Waterwolf Fishing Team

It looks like combat time. It sounded like a few boats caught fish at the Pierhead. The water temp. is 50 degrees at the top. Went out at about 4:00 to 100 FOW. It was pretty rough so we went downhill towards the Pier. Got fish in 75 FOW 25ft. down and 60 FOW 20ft. down with Green Scally,and Silver Bloody Nose J-Plugs.

Before light, started setting lines past the nets in 150 FOW and headed towards the 180 FOW, where I'd left the fish on Sunday. Nothing there. So picked up lines and headed back to 120 FOW and headed North. Ended up with 3 Kings between 120 and 107 FOW with downriggers 75 ft. to 90 ft. down,dragging black spoons with some color on them.

Yeaterday (Wed.) we did very well in 26 FOW south of point Augres. We dragged meat at 1.5 mph real close to the bottom. Some 3 and 4 pounders were boxed with our share of dinks. Pink Panties and other Hot Pink patterns were banging the bigger fish. I've talked with some others that did very well in shallower water 14-16ft., were there was some weed structure.

Hauled out a 2 man limit in 22 Feet Of Water with Crawlers. The Eyes are in that zone pretty thick from #1 Bouy to 4 or 5 miles north. I found the fish to be suspended off the bottom, from midway and up. Pink Panties was a good bread and butter pattern.

I guess you just have to "Grin and Bear It", and take satisfaction in knowing that you raised your kids better than that.

Wensday we did well in about 45 FOW just outside the pierhead. The hot spoons were the Gator and Blue Dolphin by Stinger and Sarge by Moonshine. They were all nice big males.The bite started about 6:30 and was good till about 8:30. Thursday the bite started about 40 min. before dark in 30 FOW. They wouldn't touch a glow bait but the Stingers were working with the addition of the Black Max by Stinger. All these fish were females that looked like they were ready to pop.

The ticket for us was purple and rasberry speckleback Rattle Tots, and Daves Kabooms. We started out early out from Standish and headed south, hitting the sandbars and ridges. 9 FOW to 13 FOW were the Hot Zones. We needed a couple of fish to top off the limit, so we pulled and went to 23 FOW west of the Spark Plug a couple of bigger fish and were done. It's nice when things go according to plan. Running the tots above the weeds ( 4 - 6 ft. below the surface ) at 1.8 to 2.0 mph gave the fish an opportunity to bite and kept the trash fish off the line.

It was one of those days! Caught a couple of Lake Trout in about 80 fow 50ft down on spoons. Fished out to 150 fow with marks on the graph, but no takers. About 9 o'clock we gave it up to fish perch.

I havn't been out in over a week so that is my excuse for almost getting skunked. We went North just past the first couple of nets and set lines in about 100FOW. We marked fish in 105 and made it out to 127 before we turned about to head back to 105. By this time the dinner bell should be ringing and we still hadn't had a bite. The temp break was at 65 feet down in 85 FOW so thats where we put out baits. We got a nice female with a silver J-Plug and lost a fish on a Moonshine-Sarge spoon that was on the end of 5 colors of core. Oh Well Thats Fishin!

We left the dock at 6 and went out to see what the Hoopla was in 185 FOW, well it was a big nothin. When we hit 155 FOW we hit a fish on a Pickle Sunshine fly. We took another fish in147 FOW on a Green Scaly J-Plug. Another rig that was active was a Glow Froggy Spin Doctor with a lime glow fly (no name). All the fish came between 85 and 65 down. The thermal was at 80ft. down. The radio was talking about a few bigger fish in 130FOW.

Hi Paul, Were you North or South of the Pierhead. Russ

Hey Jason, I'm a bit of a rookie on spoons myself. But I've had good luck with the Big Jon mini disks. The shorter 3 to 4 foot leaders from the disk seems to work better than the 5 to 6 ft. leads, it seems to get more flutter out of the spoon. The 2 to 1 dive curve doesn't work. Big Jon offers a vague drive curve for the disks, but my partner has one that is more specific. I could drag it out of him if you would like to know. Captain Russ

Good Job, in a tough arena.

The Crawler Crews are complaining that they aren't doing as well as they were. Most of the people I talked to were running crawlers in 13 to 15 FOW and getting spotty catches. The boats washing Tots were doing about the same, running around and over the top of the weeds in 13 to 19 FOW. Speaking of weeds, they were floating everywhere. I did find a lot of fish in 23 to 25 FOW. These fish were biting the Scorpion, and Junior Streak Spoons at 15 to 18 feet down. When we ran the spoons we could troll at faster speeds which kept a lot of the trash fish from biting. I heard that the Saginaw River was getting dredged. If so, could it be the reason the Bay hasn't been as clear as it was for the past couple of years? Can anyone apply some input on that!

We boated three Walleye, lost a couple, caught a Large Mouth Bass, a Small Mouth Bass, a couple of big Cats, some sheephead and snagged a Carp. There was plenty of action but not enough Walleye's. Fishing out of the Standish area we tried 10-12 FOW around the weeds, 13-15 FOW above the weeds and 17-20 FOW around a lot of marks that weren't hungry. In 25 FOW out by the Spark Plug we snagged a Carp with a Mag Tot. It seems to me that the weeds should be taller than they are. I've got to wonder if the dingy water that seems to prevalent is hindering the growth of the weeds. Last year at this time the weeds were easy to see at the top and the water was a lot clearer. Can anyone out there enlighten me ? Captain Russ

I thought the fishing was very slow to extremely bad. I didn't get skunked but I came very close to it. On the radio and at the docks, everyone had the same results. We fished from the Black Hole to the Spark Plug in the 20' to 24ft. range and from 20' to 13' range from the Rifle Bar to Pinconning with no concentrations of fish anywhere. My personal theory is that the weeds that have grown to 5 or 6' are scattering the fish from the big groups to the bait and oxygen that the pockets of hidden weeds contain. I would be intereste in hearing from everyone else. Any Opinions? Captain Russ

Had lines in the water at 5:00 PM in 130 FOW headed west. We had a couple of trips but no hook-ups. 170 to 180 FOW seen fish on the screen. When the dinner bell went off we were in 180 FOW. The fish we boated were on riggers with silver J-Plugs and Sarge Moonshine spoon 50 and 60 ft. down.

Hey Gary, I talked to you on monday, I had the Four Winns on B-1. I just want to let you know I've been fishing every day this week and I'm still getting them out deep. Wed. night I ended up at 175 FOW when the dinner bell rang and caught a few. Otherwise before the sun goes down, it's anywhere from 130 to 220 FOW.

Headed out to 120 FOW and set lines heading West. At 135 FOW turned back to the East. Boated a 15# king in 122 FOW on a Dipsey 250 back with a Pickle Sunshine Fly. In 110 FOW boxed a big Co Ho salmon on 10 colors of core with a silver J-Plug. Should have re-visited that spot but continued on in 100 to 110 FOW with no results. I guess that's why they call it Fishin.

We put up with the rain with an eye peeled for lightning! Ended up with a nice fish on a rigger 82ft. down in 122 FOW. Mirage fly with a green glow Spin Doctor.

We got out on the water at about 6:30. Set up lines in 100 FOW started looking, heading West. Out to 145 FOW, no fish. Made it back 100 FOW as the sun was boiling in the water, No Fish. Still with nothing on the screen at 8:50 in 105 FOW the Dinner Bell rang. In the next hour we ended up with 5 nice Kings. Most of them came on Dipseys 65 to 75 feet down with green glow Spin Doctors and Green Glow,Pickle Sunshine fly's.

We stopped in 130 FOW & took a look. Plenty of boats but not enough fish to go around. Set lines down at about 6:30 P.M. in 210 FOW and headed West. Fly - Doger combo's seemed to be the rule of the day. Green or White Spin Doctors with Mirage, Lemon Ice, & White flies worked very well. Moonshine spoons were 20' up on the stackers. The water temp @ 80' down was 50 degees. So, Riggers were down from 75 to 90 ft. down, Mag. Dipsy was 250 back. We caught several small kings from 225 ft. to 250 ft. We were in 233FOW when the dinner bell went off and everything we had out went screamming. That last group of fish were 20# classs, give or take a couple of lbs. We ended up with 8 Kings and 2 Lakers. The next morning we went back to where we put them to bed NOTHING! The fish ended up being in 110 FOW. Win some loose some.

What's the story on the nets? Aside from the nets on the south, I'm more interested on what is happening to the north.

We fished the Bay on 7-16 & 7-17, we got our fish both days in about 2 hours. The water we were fishing was southwest of Augres. We found 15 to 16 FOW and ran crank baits above the tops of the weeds. All the fish were good sizes with one @ 29". A lot of these fish had perch in the stomachs, so we used plugs with that idea in mind. The fish were staying away from crawler harnesses. I suspect that the blades put too much flash in the water so we shelved them with the 80 crawlers we baught.