2MD

yesterday/Friday yet another and I fear our final fall fishing skunk trollin the Holland channel and pierheads for 2.5hrs - nothing like going out with a bang oh well... a pretty certain sign the season is dwindling when my son netted a 40"+ completely spawned out and dead buck off the low dock along the seawall on the far east side of Macatawa. Put the fall trolling gear away and will be looking forward to next year and while I suspect there will be less kings from planting reduction hopefully there are some REALLY big ones!

yep that was us fall fishing is always FUN but certainly a lot of work - fortunately my 11year is so good at pulling and deweeding and setting riggers, dipseys, and boards because without that it would be sheer chaos between tue sailboats and kayaks and channel floor snags... I am always telling him what to do and not do but I swear I tangle things and make more mistakes than him out there!

Warm water and lots of weeds for me and my kids as we trolled the mud off Holland Thursday from 12noon-3pm. Only one release. Lots of kings still jumping around in there... frustrating

Thanks guys! And I will definitely shorten up my leads and run em deeper with the riggers. Bummer there is only about a week left to try to tag the graduating class of 2017 four year old kings!

Kevin, maybe I am not running my plugs deep enough. I normally only put the rigger down 9 or 10 feet but have em 80-100 feet behind the ball. I have gotten jacksquat on plugs this year and maybe I am simply too high up. Question: how far behind the ball do you run yours and are you normally size 4 or 5 or do you run smaller ones? Thanks, Ryan

good luck and let us know how you do on your outing - I am not sure what the wind will do this weekend but yes boat traffic is less especially with fisherman but holland still has so many sailboats - hopefully it will be calm enough where you can just make passes back and forth through the mud in front of the pierheads in that 22-35fow - trolling the channel itself is a hail mary suckers bet with boat traffic and all the weeds - today was especially bad with weeds with the east wind and go figure our hits came just outside the pierheads

we have luck running SpinDocters behind 5 colors and also off dipseys with the rings off em dialed to 3.5 with about 40 feet of braid out when trolling Holland's mouth - it was the dipseys that went this AM - last week got em deep in the channel on this same setup and in prior years even get em as far in macatawa as in front of Parkside Marina on the flashers. Nothing like seeing a big king go airborn with a dipsey and flasher attached

and just your typical 8inch spindoctor with fly - blue bubble got it done this AM - also a green jeans spindoctor with a green fly

sorry meant SUNRISE - trolled from 6am-9am with nothing happening and then right before we were gonna head in tried flashers and boom they were there. they were there all morning jumping all over just couldn't get em to bite until last 30min.

2 matures in the mudline just outside the pierheads in holland this AM. Ran plugs from an hour before sunset til 9am anf got no takers - turned out they wanted SpinDocters instead b/c switched to those and took one on each of our last two passes - dark males

that sounds like some fast and furious fall fishing - wish you had a youtube video of that trip - i remember back in 2004 hearing about a guy who went 30 for 40 in the Saugatuck mud - no joke

Buddy of mine checked Allegan Dam this morning and the tubes at the farm and both had salmon... this seems kind of early... another guy I know who lives downtown GR days they are showing up decent at 6th Street.

I hope Dr. Hook is not right but I fear he is... at least we got one yesterday though to remind us of tge ole days. We didn't weigh it... it wasn't that big just really long being a male. If I had to guess I bet it weighed somewhere in that 19-21# range and yes my son knows how to hold em out and trick the camera

the run has begun - Holland Harbor Had the boat out in West Olive overnight camping on the shore so come 10.30am the kids and I decided to troll on back to Holland to return the boat to the lift. We zig-zagged in that 30-40 fow the entire way running almost all flasher flies even on the cores but only got one release. We did see a big Chinook jump out of the water about off Riley Street so that was kind of neat. Anyways, when we got to the Holland pier heads at 1pm we seen the channel just full of boats and figured it to pretty much be a lost cause trying to troll since even without poles it was a nightmare circus squeezing through all the traffic. So we pulled all the orange boards in and just left out a couple riggers and dipseys. Then about 3/4 way through the channel where you get into the rocks on the southside our inside dipsey with 42 feet of braid out and a blue bubble spindoctor on it just got crushed. Big ole male. First big male we have taken of the season. An insane fight ripping out line and nearly getting run over by several clueless boaters. Eventually after fighting it well into Lake Mac we finally netted it while in neutral bobbing around in front of the old Piper Restaurant. How random and bizarre to catch this hog at high noon in the heat of the day with all the engine noise and commotion in the channel. The fall run of 2017 has begun. Let's cross our fingers and hope what we ran into today wasn't just a fluke but that this year will more closely resemble 2013/2014 verses 2015/2016 where the run was almost non-existent!

hey this is great info! thank you

plantings Anyone know what year it was that the DNR in effort to control fish population stopped planting chinook in Holland and Saugatuck? Just trying to gauge what the fall run may or may not entail this year... thank you

beautiful fish! way out and down deep they were - IMPRESSIVE I was out there last night too and workrd that 130-160 fow but didn't do as well... just 1 for 2

great job! that is a BIG one!

Thanks all of you who chimed in and responded. Hopefully, we have an actual "run" in Holland/Saug this fall and can get into more of them like this. Was out of town this spring but heard from many it was the best salmon fishing spring in 15-20 years so maybe things are on the up and up. Any of you remember the hogs of 2001? Shoot there were more Master Angler awards that year... good stuff!

holland 7-30 evening 1 for 3 tonight off Holland. The one we did get fought us for 1hr and 27min though and proved to be a beauty. 9 colors out in 105fow trolling south surface speed 2.6 with moonshine mag green jeans. Nearly spooled us running the orange board out about 800 feet. Eventually worked it back in and got board off 30min later. Then for the next hour went back and forth with the beast. 3 times we had all 10 colors of lead back on the reel only to have them run out completely again. Hooked into this thing north of spyglass in 105fow and when we finally netted it we were off the first slider and in 155fow. I've caught bigger kings but never one this strong. Weighed in at 25.3 pounds. Crazy thing about this fish was the girth... almost triangular it was so wide... thing only measure 36.75 inches. Anyways, the other 2 rips we had tonight also occured in 105fow. It seemed like 35-40 down was the happening range since the rigger inmediately fired once we worked back to 105fow. Half-core went at sunset too but that was short-lived.

Thanks guys... Choc lab puppy - finally starting to get some sea legs of his own and no longer pukes when we take him out

The older kids and I decided to venture out and fish since the lake had finally calmed down a little. It was not calm by any means but it was fishable. We had hard 4 to 5 footers out of the north crashing into us so we ran north into them and swung around and setup in 45 FOW off tunnel park and trolled south. Ended fishing for only about 50 minutes. Ran two high-lines with orange body baits. Ran 2 half core. Ran 2 full core. Ran 2 dipseys. 1 for 1 High-line orange board with jointed Rapala orange body bait. Our biggest steelhead of the season. Jumped at least 14 times and ran out the counter to 460 feet. The thing never really tired out on us and was even jumping behind the boat as we went to net it 20 minutes after hooking up. Beautiful fish. We did not weigh it because we could tell it wasn't master angler. It wasn't but a few years ago we managed a couple 12-15 pound steelies on this same setup but this year they just weren't as big. The head on the thing was monstrous but it looked kind of starved and anorexic. Fun time and felt good to be back out there. Wish it wouldn't have been so rough!

My 11yr old and my 9yr old and I left lake Mac mid-afternoon today and shot down to Saugatuck with the waves crashing behind us. We were hoping to find some late run mature fish swimming in the cold water out in front of the piers since this run had been so late and strangely different than in years past. Ended up going 7 for 8 making passes in front of the pierheads. All fishing and action occured in 16-25 FOW. South troll was a piece of cake but north troll was a little tricky with the waves and wind howling. 1st fish - Salmon (actually came on our first pass) - scaley green size 5 jplug - highline 100 feet back on the orange board 2nd fish - Steelhead - mtn dew coyote flasher fly on braid dipsey dialed to 3 with 31 feet of line let out 3rd fish - Brown - chrome red head size 5 jplug - highline 100 feet back on the orange board 4th fish - ???? shook off - moongoose size 5 jplug - highline 100 feet back on the orange board 5th fish - Salmon - blue green spin doctor on braid dipsey dialed to 3 with 34 feet of line let out 6th fish - Brown - chrome red head size 5 jplug - highline 100 feet back on the orange board 7th fish - Salmon - moonshine happee meal with red tail spoon on 4 color 8th fish - Salmon - green ladder size 5 jplug - highline 100 feet back on the orange board (this one was big and fought hard - it was why we went down there - it was about 45min after sunset and we were pulling lines - I had even taken the orange board off this line and was reeling the plug in at a decent clip when all of a sudden out of nowhere the king hit!) This may have been our last fishing trip for the year. It has been a decent year for us. Even though the salmon count is admittedly down to 25% of what it was in year 2012 for example it was still a blast to be out on the water with the kids. Here is a really good article I found today that summarizes the problems the fishery is facing and the approach being taken by the DNR. This by the way is the article which states that the salmon count this year was indeed down to 25% of what it was previously: http://www.9news.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/09/30/salmon-population-drops-michigan-great-lakes/73078686/ Anyways, interesting... looking forward to next year whatever it brings! Good luck everyone.