Ludington Area Fishing Reports

We have been fishing up north the last three days. Monday morning we got off to a good start. When the action slowed inside  we moved out to deeper water and hit a few fish out there. We went back on the afternoon trip and fished between 170 & 200 feet of water (fow) and had 5 bites – 3 fish. Yesterday morning started out good too. We hit eight and boated six. Then the wind stared blowing hard from the northwest and the fish shut down for us. It was nearly unfishable by the time the trip ended. We figured the water would be colder at the Point after yesterdays big blow, but we didn’t expect the 46 degree surface temp when we shut down south of the Stick. There was only one other boat up there and it was trolling south toward warmer water. We started trolling north hoping to find warmer water north of the Point. We only had 2 rods set when the first one took off. It was a pair of Green Skinny Jeans on an out down set at 35 feet. We had a mag Fuzzy Bear on the main and a regular DW free sliding .  That combo has taken our first fish the last 3 mornings.  A low wire diver out 45 ft. with a 10″ White Crush Green Scale Spin Doctor /Action Fly Meat Rig took the next King. It went 2 more times during the morning flurry. First mate Austin saw how high the bites were coming and raised his out down with a 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend Spin Doctor/Ocean Mist Action Fly up to 40 feet. It was only there for a second when a big King nailed it. It went 2 more times at 40 ft. and once at 60 ft. later in the morning. We had 2 three color core bites, one on a #3 Double Glow Plug and the other on a Yeck Fire Ball. The water was really moving and the currents were strong. It was hard to maintain a good trolling speed. A slow troll was best for us. We tried to keep the speed at the ball on our Fish Hawk between 2.0 & 2.3. After the early bite we went dead. We trolled into 50 feet and back out to 120 ft. with no more bites. We finally  took it out deep and hit four more fish out there landing two of them. A high wire out 120 with our same hot low wire set up took a King and a 7.5 color core with a #3 Chrome Redhead J-Plug took a Steelhead. We missed one on the 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend on an out down and lost one on a 11″ White Fish Scale Paddle/Blue Bubble Action Fly down 71 on the chute rigger. We use Dreamweaver Premium Strips in all our meat rigs and Morgan’s Tackle copper on all our copper rods.

We had a double today and fished both trips up north. We hit a couple fish early. One on a mag Fuzzy Bear Yellowtail 65 down on an out down and the other on a #3 Double Glow Black Ladder Back plug on a 175 copper. We rode for a while before taking a King on a 250 copper with a #Blue Splatter Back plug. We took a Laker on a Tin Can Dodger/Green Chartreuse Spin -N-Glow fished near bottom then took another King on a 10″ White Atomic Killer Spin Doctor/Green Moo Dreamweaver Meat Rig out 100 on a low wire diver. We took a King on an out down set at 85 with a 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend Spin Doctor/Ocean Mist Action Fly. Our last 2 Kings came on high wire divers. First was a 10″ Shocker Spin Doctor/UV on Ice Big Water Meat Rig out 165 and the second on a 10″ Mountain Dew Slick Spin Doctor/4th of July Big Water Rig. Eight bites eight fish in the boat. That doesn’t happen very often. The strong east wind made it hard to get a decent troll all morning. The wind died for our afternoon trip and it was much easier to get a good troll. We hit 2 Kings before we had all our rods set. First one was on the out down set at 85 with the 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend Spin Doctor/Ocean Mist Action Fly. That combo took another King later in the trip. The second on a 250 copper with a 8″ UV Lizard Spin Doctor/4th of July Big Water rig. We took a Laker on our chute rigger with our Trout rig and missed another on it. Our high diver out 210 went with the same Shocker/UV On Ice set up and a low wire out 145 with a 10″ White Crush Green Scale Spin Doctor/Action Fly Meat Rig went three times. We missed a nice one on a 300 copper with a 10″ Kevorkian Spin Doctor/Green Gasoline Dreamweaver Rig. We had 12 bites and boated 6 of them. Have the day off tomorrow due to a late cancellation and have doubles scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. Probably won’t have time to post another report until Wednesday. We use Dreamweaver Premium Strips in all our meat rigs and Morgan’s Tackle copper on all our copper rods.