Mega Byte

His probe worked fine on my boat.

Looks a lot like my Pro-Line 251.

Nice job.

How did I miss this? I've been looking for 1 or 2 for a while. Oh well... Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

I read that they don't want to stock under 10,000 fish in a location for cost/efficiency reasons. Must be whatever number their algorithm produced was less than 10,000 and they don't believe in rounding up. There still should be some natural reproduction in the river though. If the alewives are able to rebound and the king stocking stays low, we're going to see more very large fish. This is a delicate dance the DNR is doing between the alewife population and salmon population. (And the weather, because that affects reproduction rates of both species as well.) So far they are doing a good job in the lake as a whole.

A missing adipose fin is a sign of a stocked fish like the one pictured in this post. If there wasn't a stocking program in place, I'd be more apt to consider catch and release. If reproduction is a concern (which I don't think it is), that can be addressed simply with the stocking of more fish, or reducing the # of fish anglers can keep. I agree with your statement that Lake Michigan is "figuring out a way to survive", but the threat to Lake Michigan isn't the over harvesting of salmon, it's the invasive species and the disruption of the food chain. If all the Lake Michigan anglers got together and agreed to do catch and release, the DNR would stop the stocking program. The net result is the same number of fish in the lake, but now I have to buy farm raised salmon from Meijer.

This will give you exactly what you are looking for: http://www.michigandnr.com/fishstock/ County Water Body Species Strain Date Number Operation Avg. Length Fin Clips, Marks, Tags Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/14/10 44,831 State Plant 4.02 oxytetracycline Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/12/11 43,800 State Plant 3.62 adipose, coded wire tag Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/03/12 45,520 State Plant 3.82 adipose, coded wire tag Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/13/13 15,039 State Plant 3.94 adipose, coded wire tag Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/08/14 15,081 State Plant 4.09 adipose, coded wire tag Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/09/15 16,068 State Plant 3.94 adipose, coded wire tag Ottawa Lake Macatawa Holland Net Pen (06N 16W 34) Chinook salmon Michigan 05/20/16 15,127 State Plant 3.82 adipose, coded wire tag

Holland got 15,000 in 2013. http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10364_53405-297817--,00.html

Pentwater 8/29 AM 1 for 3 Marked bait and nice arches in 60 - 80 fow. Fished them for about an hour and 15 minutes with no bites so we pulled lines and ran deep. I didn't really think we'd get them to hit, but when the graph lights up it's hard not to at least try. We started setting lines in 180 fow, NW of the pier heads. Had a fat coho on a green moonshine flounder pounder down 60 on a rigger in 184 fow. You'd think that fish was trying out for the US gymnastics team. Lots of jumps, flips and twists. Even after he threw the hook he kept jumping and twisting and flipping over and over. I think he was just trying to rub it in. Nice fat fish though. It looked very thick. Boated a small coho on the same setup in 239 fow (West troll). Lost the final fish on a green paddle and meat rig on an E troll in 220 fow. I heard of two other boats that didn't get a single hit. One other boat got 1 coho. I'm wondering if the cold nights these last few weeks has pushed the kings up river sooner than normal. Last year at this time we were still catching nice kings. I've landed 1 king in the last 10 days (5 trips). The rest of the fish were steelhead, coho and one skunk.

How long does it take you to edit and produce a video like this?

I enjoyed the video. Nice job Dan.

We are going out on Tuesday and will give that a try. Thank you.

I usually launch at Charlie's Marina. There are two public launch sites, but I haven't used them. One is on the south end of the lake, but I think that is for much smaller boats and there is very limited parking. The other public launch spot is right near Charlies. The public launch is cheaper. Charlie's is $10 - $20 depending on the size of your boat. I use Charlie's because I don't want to wait for other boats at the public marina and I'll often grab an open slip from them for an extended weekend of fishing. The whole lake is not no wake. From Charlie's to the channel it is though. Yes, the cleaning station is public. Thanks for the tips. We'll have to try that next time out. We didn't venture into the shallow water near dark because the wind had pushed the warm water in and it was much warmer than it was during the morning, so we didn't think they would be in there.

Pentwater 8/26 AM & PM Worked shallow water early on Saturday and marked a lot of fish in the 40 - 75 fow range. No takers so we started out deep. The graph was empty until 170 fow. Ended the morning 3 for 3. 1) 5# coho SE troll, 140 fow, 2.7 @ ball, 150 Cu + Pb, double orange crush 2) 12# king, SW troll, 190 fow, 2.5 @ ball, 200 Cu + Pb, Ace Hi green glow plug 3) 5# steelhead, E troll, 223 fow, 2.0 @ ball, White Paddle & fly down 60 on a rigger For the evening trip, we marked a lot of bait in 85 - 100 fow, and bigger fish in 100 - 150. Finished the night 0 for 0. We were marking a decent amount of fish, just couldn't get anything to fire. Second skunk of the year. Stopped by the fish cleaning station around 10 PM and there were only two groups cleaning fish, and each had a single fish. Very, very slow for this time of year.

Ditto the issues with big Winnie meat rig hooks bending. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G870A using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App