FBD

No worries. It's frustrating but fun when it works, and the fish are usually really nice. Forgot to add that I roll right along at 2.5mph give or take, which scares the crap out of the guys drowning worms.

Yep, planers and cranks. Just when you think you know what kind and color they want, another one becomes the hot bait, so I shotgun each trip based on conditions and then try to dial in color / type / depth if I get enough hits to make a pattern. Try to play chicken with the drop offs as the fish like to hold against them. My biggest walleyes have come on J-plugs looking for kings though. Which is weird as if they are targeting big lures, I also run a lot of deep thundersticks for kings and have never had a walleye hit one of those.

"My dad and I see tons of guys slow trolling the drop offs in the summer and they few guys I hear from say you'll pick some up but you'll also be dealing with catfish and sheephead left and right" And sailboat races, and ignorant power boaters, and territorial so called walleye charters that will run you over when you're the only other boat fishing. I swear though it's about 10 sheep per walleye, and one cat fish per walleye. At least the sheep are easy to tell as they hit and fight hard and tend to head up to the top. The cats stay down and head shake and every one makes you think it's a 30" walleye until it isn't.

Fished Holland Harbor Friday night and did my part to help strain the weeds out of the channel and lake. Cycling through rods non-stop to keep them clean. No marks at all out front in the 54 degree water so didn't waste time in there. In two passes down the channel didn't see much to stay in there either, so went into Mac. Had one big rip in there, missed one hit, and caught three (3) small sheep. Pulling lines in the near dark looked over and one rod tapped a couple times like a perch hitting a minnow, but the board didn't move. Looked suspicious so we pulled that one next and found a 21" walleye hanging out. Mac has walleye but it's a tough nut to crack. I fished it six times this year and caught walleye twice. Granted, when I do catch them, they are very nice, healthy fish. I crack up when I clean the walleye we catch on the bay - a 20" walleye in the bay barely cracks 3# but the same fish from Mac is usually 4#+.

What river south of the Pere Marquette pumps any kings back into the lake? Saugatuck should be increased by 100% getting all the Holland plants. These fish don't only support 1 or 2 days of harbor fishing 2-3 years after they are planted, the support the local fishery for the 2-3 years until they run.

I run ~20' leaders on my slide divers and 40' on my riggers. Puts all the lures all in about the same line. Not sure if that helps but in my OCD head it feels right. Two things to remember, the rocks on the south side of the channel aren't vertical like the channel walls and love to eat gear, and plugs dive so when your rigger is at 14' in 18' of water, your plug could very well be banging into the bottom, and there's all kinds of fun stuff there too.

I pride myself at this but that's a new one for me...

Looks like a coho to me, and if so it's an absolute monster. Master angler is 12# on those...

Once again 2md beats me to the punch but all was not lost. Conned my wife and daughter into heading out last night and it didn't disappoint. First pass down the channel, got into a bunch of salad so I turned around and started cleaning lines in Mac. Something heavy on a down rigger. Hand it over to my daughter, she reels in a 17" largemouth bass on a size 4 wonderbread J plug. That's a first. Head back out, get into the lake and a slide diver starts thumping. Hand that to my daughter and the same rigger just explodes. We clear traffic and land a small sheep, throw it back, and then land a 14.3# sheep on the rigger. Fought very hard - thought it was a king. Head in and just past big red a rigger pops and just sits there arced over a bit. As I reach for it a king sharks to the top and tears off across the channel. Somehow there was a gap in traffic as he's now in between the arms on the north side and still going. I crank the boat around and tell my wife to just reel, pull in the planers, point the boat at the fish and goose the throttle. The sheriff comes over to see why this dude just crazy Ivan'ed 135 degrees across the channel. Another boat comes over and passes within 6' of us as I'm motoring, sheriff lights him up and pulls him over. Somehow we get the fish out from under the boat and not tangled and net it. Highlight of the night is trolling back past the sheriff and look over and he's got his phone up filming us. We wave. He points behind us. Seven figure mega Sea Ray just hauling through the no wake zone. Rich boy gets lit up and pulled over. His crew looked happy. Boat name "Running Late". ha ha ha ha Last trip down the channel slide diver gets popped and I gun the throttle trying to pull the fish out of traffic and into Mac. He ain't having it and jumps. Lead boat in the pack behind us slows down and the other 4-5 do as well to allow us room to play this thing out. Can't say thanks enough. Land it by Van Andel's docks and hoist it up to applause from the boats around us.