Holland 06/28 Evening, 1 for 1

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Worked the evening from 6:00pm through sunset in 115-135 FOW with a 6-line spread, 4 downriggers and 2 wire dipseys.  Downrigger depths varied from 65 to 85’ down tipped with 3 spoons (the 3 rotations: MS mag RV Blue Flounder Pounder, MS reg Hot Lips, Stinger Blue Killer; MS mag RV Green Flounder Pounder and Double Orange Crush; MS mag glow Blue Jeans and MS mag Raspberry Carbon up high at dusk; a white double pearl SD & Salmon Candy Doc fly on the deepest rigger up till sunset then replaced with a Wonder Bread J-plug).  Wire line divers on a 1.5-set down 60-65’ tipped with a MS mag RV Atomic Water Melon spoon [until we lost it] and Dragon Slayer SD & Salmon Candy Ron Bro’s Ex Mistress fly (switched to MS mag RV watermelon late in the evening).

All of that effort produced one 8.8lb SH on the wire dipsey with the Atomic Water Melon spoon, one of my favorite spoons to run on divers for SH and Kings.  The strike came at 7:06pm in 120 FOW on a NE troll, speed 2.4mph at the ball.  We were lucky to boat the fish as I missed that the wire had crept to the edge of the spool and when the strike occurred, the line got driven into the backing freezing up the reel.  I like to center wire lines just for this reason but I must of lost track of it with the line creep on turns.  I managed to free the line up enough to reel in the fish and the hook set was perfect that saved the day.  So I have a little project to spool that reel down and back up today to put it back in service.

We marked ample fish throughout the trip and bait late in the evening. Several reports of lure washing and single fish coolers.  Absolutely beautiful night, not too hot and no black flies.  However, the water fleas are becoming significant.  We spent ample time periodically clearing lines.  I have a couple of reels spooled with 40# test Ande that will need to be deployed on the next outing.

Good luck!

[littleboat]

Great effort to stay the course.

Sent from my SM-A156U1 using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App