Casey II

I went to the township meeting with a group that hunts Lake Mac. There was good hunter participation and a lot of camo in the room. A retired DNR officer spoke against the proposal citing that in his 20 some years of monitoring the lake he had only given one citation. That was for a loaded firearm in a boat. Also mentioned was that there have been no hunting related accidents on the lake and many spoke as to the very limited time that hunting actually occurs. The aforementioned sailboater spoke. He voiced his fear of being shot by duck hunters on Chip point while sailing down the channel connecting Big Bay to the main lake. Others also had saftey concerns. Others simply voiced anti-hunting sentiment. Your opinions can be submitted via the following link: http://www.parktownship.org/2013/02/27/dnr-public-hearing-lake-macatawa-hunting/

Lakeshore Outfitters will be having their 3rd annual Salmon Spectacular on March 20th from 5-9 PM. Aaron has awesome speakers lined up and is giving away even more quality tackle this year. Here is the link: http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=m8vkd8kab&oeidk=a07e73bhgvt37a312a6

+1 for Don/Tangled Mess if you're headed out of Holland. Might want to hop on a few on a few of the other Holland boats from this website when they are looking for riders too. Eveyone does things a little different boat to boat but it will give you a starting point. Lakeshore Outfitters is having their Salmon Spectacular on March 20, 5-9 pm at the Holland Fish and Game Club. Brian Butts and Dave Mull will be speaking. Aaron is going to give away a ton of quality stuff.

Tj is asking 20K for a 23 foot Trophy. It is outfitted for salmon. His name on here is Twilli23. Pm if you are interested.

If you want to fish the islands area, East Harbor State Park is nice. It has its own boat launch and fish cleaning station. Park is huge and offers about any kind of site. Launch maybe a little shallow for a 26' thought. There are two boat launches within 10 min though. One is on Catawba island and is called Catawba State park. The other is east and is called Mazurik boat launch.

Actual date is Wednesday March 20th for the Lakeshore event...must have been a little sleepy at work last night

We run both leadcore and copper. Just starting with long lines, I think you will get more use out of copper. 150, 200, 250, and 300 are pretty common lengths. Can't go wrong with Blood Run in the way of backer, copper and flouro. Depending on how many and what lengths you decide on you might want to price out a full spool. Okuma CVs are about the best reel for the $. They have decent entry level rods in their classic line as well. Check out the shows and shop around for sure before buying. Aaron will be open March 1st. Lakeshore will have the Salmon Spectacular on March 27th and will be raffling off 10 rod/reel combos in addition to riggers and various baits. They will also have a bag that you can fill up in the shop at 15-20% off if memory serves me. Take a look on this site or ask someone to show you how to mend copper and tie appropriate knots. Might not even be a bad idea to book a charter with one of those captains mentioned above to get a feel for things.

If you're willing to travel, St Joe can be awesome for spring coho. On a normal year, fishing starts down there in March in shallow, say 8-15fow. We run Thins fins on long lines and short cores. J-11 rapalas on the riggers. Oranges, golds and reds are good colors. As the water warms small orange/red dodgers and flies take off. You will get a pretty good idea on when it starts by watching the reports on this site. Last year spring fishing was nuts out deep in Holland very early as Jimmy described. The lack of winter in 2012 influenced that. So far this year seems to be setting up in a similar manner. Best of luck.

Fishing out of Holland as of yesterday was best in 180-210 FOW. I'm hoping this NW blow will cool it down a bit and bring them in closer by the time you get here. You can launch out of the State launch off Ottawa Beach Rd. It is a nice launch and has the best fish cleaning station in the area. Be mindful of the buoys as there are no wake zones and shallow areas in Lake Macatawa. You could also launch out of Port Sheldon which is between Holland and Grand Haven. VHF channel 68 is monitored by most fisherman. Can always call Aaron at Lakeshore Outfitters for a fishing report. 269 857-2248 Best of Luck

We typically make an annual trip up there starting around now. After talking with three separate groups of fisherman it sounds like the fishing is fairly slow around the Frankfort area. They are getting 5-6 fish per trip. One group went to South Manitou and hammered fish 2 days straight but thats a 22 mile run each way. That said the next 2 days Michigan is getting hammered by a hard north wind and I suspect this will change this dramatically. We decided to just stay in Holland this year since the fishing has been awesome. How are the pheasants doing this year?

We bleed both salmonids and walleye. We just pull a gill or two and let them bleed out in the cooler. Their gills break quite readily if you just pull them by hand as Don described. Final result is easier cleaning and better fillets.

This might help you with your decisions. It is a reel fill calculator that will help you determine varying amounts of line that will fit on your reels. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53&d=1264888188 From the lure end I spool mine: Flourocarbon-Copper-short section of 50 lb mono-Braid-short section mono. Attach your board to the mono and replace/tie it when it gets chaffed. I use a small Spro power swivel between the 50 lb braid and mono. Good Luck.

Here are the pics from the week. The spoon TJ mentioned is a UV streak names Chunky Monkey.

Good Job. Sounds like a great time.

Here are the pics:

Fished both mornings. 4 man limits each day mainly comprised of kings, occasional coho and one big LT. Best water was 120-140 essentially straight out of the harbor. Riggers 80-100 down, wire divers 140-200 back, 225&300 coppers did the majority of the damage for long lines. Moonshine spoons(flounder pounder, moonshine, happee meal, RV happee meal) were best Tuesday. Worked well today until the sun got high. Then switched to regular streaks with UV pink panties and UM frog being the best. Mixed Veggies also took fish. Paddles in green/white with slick glow and green flies were good on divers. SDs in chrome/MTN dew with mirage fly on the high wires. Best speed was 2.5 on the ball. Will get pics up soon. Good luck this weekend.

Fished multiple trips off my boats and others(Thanks TJ). Evening trips in Saugatuck found us running from a storm one night ending with 3 kings and 9 kings on friday night. Best water was 160 a little south. Moonshine spoons, Paddles and Spinnies accounted for those fish. Majority of my fishing was out of Holland. Seems three groups of fish exist. The first are at the piers, the second run from 120-140, and the furtherest we found were 180-190. Green and white paddles on wire divers and similar SDs paired with green flies have been awesome. Moonshines on the riggers and coppers also produced with Happee Meal, Flounder Pounder, and Moonshine being some of the best. It seemed like it would not stop raining today. Every time I thought it would let up it started raining harder. Today: Friday:

The TX-44 will pull pretty much anything you can think to attach behind it. We use them to pull 300 and longer coppers. Just don't let it dive...major pain in the butt.

Awesome!

Fished from 1400-1830. 160-180 FOW was best. Went 22 for 26 releasing a shaker and a large king. We kept 13 kings, 5 coho, 2 big fat LT. Riggers down 110-165. Happee Meal, Double Trouble. White spinny/green fly. Kings and LTs were packed with bait. Wire divers back 200-240. All spinnies with chrome/purple mirage,white killer/hypnotist, Mountain dew/mirage fly were best. 5/7 colors took coho with regular/mini streaks.

Fished with a friend in the AM from 0830-1100. Went 14 for 15 (released 4). 13 Kings/1coho. 130-140FOW best. Moonshine spoons on all 3 riggers pulled the majority of the fish. Wire dipsies back 200 pulling mountain dew or chrome spinnies. Evening fished the same water from 1800-2030 going 15 for 20(5 were shakers and released). Ended with 7 kings/3coho. Spinnies on wire and riggers were best. 300 copper with yellow submarine went a few times. Here are the pics: Wire Dipsy going off is distracting:

Wind cut our trip short today fishing from 0800-1100. NOAA has been way off recently. Set up short of 120 and trolled SW to 190 taking fish along the way. The majority seemed to be 120-140. Difficult troll north back forced us to pick up and motor to get reset. Fished another 30 minutes before calling it. The fishing was awesome as we never had more than 6 lines set without having fish on. Went 12/20ish with a big laker, coho and the rest kings. Spoons on the riggers from 70-120 down. Wire divers with spinnies back 140-190. Didn't have long stuff out very long but our 225 copper was good.

Fished bankers hours from 1330-1600 with a friend. Went 10/12 with 8 good sized kings and 2 coho. Fished from 120-200 fow. Coho hit 5 and 10 color with orange mini streaks. Kings came on riggers from 80-120 down pulling mag moonshines and off wire back 140-180. Spoons were Hapee Meal and Flounder Pounder. Spinnies were green glow with green fly.

Jigged/Handlined the lower channel from #13 south to calf island. Jigged a few hours before the sun went down on the 26th and took 10 males 20-25". Mostly on chartreuse/orange jigs with minnows. Set up for handlining below the catamaran and made one pass up to the cat and across which landed us an additional 4 fish which we released. #11 Clown and #9 Hot Steel on a 30ft and 15 ft lead respectively.. Next morning the mud and wind were worse. We took 3 pretty quick below the stacks then had a trolling motor issue which required the dock to fix. By the afternoon the river was pretty muddy. Went out that evening and handlined a few hours and took two fish. One of which was 27" and got put back. Tight lines.