Fishin_Freak

Just got a quick second here....

But thought this post might help everyone going out over the next week.

We fished on Wednesday in SH and went the big fat 0 for 0. Threw everything at them. Started in 120 FOW and went all the way to 225 FOW. Dirty water EVERYWHERE. We marked TONS of fish... and we even joked at times the graph was on simulator mode!! Marked fish all over in the water column. Ran across 4 or 5 classic "scum" lines too and tried running those for a bit... but nothing. Had a few seconds before I went into work and figured for the hell of it I would check the Modis Photos to get an idea of what it looked like out there.... and boy... was I AMAZED!!!

Here is where the Modis Imagery website comes in. Check these photos out... talk about dirty water along the east shore of Lake Michigan

Great Lakes Modis Imagery

Click on any one of those individual photos on that website and it will give you a blow up of that photo.

So... don't get me wrong... there are definitely fish out there to be caught... but I suspect this had something to do with it. Sure looks like you have to go out quite a ways to find clean water. As it was... the visibility in this dirty water is about 2 feet!! Not sure how far down below the dirty water extends below the surface... but we can only speculate. And I did have the downriggers down 150 feet for a good portion of the morning to see if we could get some bites if there was cleaner water below!!

Just goes to show you how that big blow and those 23 footers stirred things up this past weekend!!

Oh well... there is always next time!!

Well...

She's a blowin' out there this morning!!

From the South Haven Lighthouse at 5:30am....

Wind Speed: 46.83 kts (24.09 m/s)

Max Wind Speed: 57.04 kts (29.34 m/s)

Wind Direction: 005° (N)

Air Temperature: 55.8 °F (13.2 °C)

I like go to the graph that shows the 5 minute increments over the past 3 hours!! Highest gust so far... 59.66 knots = 68.656 mph!!!

Only 23 footers at the Mid-Lake Buoy!!!

5-day plot - Wind Direction Wind Direction (WDIR): NNW ( 330 deg true )

5-day plot - Wind Speed Wind Speed (WSPD): 35.0 kts

5-day plot - Wind Gust Wind Gust (GST): 44.7 kts

5-day plot - Wave Height Wave Height (WVHT): 23.0 ft

Now the NWS forecast has it up to 22 footers!!!

...STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM THIS AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY AFTERNOON...

.TODAY...WEST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT BECOMING SOUTHWEST 15 TO 25 KT

LATE THIS MORNING...THEN BECOMING NORTHWEST GALES TO 45 KT LATE.

SHOWERS LIKELY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS FROM LATE MORNING

ON. WAVES 1 TO 3 FT BUILDING TO 6 TO 9 FT THIS AFTERNOON.

.TONIGHT...NORTHWEST STORM FORCE WINDS TO 50 KT. CHANCE OF

SHOWERS. WAVES BUILDING TO 16 TO 22 FT OVERNIGHT.

.FRIDAY...NORTHWEST STORM FORCE WINDS TO 50 KT BECOMING NORTH

GALES TO 45 KT FROM LATE MORNING ON. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES

16 TO 22 FT.

.FRIDAY NIGHT...NORTH GALES TO 40 KT. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES

14 TO 18 FT.

Looks like it is going to be pretty nice out there!!!

.THURSDAY...WEST WINDS 15 TO 25 KT INCREASING TO GALES TO 40 KT EARLY IN THE AFTERNOON...THEN INCREASING TO STORM FORCE WINDS TO

50 KT LATE. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. SLIGHT CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS IN

THE AFTERNOON. WAVES 1 TO 3 FT BUILDING TO 7 TO 10 FT IN THE

AFTERNOON.

.THURSDAY NIGHT...NORTHWEST STORM FORCE WINDS TO 50 KT. CHANCE OF

SHOWERS. WAVES BUILDING TO 15 TO 20 FT.

.FRIDAY...NORTH STORM FORCE WINDS TO 50 KT DIMINISHING TO GALES TO

40 KT. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES 15 TO 20 FT.

.FRIDAY NIGHT...NORTH GALES TO 35 KT DIMINISHING TO 30 KT

NOT!!!!

This should shake things up a bit!!!

There is also a small rock pile jetty that sticks out into the lake. It is not very long... giant rocks are stacked maybe 6 or 7 feet high... and you might have to go a little closer to shore to see it... but it is there. Might be a small creek emptying into the lake too depends on how dry or wet it has been. You can see both of these in the Google Map that danthebuilder has posted a link to.

When the lake water levels were at their high points in past years... used to get salmon and trout to run deerlick creek. And if anyone tells you differently... they are lying because I used to live within maybe a 200 yard walk of 3 miles upstream from the creek.

Let's just say... back when I was in my early teens... I have a story that involves a spear... and a creek full of salmon and trout one day!! This was actually before I was really into fishing and didn't know any better and was just having fun!!! Luckily.... "the Man" didn't happen to come around that day!!

Nice job on the perch!!!

Nice job on the fish everyone... especially Dirty Dog.

Myself and two friends almost decided to enter this tourney at the last moment. We normally fish South Haven and The Joe but from reports here and some first hand inside info we decided to head up to Saugy and try it Friday evening. Also got some info that the bait that was present was about the size of a #3 J-Plug... possibly #4. Don't really have too many #3 J's but do have a good handful of the smaller Lyman Plug which are all glow plugs. I believe these are #3 Lyman Plugs which are 3 inches long according to their site. Most of the Lyman Plugs are all older model as I do have a few colors you can not find on their site Lyman Lures right now. I do like the fact that you can order these from their site and they now give you an option if you want them in glow or not... and also give you an option if you want single... or treble hooks.

Ran a mix of the #4 J's and smaller Lyman Plugs and really could not get much on the bigger plugs... so switched everything over to the smaller Lyman plugs and was not disappointed. Basically ran only a 5 rod spread with 3 downriggers and 2 wire divers (with long 10' leads). Ran downriggers at 6, 8, and 10 foot down and didn't get too many hits... so shallowed them up to 2, 3, and 4 down and they started popping too. Ended Friday evening 7 for about 20 with one coho and the rest all nice fish 15 to 21 pounds. Interesting tidbit to this evening was that we broke off 3 of the Lyman plugs but were lucky enough to get all 3 of them back. (More later on lost/found tackle)

We almost did get in the tourney but my buddies decided against it. I told them we had a "program" and might do fairly decent. Oh well... coulda... shoulda as we probably would have given the Dirty Dog a run for his money as we ended up with 10 fish out of 2? hits with only one being relatively small. Definitely would have come in 2nd if not the top spot as all fish were 14-19 pounds. We ran the same "program" as described above... but we actually did do really good on a 10" Froggie Spinny and green crinkle fly off the wire diver (15 feet out). As someone mentioned the key to Saturday morning I believe was staying in tight to the piers. Running everything relatively short... 25-40 foot leads on the rigger and the wire divers only being 15 feet out (you could see them when you got to the cold.. very clear water on the south side of the river plume). We would cross as close as we dare in front of the pier being respectful of the guys on piers... go down a ways... make a tight turn and come back the other way. Most passes in front of the piers would produce at least one hit. And as most of you know... the fog did not help any. Me personally... there is no way I would have ran any type of lead core in that mess.

Now... back to the lost/found tackle.... we actually had 3 rods go off at almost the same time and it turned out to be that we snagged someones lead core and it it actually had about a 7 pound lake trout (returned) on a regular Stinger NBK spoon. The lead core was a 5 COLOR lead core!!! What in the sam hell is someone doing running 5 colors of lead in combat fishing in the fog no less????... mostly in less than 20 FOW too???? Someone was just asking for trouble. So the tackle count was us being up one good stinger spoon. We also snagged a dipsy diver that had a bright yellow 5 inch spinny on it with a fly. So we are now up a spoon... dispy... mini spinny... and fly!! And to top that off... we actually netted 2 more #4 J-Plugs and a Ace's High plug we spotted floating on the surface. And we didn't lose anything!!! Not too many days out on the water that the "Fish Gods" are giving back equipment to you!!!!

So there's my story... and I am sticking to it. Actually... some of you may know me as DonP on "that other site". My buddies and I have already said that we are going to make an effort to get up there and fish with you guys in these tourneys next year if the dates don't conflict with a few other tourneys that we enter. I know a couple of you through the other site... but have not really met any in person. Am definitely looking forward to it though. Until then... there is still some great fishing to be had before the boat gets winterized. Myself... I am waiting for the whitefish to start to show up which should be in a couple of weeks or so (depending on water temperatures).

We did go 10 for 2(something) one time this summer. But at least we had an excuse... it was harbor patrol out front in St. Joe for the Skams!!!

Nice job on the fish!!

Too bad this weather setup wasn't in the middle of summer...

.REST OF TODAY...NORTHEAST WINDS 15 TO 25 KT. WAVES 5 TO 8 FT.

.TONIGHT...NORTHEAST WINDS 15 TO 25 KT. WAVES 5 TO 8 FT.

.WEDNESDAY...NORTH WINDS TO 30 KT. WAVES 5 TO 8 FT.

.WEDNESDAY NIGHT...NORTHEAST WINDS TO 30 KT. WAVES 6 TO 9 FT.

.THURSDAY...NORTHEAST WINDS TO 30 KT. SLIGHT CHANCE OF SHOWERS.

WAVES 6 TO 9 FT.

.THURSDAY NIGHT...NORTHEAST WINDS 15 TO 25 KT. CHANCE OF SHOWERS.

WAVES 5 TO 8 FT.

.FRIDAY...NORTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 20 KT. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES

4 TO 7 FT.

.SATURDAY...NORTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES

2 TO 4 FT.

Might be saying goodbye to the warm water for the rest of the year!!!!

Nice job Todd... there are definitely some bigger fish to be had this year! I would not be surprised to see some 25 lb. fish brought in this year with the size of some of the kings we are seeing already this year. Maybe the reduction in planting that they started in 2006 is starting to have an effect???

Figured since the end of the world was going to be today... that my buddy and his friend and I might as well be on the water fishing when it does!!!

Ended up going 10 for 15 on the day with 1 coho (2 lbs)... 1 king (11 lbs)... 1 steelhead (6 lbs)... and 7 lake trout (all nice trout from 7 lbs to 11 lbs). We fished waters 5 to 8 miles north and not another boat came close to us all day.

We actually were kind of working on our lake trout program trying some new things and were not disappointed. We targeted lake trout in the 50-70 FOW range but did work out to 110 to see what was there. Did not mark any fish outside of 90 FOW. With a somewhat stiff SE breeze at times we decided not to go out to 130 to 180 where we heard there were more silver fish. Water temps ranged from 46.9 to 48.5.

King, coho, steelhead, and 2 lake trout came on spoons. Other lake trout came on setups we ran specifically for lake trout.

One final note... the steelhead was a bright silver fish that was absolutely filled with bugs of all sorts... and oh yeah... it also had a BIRD in its stomach!!!!

Happy Day After The End Of The World To All!!!

I know this post is somewhat late...

... but the shop that probably has the widest selection of wobble glows that I know of in their store is BJ Sports just south of St. Joe on Niles road on the way to Berrien Springs.

Here is their website: BJ Sports

They even advertise on their website that they have the biggest selection of corkies and wobble glows in Southwest Michigan. Here's a photo they have on their website...

Hope this helps!!

By the way... Yakima is probably the best online site you will find for them... can download their whole catalog and order from it.

heard it was really good fishing down there

I guess you could say that!!!