mad_max

Does anybody know of any charter captains on Lake Michigan (particularly Milwaukee/Racine area) who run "open charters" where the 4-6 people they take on an offshore trip aren't necessarily in the same party - people just book their reservation at whatever the per-person price is until the boat fills up? I'm trying to find something where I split the cost of the trip with several other fisherman but don't have to assemble a party of several people. I've seen captains elsewhere run their charter operations this way and was wondering if there's a similar opportunity anywhere on the western side of Lake Michigan?

I live a pretty good drive from Lake Michigan, so to make it worth my while I want to go when I can spend the whole weekend there. I'll let you know how I do if I go next weekend or (more likely) the weekend after.

So if I understand you correctly, I should be fishing lures at dawn (and perhaps dusk) early in the season, whereas late fall mid-day with bait starts to be productive? Speaking of bait, can alewives be caught on small jigs and sabiki rigs as you'd use for skipjack/river herring?

It was my understanding that by the time the kings come inshore in the fall they're running rather than feeding? Is this not the case - are some of the kings still in active feeding mode, at least during the earlier part of the fall? Or by feeding fish are you referring to steelhead etc which are feeding when they come in during the late fall and witner?

Thanks for the advice. At what water temperature would you say that live bait really starts to outperform lures? As warm as it's been this summer, I'm guessing the salmon are just barely starting to be within range of pier and breakwater fisherman right now regardless of what lures or baits you throw? If live alewives aren't available, how productive are dead baits fished under a float/drifted? Good to know that I can get away with 20 lb test fluoro leader for kings, I may go that route. I kept a bunch of my saltwater tackle that I used to fish jetties on the Gulf coast that I'd like to recommission for salmon fishing if it's doable.

Newcomer, not newcomber!

I recently moved to Wisconsin and am hoping to try my luck fishing for salmon and trout along the jetties, seawalls, and piers in the Milwaukee area in the coming weeks. As a complete newcomer to this type of fishing, I was hoping to get some advice to point me in the right direction. Some questions that I have: 1. For the fall king salmon run, do people tend to have better luck with live bait (rigged baitfish, egg sacs) or lures? 2. As far as lures go, what size and style spoons tend to be the most productive? Will kings hit large, heavy spoons, or is it better to send small lures their way? 3. How line/leader shy are salmon? I know that steelhead are notoriously line shy (people use 2-4 lb test leaders for them), but is the same true for salmon? I have several saltwater-type rods that would be great for chunking bait and larger spoons off a jetty as I used to on the Gulf Coast, but would such tackle be appropriate for salmon? 4. Last, since the salmon aren't feeding during the pre-spawn and are just doing "reflex strikes", how important is presence of baitfish? For trout, a lot of people say that it's not worth fishing the west shore of the lake unless the wind is coming from the east pushing bait. Does that matter for the salmon? Thanks for any information.