OuttaTheWoods

Nicely done.  Funny how deep riggers were hit along side high divers.  I was out Friday night as well in 190 FOW - will post shortly.

Yeah was seeing a few big marks down there so dropped one down to check it out. Seems like sometimes after a recent lake flip they end up a little scattered in the water column


Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Went 4/5 Thursday evening on a short trip with 3 kings 23.5, 20.5, 10 lbs, and a 9lb steelhead. Mag diver on 3 back 140 took the two big kings, 200 copper took the steelhead and another rip, and the last was a rigger down 60. Focused mainly on 150-170 fow.

 

Went 3/7 Friday evening with a 24 and 26 lb kings, and a laker. Started setting in 110 fow heading SW, first big king hit the diver back 140 in 155 fow, lost it 50ft behind the boat after a good fight. Next big king hit a 400 copper with a meat rig and promptly broke that off. Next one hit a rigger down 125 and broke that off, 4th one hit the diver back 140 and peeled off a bunch of line before coming unbuttoned. Finally landed the 26 lb king on a rigger down 125 on the fifth try, and added the 24 lber on the diver back 140 to salvage a rough start. All our hits were in 150-170 fow again. Both nights the bite went cold after about 8:15 which was kind of odd. The best lure was a 10” mtn dew/chrome spin doctor with a green UV Ace-Hi fly.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Thanks for the report! Heading out tonight


Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

7/17 am went 10/18 with two steelhead and 8 lake trout, lost the two king bites that we had. Most of the trout were coming in 100-125, the king bites were in 130-140, tried as deep as 160. The trout were good size with the two biggest around 14lbs.

 

7/18 am went 4/7 with a 11lb steelhead, 19lb king, and 2 trout. Lost two other nice kings. 120-140 was the best water but didn’t try much else because of the waves. King bites came on mag dipsys 150-170 back set on 3.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Fished The Saugatuck tournament out of Holland this past weekend. Went 11/12 Saturday with 10 lakers and only 1 king. Found some good size trout of 12, 14, and 16.5 lbs. 100-110fow early, and 135-145 later on. Most of the trout came on bottom or just off bottom. Sunday those fish had moved and we had to scramble to get 8 trout and lost 2. Still had a couple over 10lbs but the average was way down. 120-155 was the best water in the bottom 10ft. Trout fishing has been pretty good if you’re just looking to catch fish, but The king fishing has really been tough, with most boats struggling to find more than 1 or 2 in the last two weekends of tournaments. That said if you do tie into one it’s likely to be over 20.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

5/6 this morning, 4 lakers and a steelhead, lost our one big king bite at the back of the boat when he made a 100ft run towards the boat and wrapped himself around a riggerFished 100-160 fow. Steelhead came on a 7 color, king on a 250 copper, lakers all near bottom. The laker bite is pretty consistent right now down on bottom, and helps pass the time when the bite is slow. My 6 year old reeled in her first 3 fish without help, including this 10lb laker!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Finished 4/6, fishing from 7-9:30. One 18.5lb king and 3 lakers all 7-9 lbs. lost another big king after a 15 minute fight just before we finally got the board in on a 300 copper with a meat rig. The other king came on a mag lemon berry spoon 34 down on a rigger. All of our hits came in 100-120 fow

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Went 8/10 out of PS. Only landed lakers, but lost a steely and a big king that broke the fly off. The lakers were good size with 5 of them in the 8-10 lb range. Everything came in 100-120 fow. The bigger lakers were actually suspended 50-60 down, with the smaller ones coming near bottom.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

3/5 with a laker, king, and steelhead. Set up around 7:30 (with 4 kids under the age of 9 on board ) however all the hits came between 9-10. Fished 100-150 fow with 120 being the best. Hits were between 40-75ft down. Yellow spoons took a couple high, meat and paddles down low.  Flies were pretty bad, the sea fleas were horrendous, otherwise gorgeous night.

10-14 this morning out of Port Sheldon. Set up in 100 fow at 9am heading west, picked up our first hit in 145, but best water was 160-195. Had our limit by noon, 5 kings, 3 coho, 2 steelhead. 100 and 135 down on the riggers, 325-375 on mag wire divers set on 3, 400 and 600 copper. Big white paddles and spin doctors with green or oceana flies, green or white meat rigs. Been a similar pattern the last week and a half with the warm water around. Seems like it's going to continue until the lake flips. Good luck!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Had an interesting weekend fishing the Saugatuck tournament out of Holland. Saturday we fished north of Holland early and struggled early to land our kings. Finally after a cold spell decided to try for trout and picked up 6 in the last two hours to salvage the day. Sunday we fished south of Holland and had a great day going 15/20 with 4 kings and the rest lakers. Fishing seemed to get better as we got closer to Saugatuck. Then I learned a hard lesson...on our way back in we hit a wake fairly hard and broke the swim platform and cooler right off the boat. Have been running the cooler back there for 6 years with much bigger boxes than that without an issue but apparently that's not a good idea. Ended up salvaging 8 of the fish but lost several of our biggest fish. It was a shocking turn of events. Needless to say I didn't have the heart to attend the weigh in after that... 80-100 fow was the best all weekend, south troll was best. Green and yellow meat rigs were good for kings, trash cans with spin n glows hammered the lakers.

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman mobile app

7/7- prefished for the Muskegon tourney out of Grand Haven. Went 5/8 with 3 kings (one 22.5 lbs), a steelhead and a laker. Lost at least one other nice King. Bigger kings and laker came in 165-175 fow with long coppers and meat rigs doing the best on kings. Smaller fish came in 90-130.

7/8- fished Muskegon northward starting deeper early. Much slower morning going 3/4 with 2 Lakers and a small King. One laker was 14.5 lbs. lakers came on Dodgers with spin n glows.

7/10- day 1 of the tourney was canceled due to waves, but Day2 we went back to our better water from Thursday and went 6/9. Lost our 2 nice King bites early on meat rigs on 300-400 copper in 120 fow and had to grind away to put some lakers and small kings in the box the rest of the day to place 6th out of 15 AM boats. Lakers all came bouncing bottom with spin n glows from 120-160 fow. Small kings were coming on double orange crush spoons on 200 coppers. There are some nice kings out there but still tough to find. Could be a lot of fun if they start showing up in better numbers.

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman mobile app

Went 3/3 before the storm chased us off. Took a laker, 6lb King and 17.5lb King. 130-150 fow is where we took our hits, direction didn't seem to matter. Big King came on a 400copper with meat rig, 6lb King on a 7 color.

Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman mobile app

I had a bat on the boat this summer. Landed on my buddies back as he was bringing in a rod. I knocked it off, then proceeded to dance around like a little girl as it fluttered on the deck around my legs before we finally got it shoo'd out of he boat.

Very similar to last year. Had 157 bites this year compared to 160 last year, and our landed rate was up a little from 67% to 70% with one more trip this year. Had 2 skunks this year out of 23 trips, but only had 5 trips that we didn't catch a king over 10 lbs. our king catch was 43% of our total compared to 50% last year. Our average king weight was actually up from 9.8 to 11.1 lbs this year. No kings over 20 lbs this year but a few in the 18lb range. I will say I had to fish better this year to maintain those numbers though, and did better when I could stack some trips together in consecutive days. 14/19 was the best trip this year, but that included quite a few lakers. Fished mostly Port Sheldon, but also Holland, Muskegon, and Traverse City

8/9 with a 2 man crew. Hits came in bunches with 4 doubles, made it interesting with only 2 of us. 150 fow was the magic depth, 3 hits on rigger down 120 with big paddle and white fly, 3 hits on rigger 100 down with MOP plug, 400 copper with meat took 2, diver back 150 with big white paddle/grn fly took 1. Temp was 70 degrees 100 feet down, and 54 120 down. Fish were there at the break.

Yeah it was a rough enough ride for our 24 footer, not sure I'd have have wanted to see the view from your 18!

Had a great time fishing the Holland big red classic this weekend. Started prefishing Friday going 6/10 with 5 good kings and a steelhead, biggest kings at 17 and 15 lbs. started out on fire in 80-100 fow before striking west to find some mid morning fish. Ended up taking a 12 and 15 lb king mid morning in 150-170. White paddles with crush or UV tape did the most damage, along with a couple plug bites early. Fish were in the 40-70 foot down range.

Day1: started in the shallow water again with a much different result. Only had 1 fish in the cooler by 9:00, so we headed west to plan B. Ended up going 5/9 between 9:30-12 in the 140-170 fow range with 4 kings and a coho. Had a stretch where we lost 3 fish in a row within 50 ft of the boat as we were trying to get #5 in the boat (was not a happy 45 minutes). Finished 6/11 with 5 kings and a coho, good enough to put us in 7th out of the 52 AMs.

Day2: gave the shallow water a try again, but pulled the plug early without a bite by 8am and the waves rapidly growing. After dodging the freighter leaving holland we made it out to plan B spot again and started taking fish. Went 4/7 in 2.5 hours in 140-160 before they called the tournament at 11. 3 kings and a steelhead, one king at 17.9 lbs good enough to take big king, and 3rd biggest fish overall. That catch was enough to move us up to 4th overall, one more 8lb fish away from first!

Ended up with 4th in AM division, big king, 3rd biggest overall, 6th place in 333, and big king in 333.

Other than Friday the deep water was best for us, divers 140-190 back with white paddles/grn flys, riggers 45-70 with plugs or meet, rigger 90 with big white paddle combo, and 300-400 coppers with meat did the best. A couple steelhead bites on 200 copper. Oddly didn't catch a single laker in 3 days fishing.

Also was just in west marine, can get a handheld marine radio for $100. Ask you tourney crew to chip in another $20 and you're golden.

Might want to check with big red.. The rules require marine radio to monitor tournament channel

I fished Between Muskegon and grand haven 2 weeks ago and came across five sets. Don't have coordinates but they are very well marked as long as you have good visibility.

Fished the holland Steelheaders out of holland 7/25 am. Tried the lake trout program early and failed miserably picking up just one laker in 85 fow. Eventually abandoned that and switched to a king program after 10am but it was to late. Took a king and lost one in 140-160 fow on meat.

Nice job, pays to have a solid plan B

Looks like some good fishing! Thanks for the report

20 years of logs is great info. I started keeping detailed logs 5 years ago and enjoy looking back at the trends, but the rest is memory. My dad used to keep his logs in the 70's and 80's before fishing went downhill and sold his gear (only to start over again early 2000's). I don't buy a lot of what the DNR is trying to sell the public, but I truly hope their intentions are good and they can find that balance that gives us consistent fishing with a healthy bait population.