Trophy Specialist

It was good talking to you at the ramp today. You made the right decision not going out today. It was pretty brutal out there. We really earned our fish today. My customers are real die hards and convinced me to go out this morning. I was leaning towards not going.

Today we had a beautiful day on the water, which was especially nice after a few days of crazy, unstable weather. We still took good catches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but it sure is a lot easier and more fun to catch fish during nice weather. Instead of heading out to where we had been catching consistent limits out in front of Au Gres in deeper water, we decided to try a spot where we really hammered them last week. I hadn't been able to return to that more distant hot spot due to the constant threat of stormy weather all week. Unfortunately though, my plan A spot did not produce any decent sized fish, so we relocated to my Plan B spot and found some good fish nearby. My customers then proceeded to take a nice limit catch of dandy walleyes well before noon. It wasn't non-stop action, but it was consistent and all the fish in that area were 18 to 23 inches, which are nice, chunky eaters for sure. We took all our fish trolling our lures near the bottom. I ran a mixed spread of Hot N' Tots and spinner/crawler rigs and they hit both presentations about equally well. Bigger fish certainly came on the Tots though. A faster trolling speed of 1.6 to 1.8 was best, but we did take a few fish a bit faster or slower on turns. I had only been having luck with Fire Tiger Tots this week, and they did hit those today, but they also began to take chrome patterns today too. Crawler harness patterns did not matter as we took walleyes on both natural and bright colored rigs. I also talked to some other anglers today that did very well straight out from Au Gres in deeper water where we had been fishing over the weekend. I also saw someone launch a 27 foot boat today (Sportcraft) at the DNR ramp with no problems. The water has come up there about one foot since late April when I got to Au Gres, which is great. Capt. Mike Veine

We had a phenomenal morning of walleye fishing on Saginaw Bay this morning. We set lines at about 8:00 and by 9:00 we were limited out with a nice catch of eaters and some bigger ones too up to about five pounds. The area I fished was good last week, so since I had an eight hour trip, we made the rather long run and tried it again this morning. This spot is either full of fish or void of walleyes, so I usually only fish it on 8 hour trips in case the fish aren't there and I have to relocate. We set lines and began trolling south with the wind and had non-stop action for about two miles. I never got a chance to turn around as we never stopped catching fish. We had very active fish at our spot today, to I increased the trolling speed to 1.7 mph and didn't loose many fish as a result. We took most of our fish on crawler harnesses fished just off the bottom. We also pulled two Hot N' Tots and took a couple fish on those crankbaits (bigger fish), but the crawlers were definitely taking more hits this morning. Yesterday, Hot N' Tots produced better than crawlers, but that was in a totally different area under much different conditions. Harness colors did not mater today as the three drastically different patterns I used all took hits about equally. I don't have a charter scheduled tomorrow, and since the weather is predicted to be ideal and I know where a massive concentration of walleyes are, if I don't book a trip, I will take my wife our fun fishing. By the way, we didn't have another boat near us in the area we fished too. Capt. Mike Veine

I saw you guys out there Friday and Sat. Nice job.

Very nice catch. Saginaw Bay certainly is a jewel.

The bite certainly changed big time from yesterday to today. First thing in the morning we hit the spot where we finished off yesterdays successful charter and did pick up a few quick fish but then that spot died. We then went to deeper water and picked up a few more sporadic walleyes, but the high numbers of fish that had been stacked up out in front of Au Gres were not showing up in mass on my graph. We then ran five miles to another spot and only managed a few undersized walleyes there. We then headed to my plan D spot and almost immediately started hitting some nice walleyes there. By then the sun was very bright overhead and the Bay was dead flat, but none-the-less we kept picking away at the fish at my plan D spot and managed a very nice box of fish indeed (two bucket full limits). The fish there ran pretty good size too with only one fish under 19 inches and several in the mid-20s. We took all our walleyes today on crawler harnesses fished near the bottom at 1.4 to 1.5 mph. Bright colors like florescent orange and chartreuse worked best. I tried messing around with crankbaits all day today and never took a single walleye on those rigs. Today's charter emphasized the benefits of 8 hour charters compared to 5 hour trips. We took the majority of our fish during the last few hours of the charter. It also personified persistence too: we just kept trying different spots until we found active fish. Dead calm, sunny days often are the toughest days to catch quantities of walleyes too. It's nice to fish on nice days, but walleyes typically bite best on days with a chop and/or cloud cover. Capt. Mike Veine

We had an absolutely beautiful day of fishing on Saginaw Bay today with sunny skies, light winds and near perfect temperatures in the low 70s. The only down side today was the winds kept switching directions, but even that didn't seem to impact the walleye bite as we caught walleyes steady all day today. My customers caught in excess of 40 nice walleyes catching and releasing most of the fish caught today. They did take some filets home today though and so did I. My dinner today consisted of fresh, pan fried walleye with fried potatoes washed down with ice cold Busch beer. My fish recipe was simple: dip the fillets in beaten egg and then dredged through Italian bread crumb and then into the hot oil. Fried golden brown on both sides and seasoned with salt and pepper, all I can say is that it was delicious. We caught our fish today on a modest trolling spread with crawler harnesses and crank baits. Rattling Shad Raps are still working good and producing bigger fish and harnesses fished on the bottom also produced hookups every few minutes all day. Color was not a factor today. A trolling speed of 1.5 to 1.6 mph worked wonders but we did catch some going faster and some going slower. We trolled all over the place today just staying away from all other boats taking fish in waters ranging from 15 to 27 feet deep. We never trolled over the same area twice and just kept catching walleyes everywhere we went. Most of the fish we caught were around 20 inches, but we did take some smaller and some bigger with only a couple undersized fish taken today. This is some awesome fishing out of Au Gres now indeed. Capt. Mike Veine

You certainly didn't need ice in your cooler this morning to keep your drinks cold. Not only was there frost on my windshield, but there was also frost on the docks too. The cold temps combined with the brisk winds made it rather chilly indeed. None-the-less, my charter customers had a very successful day on the Bay. I had the Kool-Aid Drinkers party on my boat today. They didn't get their nickname from doing what they were told without question, but rather because they were actually drinking Kool-Aid all day. The bite today was ultra light with most of the fish just latching on and not pulling much at all. The walleyes were widely scattered too. In fact we probably had over 50 walleyes on today and never had a double header once. The action was not steady either. The winds kept coming and going and whenever the wind calmed down, the fish would quit biting. When the wind kicked back up, we would get some strikes. We fished the same pattern as my last few trips with the outside boards pulling Chrome, Rattling Shad Raps and the other six rods loaded up with crawlers fished on the bottom with bottom bouncers. All the fish that hit the Raps were bigger ones. Those Rattling Shad Raps are also one of my favorite crankbaits on Erie when we are fishing in low-visibility water, such as the current conditions out of Au Gres. We did take some nice sized fish on the crawlers too, but we also took some barely legal fish on those rigs. We only took one undersized fish today. Speed was critical today with hits coming at 1.4 to 1.5 mph. Any slower and we were dragging the bouncers; any faster and the fish just wouldn't hit. We took fish over a wide area today ranging from 15 to 30 feet deep. I marked scattered fish where ever I went, so just covering water as efficiently as possibly seeking out active fish proved to work best. Today's limit catch extended my streak of 100% limits on charters during May. Taking all these limit catches in tough fishing conditions really exemplifies the world class walleye fishery in the Bay this year. Capt. Mike Veine

Just in case you are interested, if you add some Wilson Sharp Cheddar cheese and a bit of broccoli to macaroni and cheese and serve it next to venison bratwurst and wash it down with Labatt beer, it really makes for a nice quick dinner after a day on the water. We had a challenging day walleye fishing out of Au Gres today. Of course we started out trolling where we left off yesterday when the fish were snapping up our lures with reckless abandon. We boxed six nice walleye pretty quick and then the wind shifted to the north east and the water temp in the area we were fishing quickly dropped five degrees and the fish stopped biting completely. We then tried another spot that was good at this time of the year last year and blanked there. On the way to my plan C spot, I noticed a bunch of fishy looking marks on my sonar and we stopped there and decided to give it a try. We started connecting with fish right away running a mixed spread of stick baits and crawler harnesses in fairly shallow water. It didn't take very long for my customers to pull in limit catches of some nice walleyes. Our biggest fish (27") all came on the stick baits (Rouges) fished about 10 feet down. We caught more fish though on crawler harnesses fished near the bottom. Chartreuse and orange were the best colors, but they did bite pretty good on other harnesses patterns as well. With this string of nice weather predicted, the next week should produce some outstanding catches on Saginaw Bay. I have been posting a lot more fishing reports on my website if you are interested more of this kind of info.

Frank, you mentioned larger blades: I have been running #3 blades on all my harnesses all spring and summer this year and have not changed over to larger blades yet. I basically use small blades on the bottom and larger (5-7) when the walleye suspend. Capt. Mike

The walleyes have already moved north as I talked to several people that took good catches north of Big Charity today. I won't head out to the Islands though until the bite closer dies. Today the action was none stop until we boxed out before noon with 25 walleyes (and we got a late start at 8:30). This is some of the best walleye fishing I've seen on the bay ever right now. Last year our best bite occurred during July and it might actualjly get beter this year yet. Capt. Mike

Frank, I ran by you guys on the way in today. Yesterday we set lines at 7:45 and pulled lines with limits at 9:05. Today we set lines at 8:00 and pulled them at 9:00 with limits in the box. The fishing now is as good as it gets with all sizes of fish hitting everything like crazy. Capt. Mike

The walleye fishing remains excellent on Saginaw Bay out of Au Gres. Today we kept 25 walleyes and released a bunch more trolling with spoons. Our best spoon was a Moonshine Walleye Spoon in Crab Cakes pattern (silver back), but we also caught some fish on Red Grape and Glow Purple Nose. We were pulling the spoons at 1.8 to 1.9 mph set 70' behind the Church Tackle Walleye Boards. I used 030 Jet Divers to take the spoons down to the fish. This was some of the best fishing we've seen this year and all indications point towards the fishing just getting better and better as the spring turns into summer off Au Gres. We took fish of many different year classes today, which ranged from 5" on up to some real chunkers. The future of this fishery looks outstanding with all the small fish coming up, which will provide world class fishing for the foreseeable future. Capt. Mike Veine

The fishing is red hot now out Au Gres on Saginaw Bay. My customers took limit catches this morning with most of the fish running over 20". In fact, we have limited out on every charter for weeks, but the fishing the last five days has been especially phenomenal. Yesterday, my customers took there limits of dandy walleyes in about two hours of fishing and since they invited me to a fish fry for dinner later that day, I also caught my limit and supplied all the fish for the meal. Deep fried Vidalia Onion rings, deep fried sweat potatoes and a pile of deep fried walleye put us all in deep fried heaven. Top that off with cole slaw, assorted veggies and water melon for desert along with a few beers, and it just doesn't get much better than that. The last few days we have been fishing in deeper waters (35' to 45') pulling assorted crawler harnesses both near the bottom and suspended. The bite has been pretty light this week, but the sheer numbers of walleyes in the area still result in a some great catches for us none the less. I am marking millions of walleyes on my graph, so I do believe that the best fishing this year is yet to come. We are still experiencing heavy bug hatches (mostly mayflies) and the walleyes are really feasting on that bountiful food supply making them harder to catch. Once the hatches die down the walleyes will really start snapping and the fishing will really go off the charts. Capt. Mike Veine

We had a fun day on Saginaw Bay walleye fishing today. It started out a little choppy with 2-3 foot waves, but it eventually calmed down to smooth seas and nearly calm conditions. We started out fishing off Point Au Gres in 30 feet of water trolling with the north/east wind. We picked up 10 keeper walleyes in four hours of fishing with the walleyes in that area holding tight to the bottom. We then moved deeper for the second half of the trip and found suspended walleyes in about 40' feet or deeper waters. We hammered them there filling our limits on those fish and all of them were chunky walleyes in the 20 to 26" range. Fire/tiger or chrome/chartreuse blades on the crawler harnesses were best out deep fishing with three ounces of weight 30 to 40 feet behind the boards trolling at 1.2 to 1.4 mph. We also took fish with 1.5 ounce weights 70 feet back on the outside boards. Capt. Mike Veine

After a few days off the water due to inclimate weather, we hit Saginaw Bay today and noticed right off that the water temperature had dropped about 10 degrees since my last trip. The weather this morning featured a stiff wind, but luckily it was off-shore and we were able to fish, but only close to Au Gres. We found walleyes willing to bite right away in waters 29-31 feet deep. My customers pulled their limits in about four hours of fishing, which consisted of walleyes 15" to 24", but a couple larger fish were lost close enough to the boat where we got a good look at them. We tried to fish for suspended fish today, but all our fish were taken near the bottom using crawler harnesses. Silver blades were definitely best today with a trolling speed of 1.3 to 1.4 mph being what they wanted. The fish were holding very tight to the bottom today and they were biting very light too as we lost at least as many fish as we caught, but only went through a little over a dozen night crawlers as most of the fish we caught didn't even pull and tug enough to damage the crawlers much. It was not easy fishing today with the constantly cooled down water, changing winds and varying barometric pressure. I didn't hear of anyone else that did much good today. With the predicted, stabile weather pattern this week, things should improve to awesome fishing here once again. Capt. Mike Veine

While I was waiting out the storm yesterday sitting in my truck at the H&H Bakery I got to see a tornado pop up, then disinigrate only lasting 30 seconds. I'd guess the the twister was over by the High School. I know there were some trees down in town, but I hadn't heard much else about it. That's the second tornado I've seen at Au Gres. Another one was out over the Bay and also on the back side of a big storm. That one though stayed on the water for at least 10 minutes heading for Sand Point. I got some good photos of that one. Capt. Mike

I was surprised to see you in your "personal parking spot" yesterday morning. That wind was fierce in the morning. I tried to call you on the radio from the parking lot, but you must have been out too far to hear. We went out at 2:00 and it had died down a lot by then. The fishing was decent yesterday afternoon as we took a good box of fish in about four hours of fishing. You were still out when I launched, but I didn't see you out there. Mike

The walleye fishing out of Au Gres has been awesome this week on Saginaw Bay. My customers limited out on walleyes today in about three hours of fishing and also took one bonus perch too. No junk fish were caught in the last two days. With walleyes priced at about $20 per pound at the supermarket, my customers really cashed in with a very valuable catch indeed. We took all our fish on crawler harnesses fished near the bottom. There was no preference in lure colors today as everything I ran took fish. I used blades in silver, chartreuse, orange and fire/tiger with good success. My speeds were in the 1.2 to 1.5 mph range and we trolled with the wind all the way today. We set lines in deeper water and trolled one, stright, five mile long trolling pass never turning once and taking fish all along the way until we pulled lines in 25 foot of water with limits in the box. The fish were widely scattered the last two days and holding tight to the bottom. The recent heavy bug hatches (Mayflies and Midges) are what the walleyes are feeding on now so they are holding deep during the day. Capt. Mike Veine

Frank, I didn't see you out there today. It started out kind of rough going out, but then it calmed down, but the bugs were not a problem for us today, but if we had stayed out longer, then they were just starting to come out when we left. We did very well today in the same area taking limits in about three hours. There were a lot of suspended fish today as we took about half our fish half way down and the rest just off the bottom. Fire Tiger was good today on the bottom and Water Mellon was good up high. We took some bigger fish up to about 25" today too, which was nice. Capt. Mike Veine

It was a lot slower today, but it was a beautiful day on the Bay none-the-less. It took us the full 8 hour charter to take 20 keepers. We probably sorted though 60+ walleyes today to take my customer's limits. Our biggest fish today was 26" and a fire tiger harness was best, but we did catch fish on all sorts of blades/bead combos. 23-25 foot of water had a lot of fish in it, but they hit in spurts with some long lulls in the action. The winds were not steady today at all , which was likely the culprit. Capt. Mike Veine

The fishing has been good for walleyes on Saginaw Bay. Today, my charter customers took limit catches fishing in waters 25 to 32 feet deep. We caught all our fish on crawlers on the bottom. We took a lot of smaller fish today, but we did manage to catch plenty of bigger ones too for a nice mix. After we found the fish, which took an hour, we never went for more than five minutes this morning without "fish-on" action. They seemed to be biting better today with the warming water temperatures into the high 50s now. The fishing will likely continue to get better and better this spring as there seems to be more fish than ever this year. Capt. Mike Veine

Saginaw Bay has has several huge walleye year classes in the past four years. There are going to be a ton of three year old fish this year that we'll have to measure a lot, early in the season, but will mostly be keepers during the summer. There will also be a lot of two year old fish too this year that we'll have to sort though. The next four years on the Bay will likely offer some of the best walleye fishing ever though. Capt. Mike Veine

We limited out today in about four hours of fishing taking fish to 24". Same program as yesterday. It took about 3-4 bites for every fish caught today so still very light biting. We took about 10 undersized fish today too. Capt. Mike Veine