Sea Eagle

Went 5-7 out of SH this morning. Set lines west of pier head in 60 ft of water and trolled out to 120 ft. Picked up a small king in 90 ft of water on a DR/SWR with a UV blue dolphin spoon down 75 ft. Turned around and came back into 90 ft of water and picked up a nicer king on a 1/2 core with an orange killer spoon. Caught a real nice coho on the same rig around noon. Lost a fish n 200 ft of copper with my mystery spoon (kind of a holographic mixed veggies with black and white spots - see photo). Took a large king on the same set up later. Missed a fish on the same DR/SWR - UV dolphin spoon down at 85 ft in 100 ft of water and picked up a lake trout on an identical set up on the other down rigger down at 75 ft. Best depth was 90 ft +/- 10 ft

Thanks for the great report

This was his first time out this year. He was up north turkey hunting over the last two weekends. Seems like he has too much going on. Must be rough.

Fished South Haven this morning with Sea Hawk (Denny). Went 4 for 4. 3 Lakers and a large King. The two larger Lakers weighed 16 & 17 lbs and the King weighed in at 19 lbs. according to the DNR guy at the fish cleaning shed. Set lines around 7:30 in 110 ft of water NW of Pier. Trolled out to 170 and back for four hours without a nibble, so we decided to head in. First fish hit at 11:30 inside 100 ft of water and last fish hit as we were pulling lines around 1:30 inside of 60 ft of water. All three Lakers were taken with a three color SWR on the DR bouncing bottom with a UV Blue Dolphin spoon. The king hit a UV Carmel Dolphin spoon on a full core. Amazing how a couple of large fish can turn a bad trip into a good trip. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/gallery/files/3/1/9/05-08-2013_glf_thumb.jpg

Thanks for the report.

Real nice to have this information closer to home. I will check it prior to every trip. Thanks

Thanks for the reminder billrudy. The reason I went with the Scotty beads in the first place is because I had a failure at the crimp and lost everything including my depth raider probe

Thanks for the report. Was going to go out deep myself this weekend if I get the chance to get out. I've been wondering how deep we needed to go to find some clear water. Great job

Great job on the lakers. I wonder where all of the silver fish are? I wonder if all of the dirty water is shutting down the coho and king fishing or its just the cold spring? The six million dollar question is will we have anything other than lake trout to catch this spring down here?

Thanks for the report. Hit the kalamazoo for steelhead and the maumee for walleye this weekend without success. Looks like its time to drag the big boat home and hit the big lake

Hit the Grand Rapids fishing show in March. You can find some good prices on lures and such and sometimes a better selection. Where you can really save money is on big ticket items. There are usually manufacturers discounts available at the spring show that will not be available latter in the year.

I would like to attend and have a couple of buddies would would like to come with me

I still run leadcore and copper. I think it depends on how many lines you can run. Depending on how many people I have in the boat and what water depth I want to target - I will run a 1/2 core and a full core along with 200 and 300 feet of copper, dipseys and my down riggers. This set up allows me to cover the entire water column from 25 ft on down to whatever depth I'm running my Down Riggers at. If there are only a couple of people in the boat I might stick the leadcore out on one side of the boat and the copper out on the other until I find out what depth the fish are biting in and switch the other side out to whatever is working. You can cover the same depths as the leadcore using copper, but I believe that sometimes it is a good thing to be further back from the boat in shallower water. Others talk about the different action leadcore imparts to your spoons - Who knows. I do know that having both set ups just gives you more choices.

We were in Manistee last week and drove around portage lake on Friday after the rain chased us off of the big lake. Did not drop the boat in since we were heading out on Saturday. But we were curious a out the fishing. Thanks for the report. We will keep it in mind for the next trip.

We stayed there on this trip. Nice store. Lots of big lake stuff. We might look for something less rustic next trip. Getting too old or just too lazy for camping.

I think we will be going back next year. Not sure why, but pound for pound they fight better up in Manistee than a 15 lb fish down in the southern portion of the lake. One thing I left out, we wound up with almost 70 lbs of filets for our 20 fish

Buddy Bill and I headed up to Manistee for four days of fishing. First time there and did not know what to expect, so we took his multi species Crestliner so we could fish either the big lake or the river. Not too many fish in the river, although we did see some fish caught there every day. We decided to head out to the open water. We fished out and to the south in anything between 100 ft to almost 300 ft of water. Us boys from the south end of the lake were amazed how fast you can get from 100 ft to 300 ft. Wound up 20 for 24 for something around 14 hours of fishing over five days. Needless so say we did not hit it too hard. Got there after lunch on Monday, had some boat issues mid week, and the weather run us off the lake on Friday. Still had a great time. Blue Dolphin UV spoon on a SWR on the DR down 75 ft took 2/3 of the fish. Pink Alewife on 200 & 300 ft of copper took the majority of the rest. DD were not doing anything for us so we pulled them. UV Carmel Dolphin on a full core, a white SD/Green Fly and Chrome/Red Head J-Plug took one fish each. Most fish were kings in the 14-15 lb range, but also picked up a few fat cohos and a steelhead.

Perhaps you could put together another spring swap meet for the GLF guys. I really appreciated you previous swap meets. Good way to pass along some of the stuff that seemed like a good idea when I purchased it, but no longer use. I always say that there is not a lure made that will not catch a fisherman.

Long time subscriber to the GLA magazine. Sounds like it is time to start a GLF magazine.

Great to have you on GLF. Welcome

Heading up that way in a couple of weeks. Glad to hear that the fishing remains strong. Thanks for the report.

Been going to the same place off and on for 10 years. Best value we can find. Not going to get any trophies, but you can catch all the fish you want to eat and bring home. The place is super clean and the host is a great guy. here is his web page if anyone is interested. http://canadianfishing.com/index.html

Here are a couple

Fished out of Chapleau the first week in August. Took a couple of days to find the fish as usual then caught good numbers and size. Saw one 27" taken. Caught more walleye than four of us could eat and all we were allowed to bring home. Trolling gold/black crank baits 10-15 ft down in 20-25 ft of water was best. Great time.