Jump to content

In The Net

Members
  • Posts

    175
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by In The Net

  1. We change a couple different things. When we are looking for steelhead we try to find a surface temperature of 52-55 degrees. Preferably a stretch of water that changes temperature really quick. We use all spoons and we fish the top of the water column. Our steelhead program is 1,2,3 colors on both sides. So 6 high lead cores. Then we usually put a 100 ft copper on both sides. So 8 high long lines. Then two down riggers about 20 down with sliders 8 feet above that. Then 2 or 3 high divers. When it comes to colors. We use a lot of orange and bright yellow. Basically and bright colored. Smaller spoons for the most part. Super slims or regular sized spoons. Not many mag spoons. We don't change our speed too much but we pay more attention to our speed on the surface rather than at the ball. Anywhere from 2.5-3.0 for our speed. So we fish high with bright spoons a little faster than normal.

  2. We have been up in ludington for the week and wow it's amazing how much things change within a week. When we first got here, we went out Sunday and the Kings were on the bank so we caught a bunch of nice kings early in the morning but then they shut off so we had to go out to 300 fow and caught some steelhead. Tuesday was a little bit different so we went straight to 300 fow in that same spot and caught a bunch of steelhead. But then everything changed with a strong north blow wednesday. It flipped the water completely so now the water is ice cold on the bank. It's slowly warming up but the bank is essentially useless right now with how ice cold the water is. 40 degree water isn't the best temp for fish. So the bottom line is you have to go way out deep to find fish.

    So more details on our trip this morning. We went 16 for 20 in deep water. One king, 11 steelhead and 4 BIG lake trout 530 fow to be exact. Lost another king and 3 more steelhead. we were in 55 west and 07-08 north. We found a quick temp break that went from 55 degrees to 49 degrees in about a half a mile. That is where the fish were. Big scum line and every time we went through it we hit fish.

    What we hit fish on were:

    1,2,3 colors with bright spoons (Orange and yellow spoons)

    100 copper with mixed veggie

    High divers with SS lemon ice and SS Orange ladderback spoon. 75-80 back

    Down rigger with UV moonshine yellow and orange spoon.

    Basically all fish were caught in the top 25 foot of water.

    Hopefully this helps those of you heading out for this holiday weekend. My advice would be go to the coast watch surface temp site online and find a 2 mile stretch with a big temperature break. The steelhead should be in that break along with a mix of a few other fish. If you have any questions then just ask. Good luck!!!

  3. Sorry the post is a little late but her it is. We fished from 5am-11am both days and caught 8 fish both days. Friday we went 8-13 and Saturday we went 8-11. The fish were all very good size which made for some fun fishing. The 8 fish Saturday added up to being over 110 pounds so it was fun plus we got a guy out there that has never caught a salmon before. We caught the fish between the bath house and the point in 100-130 FOW on mostly everything. I would have to say small white plugs caught the most fish. I think they took a total of 7 fish and spoons took another 4 and meat/flys took the rest. The fishing seemed to really really slow for most people or at least that's what the DNR officer told us. He said the average catch was two fish which is rather worrisome. Hopefully it keeps getting better. Sorry this post is rather brief so if you have any questions then just ask and ill answer when I have more time.

  4. simply put this weekend was an interesting one to say the least. On Saturday morning we got out on the water around 6 am to find that the wind had pushed ALOT of cold water into the skinnier water. We decided to go south by the projects because it usually warmer than the point. It was pretty hard to find any surface temps above 45 degrees. We ended up talking to some people who were inside of 70 foot of water and really struggling to get a bite so we decided to head out to 100-115 FOW. Turns out that was a pretty good decision as we went 5-8 in a couple hours out there. All the fish were kings between 11-15 pounds. 6 of the hits came on coppers between 100-200 copper. we got one hit on a dipsey and one on a downrigger. All hits were on moonshine mag spoons. Green and blue were the hot colors. When we got in we talked to the DNR officer and he told us that the surface temps at the point were from 36-38 degrees and that it was tough day of fishing for everybody unless you ran down to pent water.

    Alright this is where it gets more interesting. On our way in Saturday we saw a boat swinging there arms at us to get our attention so we decided to head over and see what the problem was. Their boat was dead in the water. After a good hour of them trying to fix it we ended up having to tow them in to port which usually wouldn't take all that long but considering they were twice the size of our boat, it ended up being quite the slow process. We finally got them to port safe and sound and were excited to head out and fish the next day or at least we thought we were gonna be doing some fishing.

    On Sunday morning the winds had changed and brought some warm water back in and the fish had followed. So we were up early and ready to kill them. At about 5:30 am we were headed south to the projects again. But while we were running full speed out to our fishing destination something got in the way. At full speed we wrecked a large piece of wood floating in the water. Wow is that quite the surprise. It is like hitting a brick wall! It stopped our boat dead in its tracks. Probably one of the scariest things I have ever encountered. As you would expect it did some damage. It broke both our graph sonar piece and fishhawk piece on the bottom of our boat. Plus it did quite the job on our motor. It totally busted the hydraulic pump and did some more damage on the motor which is still to be determined. All we know is the motor wasn't running and we could raise or lower the motor but we are still figuring out everything that is wrong. We ended up slowly making our way back into port with our kicker motor to access the damage. Luckily the actually fiberglass of our boat came out unharmed which I like to think is the good karma we got from pulling in the guys from the day before. lol

    All in all it wasn't the weekend we were looking for but nobody got hurt and I think everything can be fixed with some handy work and a few new pieces of equipment.

  5. For the weekend we went 15 for 22. Saturday morning was much better than Sunday morning. Best water was between 110-150 fow in front of the projects (which is south) people that went to the bank didnt do very well for the most part. Got some big fish though. 4 20+ pounders and one of those was 26lb.

    Well Saturday we went 10 for 12. (threw 1 of the small kings back because it wasnt gonna die)Didnt get a hit until 6:30 and then we started hitting the fish. Everything worked copper, downriggers, and dipseys. Hit most fish between 30-50 down.

    What worked:

    200 copper 32lb blue SD and white meat rig (1 king)

    200 copper 45lb purple meat rig (big 26 pound king)

    150 copper 45lb u of m spoon (1 small king)

    Dipsey back 105 with blue bubble SD and fly (2-3)

    Down riggers with fixed sliders down 40 and 50. spoon were green flounder pounder, blue moonshine, wonder bread, green dolphin, silver and yellow moonshine) 5-6

    image_22600.jpg

    Fun day of fishing. 110 pound box of fish!

    image_633537.jpg

    The big 26 pounder that the 72 year old man drug in!

    Sunday wasn't nearly as good of fishing. A lot of boats at the fish cleaning station struggled but we managed 5 fish and missed 5 more so 5-10. We got into some steelhead and they were jumping and throwing the hook.

    What worked:

    150 copper 45lb u of m spoon (0-2)

    250 copper 45lb green flounder pounder (1-1)

    200 copper 45lb purple meat rig (20lber we got on Sunday)

    Down riggers down 30 and 40 with fixed sliders. Same spoons as day before. (3-6)

    image_880911.jpg

    20 pounder the little guy brought in

  6. Decided to hit the water this morning despite the terrible reports. Went south to 60 fow and trolled straight West all the way to 200 fow and found some warm water and popped to fish. A laker and king. King was caught on a wonderbread spoon 55 down and the laker was taken on a blue meat rig on a wire diver 225 back.

    I would have to say save the gas and head out later this year when the fish show up. Talked to 7 different boats in the parking lot after and 6 of them were skunked and one person had 1 fish. Also heard captain chuck and another charter captain over the radio and the had no fish between the 2 of them and that was at 10 am so the fishing right now is bad to say the least but we do have 5 days of south wind on the way which should change things alot. Positive thinking!!!

  7. We fish ludington alot but havent too much this year because we havent had time but Th 4000 and 5000 lines are way out there. You have to make quite the long run. If I were you I would probably try the point in about 130 fow to start just because that is what usually hold the most fish consistently. (The point is about 8 miles north) fish between that and the bath house which is 4 miles norh

  8. Yeah. Last year we killed the fish at prime time (sunrise, sunset) on everything but after that copper just killed the fish. We would pop 4-6 fish every day after/before prime time which really makes your box better. The only problem is to get a solid copper set up its pretty costly. But a dupery set up isn't that costly so the cheaper route would to be add dipseys. You can use a downright rod with a lot of braided line on it and got get a dipsey and you'll figure it out. It's not that complicated. Dipseys have caught more fish for us than downriggers. But copper has prolly caught more fish then any other set up

×
×
  • Create New...