2MD

9 for 10 out of Holland (fished south more directly off Saugatuck though)

135FOW was the ticket SW troll and East troll was all that would work

copp350 went with meat rig (big king weighing 23#)

copp300 went with meat rig

both 10 colors went with glow spoons

copp200 went with glow spoon

both riggers went with glow spoons

hi dipsey went with meat rig

low dipsey went with glow spoon

fishing was shockingly slow until about 20 min after the sunset - literally 2 fish caught before 9.30PM

we ended up with a triple at 10.30PM and managed to land all 3 and that was pretty exciting

chaos and a lot of FUN - hats off to PUG and the gang we didn't even get a single tangle and the one fish we lost was just a pig of a king that smoked the dipsey so hard we thought it was going to snap the rod - we would've got this one too but we were finishing up on a double and trying to net fish

what a great report!

excellent report - thank you for all this good info

PUG was gone for the night (had other commitments apparently) so we went fishing without him, which typically means you is about to get skunked.

Fortunately we still managed 6 for 12 even with the odds stacked against us.

Trolled south from Holland and eventually further south ending up a couple miles south of Saugatuck even.

All hits came in that 120-132 fow

All that worked for us was a SSW troll running with the strong current,  hence why we wound up 14miles SW of Holland 

Meat went 5 or 6 times on Copp300 and Copp350 and deep diver

High dipseys with flasher fly out about 150 went 3 or 4 times

Rigger slider down 32ft got hit too

Great night out to be out on the water!

PUG had the itch to get out there again and we seen a little gap in the weather... ended up getting blown south so technically this is a Saugatuck report

5 for 8

2 medium size salmon

2 twenty#+ chinook 

1 big laker

all hits came in that 115-120fow

117fow was best on either a SW or SE troll

rigger down 67 blue hulk spoon took half the bites (big king)

deep braid diver out 115 scored with meat once (big king)

copp300 happee meal spoon went (big laker)

cop350 with meat went

slider green dolphin type spoon down about 52 went at sunset 

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the boys' cousin got to reel in a fat 22# king and that was pretty cool

had the deep diver boss king proceed to get into 3 different coppers and that added another 50min to the trip untangling all that and if that wouldn't have happened right at sunset PUG figures we would've caught another 3 or 4 fish but a great night nonetheless

PUG was wise to decide to take us fishing despite it being a little rough 

set lines at 730pm in 150fow

ended up for 7for10

all action came on north or northeast troll in that 130-150fow

meat rigs took 7 of the 10 bites

copper 300 was hot (until just a beast of a king ran out 300ft and actually jammed the copper to backing knot into the orange board in such a way that it broke... we lost all the copper and the meat rig)

deep braid diver out 130 also very active 

excellent job!

nice job in the Laker

i sure struggled on Parker on Friday night  -  the flies were horrendous and we headed in 2hrs early

the larger fish are extremely hard to come by in recent week or two that's for sure!

Here is a 25.7# Laker that my son & captain Sam of Fowl Hooked boated in the Ladies Tournament out of GH on Friday. They ran all the way up to Whitehall and got it there.  CONGRATS to them for winning big fish a second time! And yesterday somehow they managed an 11# brown off Mona Lake so I suspect they may grab the top in that species too!?

he won big fish in the GH tourney today - photo is attached

no problem 

please share info on what you figure out tonight!

kings are tiny and sparse right now

my son did just land a 23# chinook on Fowl Hooked in the pro tournament off Grand Haven a couple hours ago but those guys are good and I have no idea how they found that mature fish!

2for2

77-81fow was what worked

South and Southeast troll

both came on copp250 Hawaiian spoon

cool morning out there & good thing PUG bundled up

first time out this season 

PUG has been down south nailing Tarpon and Goliath Grouper all winter so now he has to shift gears for Michigan 

3for3

first fish was on dipsey at 6am while letting it out in 68fow on a west troll.. literally was the first rod I had set this year and it went off within 8seconds while I was slowly letting her out (60 out) so hopefully that is a good sign on what's to come

other 2 fish came in a chaotic double in 78fow at around 745am on a NW troll both the 10 color went with a green jeans spoon and also the rigger went 38 down with a shelly snack spoon

seemed quite out there on radio

both

Thanks Kevin these take the cake! My kids and I are can't stop laughing

..here are a couple more

PUG aint too proud and he can laugh at himself too  -  he says hey man it's the only look i got!

Happy New Year!

Nice work guys!

PUG has migrated south in search of the mighty Silver King.  He smashed em last year and has a good feeling about this year too!

haha - i was waiting for that response Kevin

interesting you have identified the same pattern with naturals! yep I know you are very detailed and track things well.

PUG knows a very smart captain in GH who has been doing this for 40 years and he explains it to him this way - the DNR screws up the stocking and here's how - at the weir where they harvest eggs and sperm they have 4 full time employees that all they do is pull kings out of a catch pen and extract eggs and sperm... all day long and all week long they do this.  Now he says that he has sat and watched them work several times and they are not large adult individuals but more your 90-110 pound build and that then to no suprise when it comes to selecting fish to extract from that 90% of the time they pick the smaller scrawny less healthy ones and leave the big pigs down in the pen. Hence what happens is the plants have the less than superior dna & genes in most cases and/or the plants are not the behemoth 4yr dna but instead most likely your 2year old jack or 3yr old early runner.  Makes sense to PUG. Makes sense to me too.  Nonetheless quite frustrating.  There is not a charter captain or amateur angler that wouldn't volunteer to do this work for free if it helped the fishery!

PUG is even more contrarian and while the DNR has insisted for decades that there is no natural reproduction in the kzoo river he has spent a bunch of time up around swan creek in the fall and doesn't buy it for a second. They get it done up there and some of these naturals return every fall.

yes it has also been very very slow off GH for the few charters that ran trips this weekend (oldest son told me)

the ones my kids and pugs got this weekend on Parker were DEEP - riggers down 110 with heavy ball - deep diver out 260 - high diver out 290 if you even can call it a high diver at that point 

all the graph bait and marks on top were just a distraction i guess...

pug says be patient - cold water is coming... already 50 some degrees 60down in 90fow this evening according to the PS buoy... another day of east wind and pug is betting we can nail 3yr olds inside 100fow or better yet big kings in that 25-40fow

interesting photos ATTACHED 

I'd say 95% of the mature fish of substance (those weighing 15# plus) and we caught scores of them this fall had an unclipped fin and were naturals

thanks

and PUG took a few of my kids out at sunrise this morning without me (i have a sailing regatta) and from the pics they sent me they are getting into some more nice silver fish in that 150-200fow

beautiful sunrise

east wind makes it a rough monster though!

trolled for only about an hour while bringing boat around from west olive to holland tonight

too warm to try in close so buzzed out to 170fow and setup there

absolutely insane marks on graph top to bottom

ended up 2for3 on three year old chinook

was a blast

what worked was white paddle out 220 on deep diver and also the other deep diver out 200 and then the rigger down 106 with spoon

maybe this is old news but my son reports that CG & State Police did in fact discover & retrieve the body (charter boats saw it) directly off GH in that 60-70fow 

You guys are smart how you are doing it.  I don't fish alone no more and am always with the kids (and pug) it seems but even with kids you wanna talk about and have a plan if someone goes over and we do.  When I was much younger I used to be pretty reckless and stupid. Super rough water and fishing alone a lot... invisible I felt. Then at a seminar I met some salmon fisherman who had their boat sink in 76 degree water and while they had life jackets and all shoot it didn't take long for hypothermia to start setting in. Fortunately someone randomly passed thru their part of the lake and saved em but a couple hours and those guys were messed up.  Warmer surface temp and a life jacket and you can still be in a world of hurt I learned!

such a beautiful lake... the deadliest in the US though

update from my son who works on the charter boats in GH - they are getting em real good trolling inside the channel this morning 

also he sent me this pic of the missing boat of the fisherman that went missing this week - so terribly sad...

thanks and good.luck to you if you do get out there in the next day or two - in the fall sometime 10am or 2pm in the afternoon is better than sunset so you never know

please post a report so we can try to keep tabs on how many fish are still there gathering 

i have to go out of town for a sailboat race this weekend with my son - haven't told pug yet but he is gonna be grumpy when he finds out!