Fishing Report

Very tough day of fishing today. We started out on the Bank north of Ludington in 110 feet of water (fow). The water was warm but it was 49 degrees 95 feet down. We were there early and were hoping to get some King Salmon action. We marked some fish – not a lot but enough so that we were encouraged by what we saw. We trolled to the middle of the 04’s without a bite. I was in contact with three other charter boats fishing the same area and only one of them had a bite. We turned off the Bank and headed west on the same track we took yesterday. We missed a fish on a tin can dodger and a Dreamweaver Yellow Red Dot WhirlyGig down 205 feet in about 300 fow. We went out to 550 fow fishing 16 rods and didn’t have another bite until we turned back south. We finally got our first and only fish of the trip, the beautiful Steelhead pictured above left. It came on a 350 copper with a glow spoon. We had one other bite on a 225 copper and that was it. To say we were disappointed would be a understatement. We had a good crew and they took the lack of action well. They could see we were putting some effort into trying to make it happen.  We marked fish most of the morning but they take what we offered today. We will be fishing again Saturday morning. We use Morgan’s Tackle copper on all our copper rods.

We fished P.M Lake first thing yesterday morning. We heard of some mature Kings staging there prior to their early run up Pere Marquette River. We had 4 Kings on in the hour or so we fished in there. The 2 pictured left hit at he same time. The bigger one took a 10″ Black Green Spin Doctor/Froggie Big Water Meat Rig. The other hit a glow spoon on a rigger down 32 feet. We broke off another one on the chute rigger with a 10″ White Slick Mountain Dew Spin Doctor/Green Mirage Action Fly and we lost one on a 5 color core with a Lucky Charms Dreamweaver Captain’s Choice Cut Plug. After a couple passes around the lake we pulled lines and headed for the Lake Trout grounds south of Ludington. We stopped in 100 feet of water and lowered our Fish Hawk probe to the bottom. The water temperature on the bottom was 65 degrees, too warm for trout. We then went to plan B which was to run out deep to the 42 line and try it out there. A friend told us they caught fish out there Sunday. We set up in the 41’s trolled out to the 44’s and back in to the 39’s and only took two fish. Today we had the same crew and we decided to go up north and fish the Bank. We set up in the 01’s in 160 feet of water and trolled north. The break was down 120 feet. We took it all the way to the 04’s and never had a bite. We put it on a northwest troll and headed for deeper water. We took a trout down 150 on a rigger and took a 14 lb. King on the chute rigger down 220 ft. with a Tin Can Dodger/Yellow Red Dot DW WhirlyGig. Our next fish was a 26 lb. King Salmon that came on a high wire diver out 330 ft. with a 10″ White Slick Spin Doctor/Green Gasoline DW Meat Rig. It put up one heck of a fight. We thought it was fouled hooked until we saw it was hooked right in the jaw. We took 2 Steelhead on a 350 copper with a mag size Fuzzy Bear Skinny Jeans. We took a Coho  and  2 more Lakers to finish out the morning. We use Dreamweaver Premium Strips in all our meat rigs and Morgan’s Tackle copper on all our copper rods.