FBD

Ended up 2/4 yesterday with a small sheep and this nasty slime monster. Hit on a downrigger on a flicker shad there’s 1000000000 live shad to choose from and you gotta hit the weird purple one…

Lake Mac has fall walleye. And that’s not a nut I’ve been able to crack.

If you don’t have them to compare this check never fails: Top fish in photo coho first ray of the anal fin when pushed up against the body is about 2/3 the length of the base of the anal fin. Bottom fish in photo king first ray of anal fin is about 1/2 the length of the base of the anal fin when pushed up against the body.

Kings you can pick up by the tail most of the time; coho have a weaker bone structure in the tail and it collapses if you try that. The best way to tell them apart is by pushing down on the anal fin and seeing how far back the front edge reaches once all the way down, but I don’t know the decoder ring for that one off the top of my head.

King tails heavily spotted top and bottom halves. Coho tail usually only a couple spots on the top half. King photo first coho second.

Two bigger ones certainly look like kings to me.

Keep on not quitting for the year!

I know that spot…

Has that once; threw what was left in the cooler as it was a tournament. I was gonna weigh it if I had to. Nice fish for this late in the year. September gets tough when the matures run and that part of the mix isn’t an option any more…

Just the two tonight but man ended up being the two biggest this season.

Oh come on now for S&G we added up what my oldest’s tuition has been and it’s over $500k to date with two more years at $100k per year to go. Scholarships made that possible but that’s not a sustainable business model…

Had two quick hits in Mac setting up worked that for a while nothing more going. Headed out to work the plume got some sheep including an absolute toad. Decided to head out to 45-50’ to find some cold water got about halfway out there Spode diver got ripped. I stepped on my thunderstick getting to the rod. RIP bro we had some times. With the skunk out we headed back in and picked up another king on the same slide diver both on a mag green jeans. Not bad for a last minute pick up trip where we chickened out of fishing Saugatuck based on the forecast, only to fish in mild rollers with no wind and all the storms well away…

Best part of the season is yet to come!

Those fish came up off the bottom, and I was like this is gonna get crazy…

4/5 tonight in Saugatuck. Set up in 65’ noting lots of marks on the bottom in 50. We’ll get to those later. Got out to 100’ started to swing back around and in and the seven color gets smoked. Wife lands a nice steel. While fighting that mag flounder pounder 180 out on a slide diver gets hit lightly and trips but not hooked up. In 75 mag blue dolphin on a full core takes a little king that my daughter put back. At about 60’ the wind came up from the east by 50’ it was all of 20 mph and boat control was hellish. Those marks were gone. Checked in with 2md and he was like don’t pull them keep working in so we did and at about 42’ the graph lit up. Pulled the 7 color, then the five color. Was pulling the wire when a mag bloody nose down 24 hooks up. Get a small mature king. Pulling the rest of the lines pick the slide diver up and it gets ripped in my hands. Last line down so we turn with them and my wife somehow corrals this thing behind the boat. Really think we could have wailed on them but the conditions were not favorable. We left the last king in the net until we could beach the boat in the cove behind the channel.

Weighted steel. Runs like a lead core or cooper.

This will be the last year for any run at Holland; it got its last plant of kings three years ago. Next two ports south got those fish instead…

Man I feel better now. Got out at 6:30 saw like six lights on the horizon set up in 85 and started surfing them out. Took a 3# king on a rigger down 46’ in 90 then missed another bump and run on the same. Soon thereafter took a mature but silver 9# hen 85’ down on a paddle. Just started to turn back into them and the 300’ copper started trickling out, got a cute little 16” king that went back. Reset that sat down and started to turn and it exploded but my daughter choked with bad technique and lost it about 2/3 of the way in. At that point we were in 130’ and when we turned around waves were washing the bow of the 14’ too often. Wanted to change lures and try to fine tune things but just hammering into them back to 80’ was a handful. At 80 we pulled them but should not have as we we were only able to go 5.5 mph until it laid down a bit in 40’.

Or you can just slow down around the piers…

Had the same idea who are we kidding I just want to post a pier report before you one of these years. Alarm went off at 3:30 and I walked about halfway to the barn and said piss on this, it’s freezing and it’s an hour in and out each way at Saugatuck so after this weekend I went back to bed. If there was a chance of catching some in Holland this being the last year really I’d been more likely to try, as that’s ten minutes from work and not an hour plus with the ride from the piers added on.