:00pm and caught 4 kings before 8:30pm and then no more king hits on meat just a couple small lakers at prime time from 8:30-9:45. Do I need to speed up at prime time so my spoons are working better? Or is where I'm fishing not having a good spoon bite? I'm not seeing other boats catching very many.

Ok. We got six salmon on Fri. 4 were on meat using a 8" fishcatcher. Best speed was 1.8 at the ball. But as it got later in the evening the meat bite just about was non existence.

So my question is: Should I pull the meat when it gets closer to dark and all spoons or maybe flasher and flies instead of the meat rigs?

Same thing happened last night. But we only got 4 with 3 on meat. We are also getting quite a few knock offs and not hooking those at all.

I was wondering if I need to brine the Erie derie herring strips? I used them yesterday with good results without brining.

Well I used a couple different meat rigs yesterday evening and they caught more than spoons(4:2). But I did have two tangles running the two with two spoons. One was a beachhold hoochiemama and the other was a spin doctor both 8" they were both 20' back. One on a center rigger and the other was on the corner rigger and they were 15' apart. And they still got tangled. I still don't understand how some people run 4 flashers off of riggers.

How far behind the ball should I fish flashers. On my low rods and the high rods so I don't get tangled?