jdh

4 hours ago, Nobananas said:

A Lawrence elite 7 

I run an 8 year old Humminbird unit so I don't know the Low range settings, but I think I have mine set on Clear Mode but have the gain turned up all the way.

The Elite 7 is a decent unit.  

Try running the 83khz setting to see if there are more marks around.

With the warmer water slightly deeper, I let the mag divers out a bit more than 2 times the depth to cold water.  So for cold water down about 100 feet, I would run them at maybe 225 and 250.  Down 80, maybe 185 & 215.  

What kind of fish finder are you running?

Been getting hits.  Flasher flies.  Downrigger at 115 and mag divers back 205.  Put 1 nice coho, 1 nice king, and two lake trout in the box.  Trying to get number 5.

Fished for 2 hours solo.  Jigging and skein.  Snagged a 12" coho and got a 10" laker on the jig.  That's saw maybe 2 other fish on.  After two hours, moved to where we were getting fish the other day. Sitting 0/4 trolling...  Probably small coho not getting the hooks good?  Hopefully the bigger coho and kings start biting a little soon.

It's been great.  And keeps getting better!

Went to East Platte Bay around 2 pm, and tried jigging and skein for coho to no avail.  Fish are there and pretty thick too.  We switch to trolling after and hour and a half and went 3/5 in about an hour until someone ran us up the drop off into 20 feet of water. 

So I hate fishing in crowds, so at that point instead of being an ass and turning directly into that boats spread we pulled lines quickly and ran back to West Platte Bay where we fished yesterday.  

It was a non stop action from basically 6 pm until we quit at 8:30.  Ended the day 15/20 or so.  All our lines went off between 8:15 and 8:30 as we were trying to pack up and go home.  So we did a lot of releasing right at the end.  Fished 150-200 fow.  2.0-2.3 mph.  Downriggers at 90 & 100 feet with meat rigs.  360 and 400 copper with 5 inch ace high plugs.  Mag divers back 185 to 225 feet with flasher flies.

Were dealing with weird waves.  About a 1 foot chop out of the NNE and about 2 foot rollers from the SSW.  Odd.

Amazing day of fishing!

Mostly kings 13-19 lbs. A few coho and 1 steelie.

Yes, we had a busy evening .  Kings were mostly 14-18 lbs.  Couldn't get number 10 to finish the limit.  Things seem to shut down right at dark.

Odd weather. Nice work!  Wind was swirling in Frankfort yesterday evening.  Couldn't pick a direction.  But stayed under 7 knots the whole evening.  We were watching remnants of the storm cells cross south of us.

Had a friend join me and we decided to try West Platte Bay tonight.  Fished in 130-160 fow. Meat, plugs, spoons, flasher flies all took fish.  Speed 2.0-2.4.  All lures 60-120 down.  7 kings, 1 lake trout, a coho.

3 hours ago, littleboat said:

Great start to a week. It gets deep really fast. I've always enjoyed that port and camping nearby. What brand of meat were you using?

Funny story.  I pulled my scraps (leftover strips) I keep in the freezer from packs that I didn't use up.  So it was a mix of 3 different types.  Some ballyhoo, some familial bite, some other one I don't remember.

10 hours ago, 2MD said:

well done - I have  heard Frankfort is beautiful and a great port to fish out of - hopefully someday 

Worth fishing sometime.  But it is a bit busier than the Saugatuck Holland area.

I ran several miles north to get away from the pack.

Rented a place to "work from home" from this week and brought my boat.  Looked around 7 and the lake was flat.  Decided to do a quick troll solo.  4/5 all kings in 130-160 fow.  Meat rigs down 90-120 on the riggers took 3 hits.  Other fish came on a 400 copper with a 5 inch plug and got another one on a plug on the riggers at 90 almost in the dark.

2.0-2.2  speed.

Nice work while getting beat up in the chop!  Another option for rough days which I don't fish very often at all - I've found it easy to run 2 coppers on leadcore.  Set them in my diver holders on opposite sides of the boat and forget trying to put boards on.  Or just run one with a board.  Would have to go with the waves so you don't tangle up.  For me it beats leaning on the corners of the boat to set my riggers.

Nice work!  I fished Ludington last night and had a crazy 1 hour of bites, but couldn't get them to the net.  Will be back to my usual Holland/Saugatuck waters soon.

So they're still there, just a bit deeper down.  Nice work!

Launched at 6 pm.  Been fighting fish since the basically.  12/23 right now.  Mostly shallow rods.  100/150 coppers with orange spoons have been the hottest. Only 2 hits on down riggers.  Only 4 hits on divers.  Been trolling WSW and ESE from 80-170 fow.  Speeds from 1.7 to 2.7.

Love the mud.  Should be more fish each time the lake flips moving forward here!

4 hours ago, phishtix said:

Whats your set up for jigging with bait? If you dont mind me asking. Are you like tipping a jig or rigging like a mooching rig? 

Congrats on your fish!

The successful lured have been 2 oz EJ jigs.  Jigging the lure straight, no bait.  The for bait, I've just been putting an alewife on a slip bobber set at 30 feet or so.  And then on the other one I run a basic slip rig for the pier with a 1 oz weight and a 6 foot leader.  But so far, no bites on bait.  Maybe helps bring the fish in?  Its been hard to keep the bait from tangling up.

Took of work early and took my dad fishing.  Launched at 5 pm and got some bait on sabiki rigs before running to Little Point.  Saw a charter? working 80 fow or so, so ran a mile past them and spot locked in 70 fow. Dropped two bait rods and started jigging. About 15-20 minutes later charter shows up honking at me and complaining that I set up in front of them.  And aggressively pulling boards to make space.  They had half a mile inside of us or 80 miles outside.  Not sure on etiquette here but in my opinion a 5 degree course correction a little early would have solved their issue.  Also I can't move very fast with my motor off running spot lock...  Anyway their boat noise pushed some fish our way and we had our first fish pretty fast.  And the rest of the night was pretty successful. 

Ended up 2/6 jigging with 1 coho 1 king.

At 8:45 started trolling back to port and had a spectacular hour of fishing going 5/7.  Still in 70-100 fow.  3 color went, 100 copper went, down riggers went with spoons.  Then my meat rig on a diver took 4 hits and go two nice kings to the boat including an 18 lb fish.  Diver back 55 ticking back to 80.  Never made it to 80 - each time got hit on the way down

Meat rig was on a 10" chrome spin doctor dragon slayer.  Was running a whole salted and alewife that I salted after a Ludington trip a few weeks ago.  That one alewife survived all 4 strikes and was still good to send back but we decided a 7 fish box was good enough and opted to run back to port before it got really dark out.  

Waves were, well there were no waves.  It was glass out there and the water temp was from 50-60 degrees.

Didn't feel like posting a whole new thread.  Tried the jigging thing again Saturday afternoon.  Wasn't able to find any bigger concentration of fish, but had maybe 6 or 7 follows between 3 of us on the boat and got one nice king in on a white EJ jig 2 oz.  Seemed to me with the flip, most of the fish were in the upper 20 feet which makes jigging a bit more tricky.  Fished 80-120 fow by the point.

Sometimes with the flip, bait will end up scattered in 200+ fow.  And the fish seem to scatter and follow.  Other times they load up in shallow.  Tough to say which will happen.  Was hoping for warm water to set in but as you said, forecast doesn't look great.

Took a short trip this morning.  Primarily wanted to catch some alewives, which was accomplished fairly quickly in the harbor with a sabiki rig.  Put some in salt but kept a few in the livewell.  After running out to 70 fow I stopped and dropped an alewife down, and started jigging with my second rod.  Had many fish swim in interested and had 4 hits.  Ended up catching a coho.  At 11 I decided to troll back north towards port, but although I had multiple fish following the flasher fly on the downriggers, only had 1 hit on a diver back 70 feet with the flasher fly.  Pulled lines around 12:30.

I was in 70-90 fow. 

Also right around 9:30 LiveScope started marking schools and schools of bait fish.

Ran generally the same program as the other night.  Couldn't get the fish to bite.  Had them on Livescope swimming at/after baits, but they wouldn't hit.  Tried S/SE/SW/E/W/N/NW,NE trolling directions...  Speeds between 2 and 3 mph at the ball.

Eventually had a hit almost at 9 pm.  Then another at 9:30.  Another at 10 pm.  And the fourth, which stuck hit at 10:25 pm.  All fish felt nice sized and the one we got was maybe 12 lbs.

Meat rig on a mag diver back 90 took two hits, 250 copper with mag moonshine jackal took one hit, and our last hit came on the downrigger down 20 feet with a mag moonshine double trouble.

Might try again tomorrow night.