FBD

Yeah but I usually head in as it gets darker so I’d be asking the same question too…

Had a kid's tournament Saturday, out of about 70 kids I think there were less than ten salmon and trout weighed. Many boats gave up early and ran into Mac to fish for sheep as it was an all species thing. Two kings in the 14-15 pound range weighed. So yeah pretty ugly on Saturday.

Oh man that brings back memories. Solo in the 14' out of Holland back in the three king era. Run south it's calm like sticky humid August calm get a fish and it starts getting hazy, get another fish and now it's like 100' visibility. Stay on the south troll I'm in 70-80' all of a sudden out of the fog my main fishing buddy trolls past north bound. Blips me on the radio and says he thought I was out of Holland and I'm like I am and he's like well we're way south of Saugatuck. Check GPS it agrees but I'm like this is BS. Keep on my south troll bang my last king point it east and motor up right into Pier Cove. Oh. Crap. I forgot that a 9mph loaded up boat, with only me in it is more like a 17 mph boat and was way further south than I thought after running the usual amount of time before dropping in. 6 gallon tank. Well I can go into Saugatuck try to find a marina and buy gas in a 14' which I'm sure will be a laugh. I can go into Saugatuck have the wife pick me up but that's like Defcon 6 conditions. Or I can troll back up the beach and hope for a lost brown or steelhead but I don't have gas to run 10 miles WOT. 4 hours 4 very tiring hours later I get back to Holland. Not a hit. Put 5.3 gallons in a six gallon tank.

More than once I have considered shooting a large fish before netting it. I’m only slightly kidding.

Based on this report changed out plans from working the beach to working out a bit deeper. Ended up 4/5 three nice 5# kings and a deeply hooked 2# king. North troll only 59’ only mixed veggies nailer out 120’ on a slide diver and a moonshine bloody nose 30’ down on a one color SWR. Lost fish was on a fire ball DW little devil off a half core.

Traffic could have been Grand Haven tournament boats. At least they won’t be killing all the planters at the pier heads this year to get numbers. Fifth place on the AM side last year weighed fifteen fish for 29# over two days…

Youth tournament in the 22’ on a day we should have stayed in close instead of riding the waves out to 200’. Then a fun trip in December fishing the trough in waves we could not see out between in the 14’. Turning around and having to buck those for a few wave sets until we got back into the trough was amusing.

Look up the laws for your local jurisdiction and go from there. Also just knowing how to drive a boat in inclement weather is something you should research. When I bought my 22’ we took it out in Lake Michigan in April in nasty 4-6’ chop. Brought my friend who ran a similar boat. The boat owner was absolutely mortified we cleared the channel my buddy dropped in the trough dialed in the trim and it rip then started slicing over waves like nothing. I carry on my 14’: A bilge pump. Hand held VHF. EPIRB. Air horn. Flare kit. Fire extinguisher. Throwable PDF on a 100’ rope. Danforth anchor with 200’ more rope. Recall your rode for anchoring should be 7:1 so 300’ is rope is still not enough in some circumstances. Danforth as it’s mostly sand bottom where I fish. A sea anchor to keep the bow into the wind of everything goes to hell. A tool kit with spare spark plugs and other common engine parts. I’ve had a buddy sink a boat without a life jacket on (Dave Mull, Google it) and hug a cooler for four hours until rescued. I’ve done grid searches to look for people, responded to maydays, and recovered corpses on two occasions. Not much fun tying a dead guy to your swim platform.

Do you have all the required safety gear? And do you know how to use it? I fish a 14' Deep V with a 15 horse on Lake Michigan all the time but I also have about 7000 hours on the lake. We took a newbie out this year along with my middle daughter and it was a bit sporty the newbie wasn't too thrilled then he looked at my daughter who was just on her phone paying no mind. I told him he had no need to be worried until I got worried, but if I got worried, he should be terrified...

We used to drop in at 70-80 cut an angle west-ish depending on waves and currents and troll out until we found them…

This is what I get…

Was out Sunday in the exact same water. Hit on a blue dolphin fixed slider down 25 never caught up to it. Hit on a mixed veggie nailer out 60 on a slide diver, missed that. Neither seemed to be big or very motivated fish. Tap tap stuff. 5# brown out in 45’ weird on a magnum Stinger mongoose out 75’. Had enough of getting beat up went to the beach barely got set up and hit the jackpot with a fat brown off a mixed veggie nk28 50’ back and 25’ out on a diver. CO checked us he was cool. Glad he didn’t ask me to dig anything out as we were bucking straight into them at the time.

Correct. It's a bad picture but one first year ~ 3# and a second year fish at 6.6#. Funny part was the coho all came on small natural colored spoons while I had silver orange back jr t-sticks, yellow rapalas, and the usual Thin Fish out as well. Hoping for some beautiful kings like the OP had soon...

Sure wasn’t as much east in that wind as predicted. Had to run up to college to grab my middle daughter so we didn’t get out until 6:30 but hammered into them then surfed back. Ended up 6/6 fishing a brown program all fish came on spoons. Sticks and thin fish were ignored. Caught the last coho in 4’ of water pretty much in the dark.

Weather hasn’t been very helpful for getting out.

Also remember this is a rare harbor where the water flows into the channel from the lake and not out of the channel. Hence any ice around the channel might get sucked into the channel instead of washed out.

Just use what you have and scare the people at the dock…