mrhookup

Most likely the last trip of the season for us as I'll probably be focusing on fall steelhead in the rivers from here on out. Fished from 2-6pm, dropped lines at the pier heads pointed West into some choppy 2-4 footers. Trolled all the way out to 200FOW with our lines (all spoons) in the top 50ft without a bump. Water temp was 56deg from the surface down at least to where our baits were. Noticed some big bait balls on the bottom in the 160-170FOW range on the way out so sent down some flasher/flies on our riggers and a dipsy after we spun around. Water temp was 45-48deg in the bottom 15ft down there. Popped a 7lb laker on a white blade/crush glow/green slick 8" spinnie with pickled sunshine fly on a rigger on bottom while trolling through the bait. After that, we picked up and did a few passes in front of the pier heads looking for steel without a bump. At least we avoided the black and white kitty on our last trip of the year

Great fish and thanks for the report! We're hoping to get out on Sunday

Ed, thanks for the info. Great looking rig, very similar to ours that we picked up this year. What kind of autopilot did you get? That and trim tabs are both items we need to add as well.

fixed harness in the size equivalent to a #3 j plug, Tomic seems to be the only one that makes them but they're $12 a piece. And one high quality, heavy wire hook (preferably a Gamakatsu or Owner) that hangs even with the tail of the plug, two hooks are unnecessary IMO as they get tangled in the net when landing a fish.

We have 2 Coastal night lights (DS style) on our boat in blue light. They are awesome!! We can see the fish when it is about 30-35 feet out. Might be a bit of overkill but it works for us. What you see on the web site IS what you should have after install with the DS version.

You could probably get away with using only one but having two lets you see across the entire width of the transom and an additional area out to the side. This helps when/if you get your fish to the boat and it still a bit green. We have not had a fish get into a rigger cable since we put them on this year.

Just to note: our rigger hits this year in the dark was off the charts. They out produced the divers about 4 to 1 when fishing them above 40-45 feet. Might just be coincidence or all the good advice received on this forum. Who knows? My financial advisor thought they were a good purchase. All that really matters to me. LOL

Are you saying you keep your underwater lights on while trolling and its helping you get more rigger hits?

thanks KC!

bump

Hey guys, I'll be fishing out this port and on Lake Huron for the first time this weekend from Thursday evening through Sunday morning. I typically fish out of the Grand Haven and Port Sheldon areas on Lake Michigan and have been doing it for quite a while, but I have no familiarity with Lake Huron or the Rogers City area. Any advice on where to start and what to look for this weekend up there? What bait shops are good to stop into for info? Sounds like I'll primarily be targeting Steelhead and lakers, have there been any kings or cohos around recently? Thanks in advance for any help!

Just picked up a couple of spoon pads from Amish Outfitters to hang our spoons from under the gunnels. I'd like to have them snap into place but the pads dont have snaps and the foam for them is quit thick. Anyone have a good way to either add snaps to the pads or mount them under the gunnels in a fashion that I removable but wont bounce around when running through a good chop?

Welcome to the site! As the others said it's been a very tough year, there's half as many king salmon in Lake Michigan this year as there was just 3 years ago because of the cuts in stocking to save the bait fish population. The groups of fish this year are just much smaller than normal as a result which makes staying on the fish much more difficult. Even so, try watching these seminars from some of the better captains on the southern end of the lake. They have a wealth of good info that we've applied and had success with. Also, I have not read them yet (though I plan to this winter), but I'd pick up the Keating on Kings books and give them a read.

Fuzzy Bear Charters (Michigan City and Pentwater)

https://vimeo.com/60660270

https://vimeo.com/37716155

Best Chance Charters (Saugatuck)

https://vimeo.com/62977029

https://vimeo.com/39522920

Ralph Steiger (Portage, IN to East Chicago) small boat guy which is a nice perspective to hear from

https://vimeo.com/35607478

https://vimeo.com/20548265

Hit Man Charters (Grand Haven) talks about "fishing the mud" and he's one of the best around at it

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Part 8 -

Fished the mud with the crowd on Sunday morning with lines down from 6:15-10:15am and finished 4/6 with two cohos, a 12" king, and a pig of a sheepshead ot hand. Seemed fairly slow for most with the number of boats in there and our catch was about the average it seemed. More coho around than kings. Moonshine Happee Meal both mag and regular size was the only thing we could get them to go on. Couldn't buy a bite on a plug for some reason although others were doing well with them. Seemed to be a lot of junk in the water as most times we reeled in our lines the baits had grass on them, probably slowed our fishing down to some extent. Good luck out there!

I'll third filters...try running Seafoam through it and see if that helps. Also, check your fuel line. I just had this same problem and found out my fuel line was rotted out and starving the engine of fuel.

great job out of Grand Haven!

Thanks for the report, that's a great box

The 30lb has worked well for us but the wind does catch it and cause your boards to not run as well out to the side. We switched to 50lb power pro and get better performance out of our boards. I do splice in a 50ft section of 30lb mono between the copper and braid to put the board onto though.

Great job!

Took 3 coworkers out after work for their first time on the big pond. Had lines down from 6:30-9pm and finish up 2/4 with a couple kings to the boat...one mature, one immature. Best water for us was 130-150 FOW, 80-100ft. down. Best report on the radio was someone with 9 fish I think out in 200-250FOW, sounded like a mixed bag for them and the fish were coming 80-120ft down out there. Here's what worked for us:

200cu with 4oz torpedo diver - Green lightning Ace High - 9lb king

100cu with 4oz torpedo diver - Dbl Glow Ace High - lost king

Rigger @ 100ft - Big white paddle and UV Frosted Fern fly - lost lake trout (or at least it fought like one)

Rigger @ 90 - fixed slider 10ft above ball with MS Mag Happee Meal - 4lb King

Fished from 4:30-9pm and ended 3/3 with a steelhead, chunky coho, and a decent laker. All hits were in 150-170 FOW south of port between 5-6pm on a NW troll, 2.5-2.7 speed at the ball. Started working in shallower after those hits hoping to find some kings toward sunset with no such luck. Sound like on the radio there were more kings up by Muskegon yesterday. We marked a ton of bait in the 120-130 FOW range but not takers. Here's what worked for us:

High slide diver out 200ft - Live Wire Spindocter, mirage fly green glow beads - coho

100ft cu with 2oz dive bomb - Stingray UV Green Dolphin - steelhead

Low Slide Diver out 200ft - Crush glow spin doctor and glow meat rig - laker

Good job Mike!

A bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work! We had really good fishing last weekend in Grand Haven, fish were a bit deeper though as our action was in 110-120 FOW early and 140-160 FOW later in the morning. There wasn't any water cooler than 60deg in the top 90ft of the water column and we only hit one fish above 80ft down and it was a plug on a rigger down 70ft first thing in the morning. We haven't been out since Saturday, but looking at the buoy temps off Port Sheldon it doesn't look like the water temps have cooled off much if at all, the half and full cores probably aren't getting down to the fish, I'd try running a bit deeper spread, that's our plan tomorrow evening pending what the probe tells us. Of course, it's a full moon this weekend and that never helps the morning fishing either....good luck and let us know how you do!

Frosted fern UV fly with green or green and yellow beads has been good too. And they rotate, the old school metal dodgers are the ones that sway back and forth

Nice job Kevin. Not sure why you are having the tangles, but well done on the Kings Saturday.

Newbs on the wheel going into a 2-3ft chop but with the current Mike, throttle control was not my crews strong suit this weekend . Thanks!

They do somewhat but not terrible, I think the Stinger dive bombs pull harder because they are designed to use water pressure to get more depth whereas the torpedos cut through the water very well.

the smaller end is the front and where you should clip the line from your rod to. Run the meat rig off the "fatter" end.

great report! how deep do you think those 200's with the dive bombs are getting?

We were clipping the dive bomb on the backer (40lb braid) after the copper and letting it out an additional 125'. Our trolling speed was 2.5-2.8 at the ball so per the dive bomb charts it should have been adding an additional 40' or so. I'm guessing it was down around 80-90' since that's where most of our hits were coming and the break was in that zone. The 100'cu with the weight was probably 70'-80' since we were letting the weight out an extra 175'.