FBD

First trip out yesterday afternoon.  Worked the plume then wandered south past Deerlick in 8-15' of water.  One maybe hit on a slide diver on a mixed veggies UV Stinger.  Gave up on that and went out to 45-50' and worked back to the piers for lakers.  That went about as well.

Had 47 degree water in close and 44 out deeper, seemed pretty warm for this early...

Different colored tear drops = Entire experiment invalid.

Just kidding, love the videos.

Now had you been using Schoolie rods, that'd really make a statement.  

No luck in the river.

Too rough to look for lakers out deep.

Water by shore too chalky from the recent blows.  Tried in close anyway.  Third shot across the pier heads had a big rip on a blue rapala but by the time we woke up it was gone.  Log / brown / laker / steel / Nessie who knows?

Was good to be out again.

Well what about steelhead / rainbows, crick / creek / brook, tennis shoes / sneakers, and rummage / yard / garage sales?

Thursday night, practiced my wave surfing skills in the 14' deep V in the channel on an occasional 4-6', we ended up the night 4/6 with a bunch of 12" sheepshead, one maybe walleye and a big rip that didn't stick.  Could not figure the kings out.  Every fish you lose is an 8# walleye.  Every one.

Went back Friday night.  Much better conditions, even went out front for a while.  Watched two clueless kids in a 10' boat with an electric trolling motor and no life jackets scrape the wall all the way down the channel 10' from the walleye casting guys.  

Could not figure the kings out.  About 12 more 12" sheep then one 11.8# sheep that briefly made us think we had a king.

Had my 7 year old affectionately nick named "3 more rods" with, at dusk we left one rigger down and put out 8 boards and trolled back to the launch.  8:08 walleye in the net.  Rigger with a J plug down started bouncing, walleye slung over the side (50# braid ha ha) as walleye #1 was all twisted up in the net.  Throw that down and grab a board rod that's arched way over, hand that to my daughter and just in time to land it the net gets handed to me, third walleye on the floor (good thing, 10# leader no slinging allowed).  And then we trolled through the mother of all weed mats and trashed the whole spread and it was dark dark so we quit and got ice cream.

In summary:

running kings and coho, big flashy lures when the fish are in, running.

Trout, from now until the water gets warm in the spring, cast lures or fish bait or spawn.  They'll move in and out.  

Trolling with them = poor man's auto pilot!

Two different types of fish you're fishing for.

Running kings are running.  They are not feeding, but will hit spawn out of territorial instincts.  The bigger, badder, brighter lure you can throw the more it will get their attention, and they're not line shy either.  I troll the pier heads with deep thundersticks on 50# braid with a 30# mono leader.

Fish feeding around the piers require a bit more finesse.   But not 2-4# test.  All that's doing is breaking off a bunch of fish that now need to swim around dragging the hardware that was formerly yours around.

So neither of us wailed on the heavies out front yesterday.  Met 2MD in the channel as we set lines, two passes out front yielded an 8# sheep.  72 degree bath water.  We chatted and agreed that any hope of salvaging the trip would require going out deep, he left to plow north into a nasty building chop as he'd launched from Holland.  We spiraled our way out going 1.7 into them and 3.6 with them due to some really nasty currents.

In 50' we had lots of marks and bait balls, but the cannonball on the bottom was still warm to the touch.  Fortunately found a pair of hungry 2-3# little kings out there that wanted a magnum flounder pounder 120' back on a slide diver.

Pulling lines at dark on our way back in the regular flounder pounder SWR starts pumping.  Fish swims right to the boat, it's dark, the fish is dark, and with it 2' from the net is turns and burns off about 200' of line.  OK time to get serious.  Pull the divers out of the way, get the cannonballs out of the water, and then put it in N.  Fish is now in front of and under the boat.  Oops.  Find a flash light clamp that in my teeth figure out where the line is and then put it in gear and motor around the fish to get it back off the stern.  Fish comes up and hangs about 3' down, tell the crew all or nothing pick it up, he pulls the fish up to the top and I scoop it more or less holding the end of the 8' handle.  Get the fish but have no leverage to lift it so have to pull the net in and then slide it up the side of the boat.  19# hen.

Forecast looks like harbor patrol is gonna be on pause for a while.  Anyone headed out soon be warned with the now S wind those currents are gonna be a mess.

Pleasure sharing info with you and we'll cross paths again soon I hope.

It's on.  See you tonight!

Currents come from winds pushing the lake around and it trying to get back where it was.  It's been dead calm for about a week now, freakishly calm.  So I was hoping not to have to deal with them this weekend.

Appreciate the honest report.

10# seems a little light but I do see full arm extension on that picture.  Hmm.  

We catch sheep in Lake Mac trolling high 2's in 75 degree water on just about any presentation you can think of trying for walleye.  If those were sheep up high and you were throwing spoons at them, you'd get some eventually.

Lake trout in cold water are very aggressive and not line shy and will hit about anything.  Also, they have very large mouths - a 7# laker can eat a 1# fish easily.  Check out the mouth on this one for example, granted it's much bigger than 7#.

Any reason you fished the riggers so close to each other?

Ran out to about 100', started pounding the bottom 10' with a mature king staging fish program.  About 7 we'd slipped out to 135 and were turning back in when a rigger with a big white paddle down 120' just buried.  Big laker I guessed until the reel started singing.  Got it up into the bath water and figured it would tire out, nope, a couple more runs and still was green behind the boat.  I called it as a 20, at shore later it weighed 20.01#.  That was close.  

While messing with that we ended up all the way out in 160', so we eat back into them and at 140' the other rigger started thumping with a slider hit.  Flounder pounder pegged 10' up with the main line down 115'.  That was a 5# king that should have gotten away as the slider slid down to the main lure, a J plug, which I got in the net on my first try.  Finally grabbed the leader and just slung him into the boat.

We went back into 100' and then had time for one more lap.  Turning back around in 135' the port diver started thrashing.  Big white spinny yellow BW fly.  7# laker 350' back.  That was fun.  At that point we were up against a time limit and with the wind being less east than it had been, it was a long, bumpy, wet ride back in.

All that and:

different rivers have different strains of salmon, some known for their early run times, some for their food quality, some for their size.  Our brood stock were not from a river known for large fish.

More salmon stay out in the ocean 5-7 years.  Ours are usually done in 2-3.  Rare is the four year fish any more.

Out lake gets very cold in the winter, and the fish slow down because of it.  In the ocean they can always find 50-55 degrees somewhere.

If that fish was keyed on 1-2# prey, why did it hit a 5" spoon?

7-28-12 B4K.  1 hour 40 minutes from the pier heads to the pier heads in 2-4' chop.  We had to quit with 15 fish or who knows what we could have done that day...

The good old days in the piers at Holland were not so long ago.  Labor Day after noon 2013.  We were calling people we knew had licenses and coolers to come meet us at the dock, grab their limit and go home.  27 kings, 3 coho, 10.4# walleye on a rigger and a #4 silver bullet J plug...

I haven't caught a king yet this year, in five trips.  Appreciate the honest reports.

Beach towel.

On a half core.

In a tournament.

I was already spending the big fish side pot while some poor crew member was winching it it.

Really expensive bra in the Grand River trolling for steelhead.  Just happened to be my wife's size.  She still has it.

Chunk of denim on the hooks after fighting a plug free from a snag on the Kalamazoo.  Nothing to see here...

After having Sixshooter beat me regularly in the WMFL tournaments that started at 5am, he was kind enough to share with me that when fishing that early, don't be afraid to fish shallow and high, for fish out of temperature.

There were so many issues with telling kings from coho back in the 3/5 limit era, especially when there were a lot of three pound versions of each swimming around in May, that the South Haven tournament finally went from catch a three man limit weigh 12 to catch a three man limit weigh nine salmon and three trout.  That way even if you didn't know what you caught, what you weighed in was legal and not up for argument.

We were lucky and after we got our ninth salmon with a mix of coho and kings and went in to 60-70 to drill for lakers, we popped a big king on a spinny bouncing bottom.  So we had room for it within our limit and didn't have to toss a 14# upgrade over the stern to stay legal.

Is the smaller one a coho?  Tail doesn't look to be spotted up like the others...

Then, what would I know, haven't handed either in a long time.