Turfwrench

We had a great season out of Pt. Sanilac this season. I didn't get as early a start as I would have liked due the a head on deer accident on the first trip with the boat that put my tow vehicle out of commission for 3 weeks. Had good action on lakers, cohos, pinks, steelhead, walleye, a few browns, and even got an atlantic salmon. Only a couple trips produced 0 fish. The kings did elude us but I did get my fix of them on a couple trips to Frankfort. Was nice to note that the sea fleas were less of a problem this season. It is nice to be able to troll a wide spread without combat like on the west side. The only problem on this side seemed to be the sailboats that liked to take dead aim and see how close they could get. I certainly look forward to next season.

Come on now Robert, you are burning daylight. I will have to say that getting up early has been in my blood since I went in the service in the late 70's. Even though I retired from the service 15 years ago I still get up around 3 or 4am. Especially great for my fishing as I am a little over an hour away from where I fish, either Saginaw bay or Pt. Sanilac.

The ole saying "don't leave fish to find fish" has proven itself to me many times. As I fish mostly southern Lk Huron, once I hit upon fish I mark it on my chartplotter and continue to work the area. I will work large circles around the area and try to follow the direction they are heading usually trying to keep it within 1/4 mile radius.

For me it would be the auto pilot. I have yet to find anyone that can drive the boat the way I wish they would. Especially when setting lines, for some reason they always seem to make doughnuts. The manual riggers I love and don't mind the workout as it keeps me in shape for reeling in the big fish. I feel that a quality fish finder is one of my best tools as it will show the thermocline and most importantly what depth the fish are holding.

Keep us posted, what a great deal. As a retired U.S. Navy man I certainly would enjoy taking a couple fellow servicemen/women out.

Nice catch and love the background. Being originally from central PA myself I enjoy seeing pics from back home. I got my young start on fishing there and spent many hours fishing the Susquehanna River and always had great brook trout fishing at Parker's Dam. It is hard to beat the mountain streams for trout fishing. (Just had to keep an eye out for the snakes)

Great way to end the season. Makes one wish the season was not ending.

Nice fish and fast action to boot. Is it spring yet??

I personally like running boards off the mast and have for many years. I used to run a set of double boards that I made and they worked great until I recently got a set of otter boats. I was certainly impressed with the boats in how they pulled, the way they glide on the water and over the waves, the speed in which I can run them, and the ease of retrieving them. Although I do not run core, my buddy does off of his boards with no problems. I mostly run divers or spoons with inline weights and when the fish are shallow run a lot of shallow running baits and spoons with lighter weights. I have also had great success running the boards in the scum lines out of frankfort. I have tried the in-lines several times but just don't like the extra junk on my line, especially as I run lite line. To me the in-lines are handy if I want to run one line off each side.

Geeze, that would be nice. One would think in todays modern world that we could have great access to that information. A couple of buoys scattered across the lakes really do not do me justice to where I fish. Real time info would be great. I know my marine radio will jump to the weather channel when serious weather is approaching which is a great thing, but it usually doesn't jump in on wave height increase.

Nice fish. Looks like a great time was had.

Wife and I hit Pt Sanilac for some shallow water fishing. Met the water with some nice sets of rollers coming from the NE to the tune or 2-4 footers, and add some NW winds on top to get a nice chop on top of the rollers. Set the riggers and a couple flat lines. 2nd pass yielded a feisty brown off the flat line. Swung boat back around and lit into a nice laker on a spoon set 11 down off the rigger. Thought action was going to be hot and heavy, then it just died. Headed out to deep water in search of more action but the fish we marked were dormant. Trolled in toward cherry creek and continued to work shallow waters, hit a smallmouth on the flat line, felt sorry for this guy as he had some bad growths on it. Before long bagged 2 more steelies and another laker. Most fish came in water 11-30', with the largest steelie hitting the rigger 7' down 30 back. Guess they aren't too boat shy. Would like to get back out but the weather for the rest of the week sounds crappy, especially the wind predictions. The lakers and the smallmouth were returned back to the water. It is nice fishing this time of year, we were the only boat out there!

Josey, now is the time to hit Sanilac. Made it up there today and there are a lot of fish in shallows. Water temp outside the wall was 58 and the fish were jumping this morning. Trolled the shallow waters and ended up with 2 lakers, 3 steelhead, 1 brown, and 1 smallmouth bass. The bass and the lakers went back in. There were some nice perch caught in the harbor today as well and seen a large school of browns inside the harbor also.

Thanks for the update. Pretty soon the lakers should start coming in also. Last year I was into them good on 10/18 near the mouth of the Black. Water must still be a little warm. Wife and I are going to go out of Sanilac tomorrow and run some shallow water for a while and see what transpires.

Well done, and again, great pics!

I run both types of sliders, free and fixed. The free are the easiest to run and very effective. I run the fixed when I want to concentrate lures in a specific area. I run the fixed in two different ways. 1st way: set main line to rigger, and lower to your desired separation, in my case mostly 10 - 15feet. I then half hitch a rubber band around the rigger cable, open the swivel on the slider and attach over the main rod line and the rubber band. Then send it down to depth. 2nd way and more desirable to me is to set the rigger line and drop it to the desired separation depth, half hitch a rubber band to the main rod line then attach the slider on top of it with the rubber and main line in the clip. This seems to put less tension on the main line as it allows the natural bow of the line instead of being pinned to the rigger cable in two places. Hope this helps. I use 15# line on all my trolling rods and the same line for my sliders.

The daughter and I hit Pt. Huron this morning. Put in at the 12st launch before daylight and headed south of the Black toward the Bean. Set up and started trolling upriver past the city buildings. Made several passes up and down stream, marked a few areas of fish but no takers. Worked the deeper water up further toward the bridge, marked more fish in the deeper waters but still no takers. There were about 15 guys on the walk by the city building in the morning and several more just south of the bridge on the wall. Surprisingly, there were several boats out trolling this morning up through around noon. Did not see any fish caught off the wall or by any of the boats. There are fish around but were uncooperative. The water was pretty clear this morning and it was bright out so that probably contributed to the lack of success. On a good note, I did not run into very many weeds this trip, that was a plus. Maybe the NE winds will stir up some more water out in the lake and send down some more murky water. On a side note: I know what ya mean about the other boaters there. Seems the pleasure boaters have no courtesy for anyone on the river. They take dead aim and see how close they can get to the people fishing and trolling. Nothing more enjoyable than having a set of huge wakes give you a nice rock & roll only to bounce off the seawall and come back at you again. I was really impressed with the individual that had to make a complete circle around us today before he decided to head into the black river..

I plan on going somewhere tomorrow but not sure where yet. The weather forecast has changed again since yesterday and what was supposed to be wnw winds will now be ne. So may go to Pt Huron instead of Sanilac. Will decide after the latest weather info tonight.

Looked at the cam this morning, didn't see anyone on the walls fishing. That was just around sunrise. Lake looked pretty calm at that point. My buddy that lives near there called me a bit ago and said the lake looked great, didn't know if he wanted to take the boat or fish off the wall later this evening. We shall see.

Now that is a great report. Love the visual aids. And a great catch to boot - GJ.

Great pics, thanks for sharing.

Nice job. That is pulling them out of the deep blue. Don't envy the long lines, I get enough workout pulling up my downrigger balls from 100'.

Finally made the trip up to Frankfort. Got to the launch around 9:00am. Seen some fish jumping in the harbor, several trolling inside. Set lines soon after leaving the breakwall. Lit into a laker that was over the slot size so back it went. Seen only one other fish caught so headed it to one of my favorite spots to the north. Hit a flurry of fish. Went 6 for 6 on salmon. It was nice as all the other boats that were out all headed back in and we had the water mostly to our self. Spoons were the ticket, 65-85 down, couldn't get anything going on plugs. The fish were still nice and silver and the eggs were tight. Unfortunately the weather and winds made it impossible to get back out over the weekend. So tried west Traverse bay on Sunday. Windy as the devil and had to contend with the tall ships which was fun to watch. Fishing was rather slow as only netted 1 laker, 1 pink, and one king. All in all, still had a fun weekend.

I was thinking pier fishing, don't think I would need the pole, just a net as the fish would probably wash over the wall. Gotta love all the wind.