Mega Byte

Great report.  Thank you.  Nice solo trip.

Yeah!  Nice job.  Lots of spoon hits.  What was the water clarity like?

Thanks for the update.  I've been watching the waves trying to figure out which side of the state to fish on with the kids.    I've only fished the inline boards, so I'm not sure why the hookup rate is different.

St. Joe was slow this am for everyone that I heard on the radio and talked to at the dock Fished 30 fow out to 120 fow. Beyond about 90 fow it was very cold water. Surface temps were 42 out there. Finally started marking some fish towards the end of the trip in 85 fow. Finished with a throwback steelhead. Tried spoons, flasher flies and 1 meat rig. Battled some tangles which set us back a bit.

 

The few boats the caught a king got them in 75 to 85 fow. We saw some nice marks 55 to 60 ft down. The water was very chalky out to around 75 fow. You couldn't find clean water until around 110.

 

 

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Looks like a nice night to be on the water.  Thanks for the report.

South Haven should be solid in mid-May.  We've nailed them in Grand Haven the 3rd week of May.

I heard there were a lot of boats off the pier heads, both north and south.  Some did well, some didn't.  We're headed down the morning for the first trip of the year and I'll follow up with a report.

Thanks for the update.

Yeah, she lost me when things when from being suggested behaviors to something you can be fined for doing.  I'm not a constitutional layer, but since marshal law hasn't been declared, I'm struggling to understand how this is legal.  

13 minutes ago, Cadilac Grills said:

Hey Mega Byte... I thought I would have seen a post or two by now.
Have you been out yet this year?

No, I haven't been out yet this year.  I have my boat in getting some maintenance done on it and the darn shutdown happened and my guy struggled to get parts to finish the job.  It sounds like he's got a plan, but it has made the progress slow.  I've been watching the water temps and I'm waiting for them to warm up just a bit.  That will help concentrate the bait and the coho.  I'd like to take the kids down to the Southern basin and catch some.  We'll wait for a nice day to do that.  Then beginning in May, I plan to chase to the kings as they work their way north.  I expect to take a trip or two in April before hitting it hard in May.

Thanks for the report.  

Sent you a PM.  I'll take the wire rod setups.

I sent you a PM about these...

Those in the dark runs to and from port going to be a little slower for me this year I think.  There is a lot of debris in the lake.  Look at some of the pictures in this article.

https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/03/huge-waves-batter-lake-michigan-shoreline.html

Rainbow Ranch?

Yeah. That is where I grew up. My brother and his wife run it now.

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Ran a little south where we had done well during early spring fishing. The ESE wind really picked up a lot sooner than I thought it would. I had the 3 kids with me so we stayed closer to shore as it was calmer. The horizon looking West was really rough.

 

We trolled S for a bit and the spun back N. Stayed between 40 fow and 70 fow. Most of the marks were in the 45-55 fow range. Really started marking the fish good once we got back to the front of the pierheads, which was when we had to pull lines to leave for a horseback riding trip.

 

Finished the morning with 1 small laker and two small throwback kings we found when pulling lines.

 

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That link takes me to "Restoring an antique peavey"

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I know some walleye guys use them and they will troll around 1 to 1.8.

Towing those umbrella rigs might be tricky with the big boards.

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Do you ever troll for Walleye in Pentwater lake??

I usually walleye fish in Saginaw Bay or some local lakes near Newaygo. I'm not opposed to trying it sometime though.

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We ran West to the shelf off Pentwater targeting steelhead.  This is something I haven’t done before.  Usually I’ll throw some high lines for steelhead while I’m targeting kings and they typically do well.  But, decide to give the deep water a try.  Did what research I could on this and looked like guys were using keel sinkers and targeting the top 10 feet of the water column.  My 100 Cu lines usually produce for me, so I threw 1 of those out and the other 5 lines where higher.  We only ran a 6 rod spread.  We set lines in 230 FOW, which is about 8 miles offshore.  Trolled NW out to 477 FOW without a bump.  We did see a few marks deep – around 80 ft down. 

It was very foggy out there and we were right in the middle of the shipping lanes, so we had to keep an eye out for freighters.  There’s typically two times a year I wish I had a radar on board and this was one of them.  After a few hours I decided the research I found was intended for cooler surface temps.  We were at 66.7 degrees out there.  We hadn’t had hit so I decided to switch things up.  I set lines from 20 feet down all the way to 75 feet down, thinking we might pick up a younger class king out there.   80 feet down it was 44 degrees.  70 feet down it was 60 degrees.  We ran a 100 Cu, 200 Cu, 250 Cu, 300 Cu, Rigger @ 75’ down and a dipsy diver at 70’ down.   We also decided to turn E, work back into some relatively shallower water and run up the shelf. 

A regular sized orange Moonshine spoon on a 100 Cu went once we got up on the top of the shelf in about 260 fow.  After a good fight (he ended up wrapping the line around himself and coming in sideways for a bit), we got a 12 steelhead in the boat.  I pulled the dipsy diver deployed another 100 Cu.  We fished for another 2.5 hours without a hit.  We did have a throwback king on the rigger when we pulled lines. 

One of our challenges today was we weren’t able to find any surface temperature variations or scum lines.  We kept the speeds around 2.7 – 3.2.  (Surface speed when fishing all the high lines and ball speed after I reset.)  I think I’ll save these offshore trips to when the satellites show some very distinct surface temp changes, or when the lake flips and they move in closer.  If anyone has any fall steelhead tips. feel free to share.  I’m trying to extend my fishing in September & October.

Nice fish!

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Did you mark much?

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Plugs recently turned on for us. Lots of spoon bites. Meat has been slow for us this year too. Part of that is because for much of the summer we were dealing with colder than normal water. The fish were up high where meat traditionally doesn't do as well.

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The ladies on my boat use them when fighting salmon. So you may find a use for them in saltwater and freshwater. Many have a pin for rod handles with gimbals. If your rods don't have gimbals, I would remove the pin from the belt.

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What a fun morning.

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