FBD

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.

Ran blue bubble last trip. And mountain dew, and green glow, and black glow, and white glow. All the standards. Fish were equally unimpressed. Stopped in at PS about 4 yesterday and there was 50' of salad piled in front of the docks. Yuck.

Could not buy a hit last night. Fished 70-100' from full core to bottom mix of flashers, plugs, spoons, changed speed, changed directions, nothing. Marked some fish all deep, marked the break at about 62', and at dark marked 6-7 huge bait balls in 70'. Pulling lines in the dark in 65' my wife is reeling in a copper and I'm reeling in a wire diver and the last rigger down just starts hammering. We let it go until she stows the copper then she tries to pick it up but it won't move. I finally get the wire in and throw it on the floor, crank up the rigger and trip the release having no idea where the line and fish are and hoping not near the prop. The king was on a free slider and was riding it up and down the line. Had it decided to make a run it could have hit the release full speed and broken off everything. Fish pops up along side the boat and takes off, I turn to get it behind the boat and now we're beam sea in nasty tight east wind chop (14' boat). However my wife knows the drill and soon we had a 19# king on the floor on top of all the gear we threw there. Did I mention my wife had a broken foot? Usually since real estate is precious on a 14' I have everything put away but I just left the king in the net on the floor and we motored in. Wife goes to step out of the boat onto the dock, hooks the net, and flips into the gap between the boat and the dock. I was mortified. She thought it was pretty funny. So since the boat towel was clean from not wiping anything up, she put on my hoody and used that as a skirt and told me if we got pulled over on the way home it would not go well for me. "Ma'am, step out of the car". "Uh, no officer, that's not going to work..."

I've seen them bust people for "jigging" whitefish where the fish was hooked in the mouth or so, but from the outside in. And the same when people floss fish at Sixth Street - hook is in the jaw hinge but clearly pointed inward. Remember the guide book is just a summary and you're obligated to know all the rules that aren't in it. Not sure how...

Page 10, second column, second paragraph: "Hook-and-Line Fishing: Fish not hooked in the mouth must be returned to the water immediately." Of course about three lines later in the same paragraph it says you can't fish with a bare hook, and a bare gold size 14 hook has landed many an alewife for me jigged in the channel when they are in. Not trying to bust balls here and I like you reports but the DNR has been known to mine social media for contacts.

Great story but I hope the DNR isn't reading it.

Tried out front last night, as the sensor in the channel showed water as cold as 52 degrees had come in overnight and the buoy had 50 degrees down like 25'. Never found anything below 64 on the surface. Marked a lot of perch in 20' or so. Actually caught one on a Flicker Shad. And we caught sheep. Caught sheep in 30', caught sheep out front, caught sheep in the channel, down the shipping lane, past the no wake zone. I bet we caught over 30 of them. No real size. No pattern. They hit everything. Sheriff was out and was plenty busy busting people who can't seem to figure out what no wake means. Good.

Believe that to be a Gander Mountain store brand spoon. Does it have like a varnish / clear coat on it? They did. They also came with wicked sharp black VMC hooks which was odd for a "cheap" spoon. NK's are stamped at the nose.

I'd rather be 2/5 than 2/2... I think!

There's a lot of difference between 0 and 1 fish, but not so much between 7 and 10... We got the first fish setting up kiss of death last trip, then 3.5 miles down the beach got the second hit, and third, and fourth, which we all missed or lost.