jdh

Sounds like a tough day of fishing.  I decided to not go out.  I wasn't looking forward to getting wet without at least an idea that fishing was decent.

I might try in the skinny water now.  10-20 fow.  Looks like the lake flipped good.

I'll be trying in the am too.  I'll be putting down smaller spoons and a few lake trout rigs.  Gonna try 50-80 fow to start.  I should be on the radio:  68 - King Possible

Often times, I find the coho will appear more like steelhead than kings.  Dark back, but greener than a steelie.  Immature kings often have a purple/blue hue to them.  The dots on the tail are not the best way to distinguish them.  I've found that I can determine if it's a king or not simply on the structure of the tail.  If you can pick up the fish by the tail and it doesn't collapse - its probably a king.  If you try to pick it up by the tail and the tail collapses and slides out of your grasp its not a king.  If it looks salmonish - then its probably a coho if the tail doesn't hold up.

Once you start catching both in the same trip they're much easier to distinguish between them.  I know I've come back to clean fish before with 6 or more steelies in the box only to find out 2 of them are coho when pull them out!

Started inside by Saugatuck and picked up a nice king right away in front of the piers with a stingray nitro spoon.  Then had a coho attack a flasher fly 3 times - once on the rigger down 10 ft, and then again when I released the rigger and the fly was on the surface - he didn't find the hook.  After that we pulled in several sheep before heading out to deeper water.  We tried lake trout and went 1-2 on trout in 80 fow - also picked up a 9.5" king.  Then tried superslims going 3.5-5 mph.  Picked up a coho while pulling lines.

Someone had left a cooler outside the cleaning station for the whole 45 minutes we were putting stuff away and cleaning fish.  I've got it in Holland.  Maybe one of you guys knows who it belongs too.

I launched out of Holland instead.  Went 3-3 - kings.

Best water was 135-150 ft.

downrigger down 75 - 11" white flasher & poofster fly

diver back 140 - 8" white/blue spin doctor & poofster fly

200 copper - white with dots dreamweaver plug

All three fish had bellies full of alewives.  A lot of 1"-2" size ones and several 3-5" size ones also.

Planning to launch around 6:15 pm.  I got a last minute cancellation so I have a seat.  Give me a call if you want to ride along.  Planning to fish until 9/9:30.

I fish out of a 17 ft. Lowe open bow.

616-706-4061

Not sure whats up with Holland fishing, but a guy I know went on a charter yesterday in Grand Haven and they had 18 kings in the box before 8 am.  Full moon didn't affect them.  Are the fish just all north right now?

What aren't you having success with?  The meat firming up OR the fish biting them?  In terms of getting fish to bite - i've had extremely mixed results.  It seems like the familial bite strips and my own alewife strips have performed the best for me.  Not had good success with other methods.

Finally got the boat back and its working well.  I had forgotten what its like to have a motor that can idle under 1400 rpms without shutting off - especially in no-wake zones or when docking.
We left the pierheads and went NW stopping in 60 fow.  We set lines and held a NNW direction.  Started with a 150, 200, 2 x 300, and a 400 copper, 2 riggers at 45 & 70 ft, 2 divers back 75 & 110 ft with a mix of flasher flies, spoons, meat & plugs.  Wound up 5-6 with 1 big king (20 lbs? - biggest i've pulled in in a long time) and 4 lakers in the 3-10 lb range.  Best troll was NNW & SSE, hits from 2.0 to 3.8 mph.  Only had lines in the water for a little over 2 hours - 7 am - 9 am.

What worked:

1-1  300 copper, mag Flee 4 All spoon - Big King

2-2  downrigger @ 70 ft - 11" white paddle with BW Poofster fly - Lakers

1-1 mag diver on 2 back 110 ft - 10" green Wienie with green meat rig - Laker

0-1 300 copper, mag Modified Blue Dolphin - King?  Quickly ran out 50 ft of line and then disappeared.

1-1 downrigger @ 110 ft - superslim Thriller - Laker

Quite a productive morning considering the shore fishing period.  I marked lots of bait, but not lots of fish.  The fish I did were close to where we were picking up the lake trout, so I'm guessing that's what most of the marks were.

Good luck this weekend everybody.  Is there a big tournament on Saturday or something?

Trolled down to Saugatuck from 5-40 fow.  Went 2-3.  1 color, 2 color , 3 color took hits all in 30 fow.  Superslim spoons 3-4 mph.  Fished elsewhere, 30-95 fow, after making it to Saugatuck but got nothing.

Awesome weather, beautiful day, both motors working again.  No complaints from me.

No reports from me.  Still working on fixing my main outboard & my kicker.  Both quit working on the same day.

Thanks for the report.  Sounds like June fishing to me...

6 hits 6 different spoons, 3 sizes, multiple colors.

-JD

16 minutes ago, Steelhead#1 said:

What happened?

Electric problems.  Plugged carbs? I hope.  Couldn't get either running last Sunday.

Not going to be able to make it, unless I get my boat fixed. Main & kicker are not functional right now.

Not too sure about slow lures - except that i'll second the jointed orange rapalas.  I use a lot of Dreamweaver superslims and they troll pretty fast.  If you use big snap swivels, they troll even faster.  It's an aggressive technique meant to cover lots of water.  I troll these 3.5 - 5 mph.

Good job!  Good to hear of a good number of kings being caught up north this year.

Kevin - funny how a super free slider can be super pricey at the same time!  Bob,  I'd rather donate a paddle and meat rig vs. dumping a fish.  I'm bleeding them off the side of the side of the boat now and I'm scared I'm going to make the same mistake some day.

-JD

Nice job!  Weird how stuff works as all of our fish hit after 8 am.

Wound up 8-8. Bite shutoff not long after the last post.  Big laker and king were around 15 lbs

Pictures of Kid Coulson posing with the fish.

2 more fish.  Scumline mt dew again.  300 copper dreamweaver uv modified caramel dolphin.  6 kings, 1 laker so far.

2 more fish.  400 copper dreamweaver caramel dolphin.  Diver back 180 mt dew scumline pro king flasher with mirage fly.

3-3  2 kings (3-6 lbs) and a pig lake trout.  W & S trolls 2.3-2.5 at the ball. 160-175 fow.

Rigger down 101 ft - BLL blue spoon with a yellow edge stripe.

Rigger down 150 ft - Spotted dick BW meat rig

300 Copper - mag streak lemonberry.