a_kraker99

I guess its easier to put up a fishing report on here when you limit rather than when you get skunked. I have noticed a lot of the time if we are trolling in close proximity to another boat, I don't usually see them reeling in fish. That being said, I do think our boat needs a good washing after all the mechanical work it has had lately. I am sure it reeks of gas and oil right now. Another thing I wondered about was lure scent. Do you all wash your lures every time you go out or put a cover scent on them? We just bought a bottle of THIS but I am not sure if it is helping or hurting. Also, if anyone has something for sale that can tell us ball temps and current speed send me a PM. Thanks!

Thanks to both of you. We will try to wash the boat down. It hasn't been done in a while. Ben, I normally go on what reports are saying since we don't get out more than once a week most of the time. Are you the one on the radio with the Wonderbread J-plug? We were the ones that admitted to getting skunked. I'm sure you heard us complaining :-) How deep did you end up getting them?

Getting a bit annoyed that I can't catch a fish anytime other than the morning. Last night we were doing the exact same thing as everyone else on the water. 60 FOW 40-50 feet down on the riggers with j-plugs spoons and flies. 3 mph SOG south troll. Didn't even have a release. Changed depths, direction, lures, speed. No luck. After expressing frustration on the radio we found a few more people in misery with us but they at least had 1 fish or a couple releases. We had nothing. We were marking bait balls and fish right at 40-50 feet where we had our lures all night, especially when the sun went down. According to the Holland buoy the water at that depth was still about 55 degrees. Is that too warm for them to be interested in eating? Originally I was going to go out to like 80 feet and fish 60-70 feet down, but after getting out there and seeing all the boats at 60 feet I though there must be something going on in that depth. Maybe I should have just stuck with my original plans? I am honestly starting to think that there is some scent or vibration coming from our boat that is scaring the fish.

Thanks for posting on here Ed. I will definately make use of the wave height sensor once it is up and running since I get motion sickness! How deep is the water where you put the buoy? It looks like it says you already have one at around 62 feet right? Would 65 feet be right at the bottom then? Also, I am sure you already have divers you work with, but if you ever need an extra diver to do some work on the buoy or anything let me know. My brothers and I are all certified.

The probes go down to around 60 feet. Isn't the thermocline right around 40 or 50 most of the time?

Looks like they are still messing around with it. The water depths just all reset to 0. Anyone know what kind of temperature drop you typically see in a thermocline? 10 degrees, 20 degrees?

This might have been posted already but it they launched a new weather buoy last night and its spitting out info now. http://bit.ly/hollandbuoy It is supposed to do wave height too but it must not be calibrated or something. The thing I thought was cool was the different temps at different water depths. Should be good for seeing a thermocline right?

Does having other boats close by make for better fishing in your experience? Also, It seemed like the fish were biting a lot more just before sunrise. Is it the same way just after sunset or not as good? Do they typically always slow down during the day or are there times when the fishing is just as good during daytime?

What is the first thing all of you do if you are not catching the fish? Change troll direction, change troll speed, change lure depths, change water depth, change lures, other? I always thought that if I was marking fish and bait fish, then I must be in the right spot. Yesterday our graph was not really marking much at all, but we were still getting them. Other days the graph is full with no bites. Where are the fish coming from if I am not marking them? Also, off the thread topic a little. How much does troll direction matter? Should we be trolling with, against or cross current most of the time? I know Salmon face into the current but how does that affect what direction you should troll?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we put a green j-plug on lead core about 20 minutes before we left and got a hit in about 10 minutes in. Didn't stay hooked unfortunately.

Well I don't go out too early most of the time but today my brother and I got on the water by 5:30. Do Alewives normally jump all over the side of your boat in the channel at that time? Anyway, got lines down at around 5:45 and fished until 7:30 and went 8 for 13. Had one copper that wasn't hooking up and eventually lost the lure. We started just south of Holland at about 80 FOW on a SSW troll at 2.8mph SOG out to about 98 feet . Got 5 lines out and wasn't able to put the 6th line out until we had about 5 fish in the boat. The hottest lure was a white/glow paddle with a glow fly with a 20" leader on a rigger 60 foot down. We couldn't keep it in the water. The next hottest was a Magnum blue glow spoon with an eye and black ladder pattern in the middle (sorry, don't know the name of it). They were hitting everywhere early on but when the sun came up it seemed like we only got them closer to 100 feet of water. When we headed in the pier was completely lined with people fishing. Must have something to do with the alewives we saw there in the morning?

Is the connection down? I havent been able to get on it in a while.

Nice dave, sounds like you got a few right after I called you then. The fishing never really slowed down right up to when we headed back in at 12:00. Thanks for the tips this morning. Never realized how much the trolling direction mattered until today.

Thanks to Dave Ash we were able to find some fish between 120 and 130 FOW between Holland and Port Sheldon. We fished from 9:30 - 12 and came back 3 for 5 all on full copper. The we had 2 releases on riggers 70 feet down that just didn't hook up. Like Dave we caught them all on a 330 troll around 2.5-2.6 mph GPS. Standard sized spoons and dark colors. The 2 we missed on the rigger was an orange spoon.

Where were you fishing and what was working?