jdh

Nickle plated is supposed to shine "black" in the water I thought.  Silver & gold are supposed to be the right way to go.  Mister Twister looks UV flourescent?  The spoons are kind of easy to figure out because you can see the clear coat coating really shine up instead of the painted colors.  I think the ladderback non-uv would show up as just the ladderback, but the UV ladderback might show up with a larger profile.

I'm going to take pictures of the actual spoons that have got me lots of fish and see if there's any patterns I can follow.

-JDH

Thanks Dr Hook.  I guess I didn't think about them all "reflecting" ultraviolet light.  I suppose my question then come down to UV-fluorescent.  I've attached 2 pictures below that show what I'm talking about - and they show three types general color patterns:

1 UV-fluorescent coating (first picture far left, second picture right & left)

(2) UV-fluorescent colors (first picture dots on spoon 1 & edge of spoon 4, second picture center

(3) Not UV-fluorescent (first picture spoon 2 & 3)

Thanks for the response Kurt.  I'm hoping a few more people chime in on this.  Almost all spoons & flashers have a large amount of uv reflective colors such as green/yellow/orange/pink.  With the blacklight these guys shine so bright!  When I shine the light on the non-uv lures you can barely even see what color they are.  I'll post some pictures later.  I'd like to know when people would choose intentionally to run non-uv lures over the uv.

-JDH

Non UV Spoons

I'm going through all my tackle and I've been using a UV/blacklight flashlight to pull out the non or minimal uv reflective spoons.  Most of these are silver/gold reflective, but some are plain pain colors like white or purple and don't reflect uv.  I'm just wondering if you can tell me what conditions you would choose to run these spoons?

I've included a picture of a couple of these spoons.  I've got a bunch though from all different brands.

-JDH

That's what I do with my 2-stroke.  For the 4-stroke I would check the oil before & after every trip to make sure there's no water in it.  Also, I would try to make sure the engine is heated up fully for a little while (under decent amount of power).  If you're idling/trolling the whole time the engine may be running a little cold and may "make oil".

Another thing to check would be the lower unit oil.  I would change it now to make sure there's no leaks.

You might think so, but I'll fish as late into the year as the launches allow.  If we could just get the water temps to drop below 50 degrees the skinny water should start producing well.

Skunk.  Fished the skinny water for an hour with nothing.  We then ran to 100 fow.  Trolled several directions 100 to 245 fow and back into 160 fow.  Nothing. Very few marks.

What piers?  If the waters above 55 degrees right now - there may be a few fish around, but I've had better luck when the water drops below 55 degrees.

All the kings were full of shad.  They look like ales, but their not the same.  I've been netting  baitfish off the piers for years and know the difference.

Another picture:

The bigger on weighed in just shy of 11 pounds. Very healthy looking.  I'm hoping the weather lets me get out to deeper water a few more times this year.  Or maybe lets me put a hurting on the lake trout before November.

Fished with Jon & Kelly out of Holland today.  We fished 130-155.  Lots of bait below 100 ft.  My guess is they were schools of shad.  We ended up 4-8 with 6 kings on and 2 steelies.  Spoons & flasher flies on riggers/divers/coppers/lead.  Kings came 60-110 ft down.  Steelies on 3 color lead.  2.5-3.0 mph.  Only west/south/southwest directions took fish.

The people I eat bluegill with don't like fish that tastes like fish...  So I fillet and skin.  I've been cooking 2 ways lately.  The first is way is in the oven with breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese.  Dip the fillets in melted butter - coat with the parmesan breading and back in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 375.  This keeps the smell of frying out of the kitchen.  The other way is to coat the fillets in all purpose flower and to fry in a skillet.  I like both methods.

Took the row boat out for panfish this weekend - as I didn't end up making it out on the big lake.  There is a good bite going on now.  22 gills & sunfish on the Gulp red waxworms.  I know every lake is different, but a dropshot with the hook about 18 inches above the weight worked for me.  This was in the mid afternoon and all fish bit near the bottom.  15-20 fow.  Never anchored, just drifted around.

-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.