Trophy Specialist

I just ordered two new motors today and I am planning to have them installed in April when I move my boat to Au Gres. After doing a lot of research, I decided to buy a new Mercury 150 HP, Four-Stroke. I'm also buying another 9.9 HP Pro Kicker, which is an improved verson of my old kicker motor. Mercury came out with the 150 HP, Four-Stroke a couple years ago and it has received rave reviews. I searched the Internet and could not even find one bad report about that motor, which is amazing for an outboard. It is the largest displacement 150 on the market, yet it is also the lightest 150 four-stroke too. It is advertised as the most powerful of the 150 four-strokes and actually was tested to deliver 165 HP. The motor is quiet, smooth and very energy efficient. It should make a great addition to my Lund Baron boat.

A lot of people have been asking me about the status of the ice on Lake Erie and Saginaw Bay and how it may affect the fishing this spring. In normal years, Lake Erie would be open by now and in some years we have started running charters by this time too. The western basin of Lake Erie is still mostly ice covered though, but there are some areas opening up in front of Monroe and also in front of Luna Pier where the warm water from the power plants dump in. Given warmer weather, it will be at least 10 days before Erie will possibly be fishable. The good news though is that the cold weather and ice cover will delay the spawn, which will put provide some prime fishing during the first couple weeks of April. I am scheduled to move to Au Gres on April 16, and given decent weather, that should be an excellent time to get some bigger walleyes. Right now, the inner part of Saginaw Bay is frozen completely. There is open water though just north of Pt. Lookout by Au Gres. Au Gres should be ice free by April 1 and by April 16, we should see a lot of adult, post spawn walleyes along the Au Gres shorelines.

Here is a walleye fishing video that I put together the other day.

I have some new customers both today and tomorrow from Cincinnati, OH. They had never fished Saginaw Bay before and were treated to an awesome day of fishing today at the Walleye Capital of the World. The bite started out very good as we took eight nice keeper walleyes in the first hour of fishing. Then the wind died down to dead calm conditions and the bite dropped off significantly. We still proceeded to pick away at them though, and before noon, we had limited out with a nice box of prime, eating sized walleyes. We did take a few fish on chrome Hot N' Tots this morning, but crawler harnesses trolled near the bottom were probably better. No particular pattern was best as we took fish on both bright colors and natural colors as well. Trolling speeds of 1.6 to 1.7 mph seemed to be the most productive. We fished a big area in a huge semi-circle coving several miles of water looking for a hot bite, but didn't really find any one hot spot worth circling around on. We did fish way away from other boat traffic though which was nice not having to dodge anybody all morning long. Floating weeds were a problem once again today as they were fouling the lines and boards all the time. I had to pull in the lines to clean and check them every 20 minutes or so to keep things running productively. It's a lot of work fishing in those kinds of weedy conditions, but well worth the effort though. I only have a few more days left at Au Gres before I move my boat to Manistee for some salmon charters. I have a ton of stuff to get done here before I pull out for Manistee, so this will be my last walleye fishing report for the year. This has been an incredible run of walleye fishing for me since I got to Au Gres in April. Since then, I've run a ton of charters here and every single one of those trips have been excellent with good catches on all my Saginaw Bay charters. By far, this year has served up the best walleye fishing I've ever seen before anywhere here on Saginaw Bay. The Bay is certainly now the Walleye Capital of the World. Capt. Mike Veine

My customers experienced another beautiful, fun and productive day on the Bay today. I organized a two boat, eight man charter partnering with Capt. Bill Carter and we took an eight man limit of walleyes with the biggest being 27 inches. We fished in deep water trolling with a variety of presentations: Crawlers fished deep with inline weights or bottom bouncers took the loin's share of the fish, however we also took some on crank baits too with Hot N' Tots weighted to run near the bottom being good. Chrome blades and Chrome Tots were good, but we also caught a bunch of fish on many other colors too. The action was steady all morning with both boats serving up some world class walleye fishing indeed. We are on some super hot walleye fishing right now and this deep water bite should continue until things warm up more around the islands, which is when the fish will move in there big time. It will only get better then. Capt. Mike Veine

We brought in another world class, walleye catch today despite the super tough, fishing conditions. With dead flat, sunny conditions this morning, I wasn't real optimistic about getting into red hot action, but fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised with some unreal walleye fishing. I was running out this morning towards the area where we had caught easy limits the last two day, but before we were even close to that area, I noticed a bunch of fish marks on my graph. I pulled back the throttle for a closer look and saw that the bottom of the Bay there was literally covered with fish, so with no other boats within a mile of us, we set lines in that spot instead. We started catching fish right away with double and triple headers non-stop and the size of the fish today was excellent too. We lost some really big fish today, but we also caught some true lunkers too for an excellent box of fish indeed. We caught fish on everything I had in the water today as long as it was close to the bottom. Both crawlers and Hot N' Tots took fish this morning like crazy. The fishing right now is off-the-charts good, out of Au Gres. Again, I have never seen the fishing this good in my 20 plus years of fishing on the Bay, so you really don't want to miss this incredible fishing opportunity. Capt. Mike Veine

Happy Fourth of July to everyone. We rocked in the fourth today with an awesome day on the water catching limits of walleyes. The weather was nearly ideal with mild temperatures, a nice southerly breeze and a one foot walleye chop. We started catching fish this morning before I could even get all the lines set. In fact there was only one time all morning where I actually got all eight lines in the water without being interrupted by fish-on. We caught 20 keepers today with a good mixture of size in the catch. We lost a very big walleye at the side of the boat that would have been about 28". Even though the bite was non-stop, it was surprisingly a pretty light bite and we lost a lot of fish, especially the bigger ones it seemed. We did catch some big fish though and in the end everyone had a great day on my charter boat. We good action on crawler harnesses early in the morning, but later on the Hot N' Tots lite up with action. Chrome Tots and chrome spinner blades were best today with all our fish coming near the bottom in deep water. Capt. Mike Veine

We went fishing today after five days off the water and I honestly didn't know what to expect. I caught a nasty cold on Friday. Saturday morning brought on more bad fortune as my Mercury Optimax died at the dock. Further inspection revealed that the compressor had broken into pieces and had to be replaced, but thanks to Bill Carter, another local charter captain, I arranged for my customers to salvage their day and Bill got them on some fish. I was planning to fish with Bill on that charter, but when I almost fell into the water on Bill's dock, I knew that my equilibrium was messed up and had to spend most of the next few days in bed. Thanks Bill for saving the day. Inland Marine diligently worked on my motor and due to their extremely prompt and talented mechanical work, I was back on the water yesterday. Thanks Inland. However, the big north east winds had been blowing since Saturday, so I would likely have had to cancel Sunday, Monday and Tuesday anyway due to the nasty weather even if my boat and body had been functional. I was feeling a lot better this moring though and my boat was running like a top however after three days of a north east blow, I knew we faced a fishing challenge. I've faced post cold front, July conditions, dozens of times though on the Bay, so I had a a Plan A, B and C all set and ready for today. We found very cold water out in front of Au Gres, so we just motored south east until the temp climbed up a bit and fish marks started showing up on the graph big time. We set lines and started hooking fish immediately and in one, modestly long, trolling pass my customers were limited out. Since I hadn't eaten any fish myself in a week, I decided to head to even deeper water and try for some fish for my limit. We hit pay dirt again there and my limit didn't take very long to reel in and I was all set for a blackened walleye and five alarm chili dinner, which I just finished before keying in this report. I ran the same mixed Hot N' Tot and spinner/crawler/bottom bouncer spread that I had run on my last charter and never changed a thing as the fish ate everything I had in the water, as long as it was on or close to the bottom. Speeds didn't mater much either as I mostly trolled at 1.4 to 1.7 mph in the two to three footers, but at the end of the trip, when I had limited out, and still had a couple lines left in the water, so I bumped the speed up to 3.0 mph just to keep more fish from hooking up, but we still tied into two more nice walleyes anyway even at those ridiculous speeds and then threw them back. It's been a rollercoaster this week for sure, but the fishing is still red hot despite the tough conditions. As the predicted warmer weather moved in over the next week, the fishing is sure to be off-the-charts, world class out of Au Gres. Capt. Mike Veine

The excellent walleye fishing continues out of Au Gres. We took a nice box of fish yesterday, so we started out fishing that same area this morning. Today we hit the water early this morning, but with dead flat, calm conditions, the bite was very slow for the first two hours. Then when the wind picked up a little and put a slight chop on the water, the walleyes turned on big time. We then caught one fish one after another until a four-man limit was filled including two 27 inchers. Crawler harnesses were the top producer today, but towards the end of the trip, when the fish were biting good, Hot N' Tots began to catch fish too. Silver blades were best early, but towards the end of the trip, everything got hit. We are fishing deep water still. I trolled in one direction this morning for four miles and marked tons of fish all along the way with most of them hugging the bottom. There are still millions of walleye off Au Gres as we are catching few other species of fish, so those marks on the sonar have to be mostly walleyes. We will likely still be fishing close to Au Gres for at least another week before the better fishing relocates out by the Islands or other areas of the Bay. Capt. Mike Veine

My customers experienced another day of world class walleye fishing on Saginaw Bay this morning. We limited out with a nice mixture of eating sized walleyes, mid-sized fish and some jumbo fish too up to 27 inches. We caught 25 keepers by 11:00. We had some fast action right off the bat on the trip, then it slowed up a bit and then picked up later on in the morning. We found a school of big walleyes toward the end of the charter and really took some high quality fish in that area. The best fishing today was for suspended walleyes. We took a lot of fish on Hot N' Tots about 20 feet down over deep water. We also caught a lot of walleyes on crawlers too fishing them about 5 to 10 feet off bottom. No particular color or pattern shined as they hit everything I threw at them. The spoon bite is about to explode on the Bay now that the water is warming up and the fish are getting more and more active. I'll be taking a day off tomorrow heading to the U.P. to spray my food plots on my hunting property, but will be back in Au Gres fishing after that. Capt. Mike Veine

The fantastic fishing continues out of Au Gres with limit catches today consisting of some real nice sized fish. Most of our fish today were over 20 inches. We fished the same area we fished yesterday, but found a school of larger walleyes and worked them throughout the charter by circling around and around on them. Most of our keeper walleyes came on Hot N' Tots fished 75' back behind the boards with 1.5 ounces of weight 5' ahead of the Tots. We fished deep water on those suspended fish. The best trolling speed was 1.6 mph. That put the Tots down about 20 feet below the surface and those lures were hit non-stop. We also ran some spinner crawler rigs with bottom bouncers, but those setups didn't produce as well as yesterday and caught smaller fish compared to the Hot N' Tots. We caught some real dandies today up to eight pounds. This is some of the best fishing I've ever seen on the Bay right now, and the best fishing is likely yet to come when we get into our peak July bite. Capt. Mike Veine

Yesterday I helped out with the Arenac County Walleye Club's walleye pond fish extraction effort. Back in April, the DNR stocked the pond with about 800,000 walleye fry that had just hatched. The fry were nurtured by the club members and grown to fingerling size. We drained the pond down and then collected the fingerlings yesterday evening and loaded them into the DNR's trucks where they were taken to be stocked. Since Saginaw Bay has a huge abundance of walleyes, no fish are being planted there. Instead those fingerlings were transported to inland lakes. From the 800,000 fry, 615,871 survived to fingerling size, which is a new record for the Arenac County Walleye Club. Of those, 147,000 will be stocked into Mansitee Lake (Crawford Co.) and the balance will be put into Mullett Lake. This is strictly a volunteer effort by the Arenac County Walleye Club and a huge thank you is in order (especially to those that fish in Manistee Lake and the Inland Waterway Chain) to those that volunteered their time and/or donated money towards this project. It was a lot of fun helping out and I can't wait to participate again next year. Capt. Mike Veine

We had a great day of walleye fishing on the Bay this morning with 25 keepers in the box well before noon. We ran a mixed trolling spread of Hot N' Tots (middle and outside boards), and spinner/crawler rigs on the inside boards and the two flatlines. Everything was taken near the bottom trolling at about 1.5 to 1.6 mph. Chrome Tots were best, and harness pattern did not matter as they hit the crawlers like crazy on all rigs. It was amazing too see how many fish we marked today on my fish finder in the area we fished. We trolled for about four miles in one direction and never ran out of fish. There are literally millions of walleyes in the Bay now; More than ever before. Most anglers were taking good numbers of fish straight out from Au Gres in deeper water. We, on the other hand fished a bit shallower and didn't have any boats near us all morning accept for a few passerbys. We took a good mixture of fish sizes today with some larger ones, and a bunch of eater sized walleyes too. In fact, I'm having walleye for dinner this evening. I haven't decided on how I'm going to cook it yet, but you can bet that it will taste very good. The accompanying photo is of the cooler full of fish from today. Capt. Mike Veine

After a day off due to high north east winds yesterday, we hit the water today going to the same ara where we did well on Monday. The big blow didn't impact the fishing one bit as my customers took limit catches in short order this morning. The fishing is certainly red hot out of Au Gres now and will likely continue this way for months to come. I have an opening for a charter tomorrow, which is rare for this time of year, which is generally booked solid. The weather tomorrow is predicted to be ideal for walleye fishing too with light southerly winds, and mostly sunny conditions in the low 70s; a perfect forecast indeed. I can guarantee that if someone books tomorrow, that they will catch their limits of walleyes. Today the bite was pretty steady as we ran a mixed trolling spread of Hot N' Tots and spinner crawler rigs. Most of the fish today came on crawlers, but we did take some nice fish on Tots too. At one point we had five fish on at one time, which was while I was making a turn. I talked to other anglers back at the dock that had also limited out and people were catching fish from 12 feet of water out past 40 feet deep. Now that's some good fishing when they are hitting nearly everywhere. Capt. Mike Veine

We've had excellent fishing the last few days with limit catches every day, including today, which was a challenging day whetherwise for sure. We started off with a delayed departure waiting for a rain storm to blow by. We hit the Bay with waves coming from two different directions, which always makes for tough fishing. The wind was out of the north early, but then it switched to the west and then went dead calm with the sun coming out very bright, which made it hot in a hurry. We also had a quick rain fall pass over us this morning. With all the switching of the winds, the fishing was a bit slow as we just picked away at them and eventually took a four man limit of some nice walleyes in five hours of fishing. We ran a mixed trolling spread of four Hot N' Tots and four spinner/crawler rigs. Chrome Tots and Orange and Chartreuse blades were best. At first the fish hit the Tots best, but towards the end of the trip, when the wind died down completely, the crawler rigs produced better. To top off the day, on the way back to port, the wind picked up quickly from the north east and we went from dead flat conditions to choppy whitecaps on the run in. A challenging weather day indeed, but the Bay still produced despite the tough conditions. Capt. Mike Veine

Yup, we caught them good early, then it slowed down, then it picked back up like crazy. Good job.

Nice job. We would have had about 16-18 pounds for our top five fish on Saturday so you did pretty darn good. By the way, I was told on MS that it was "unfishable" on Friday so I guess that you, I and a bunch of other anglers could not have possibly caught any fish that day. LOL

Today was another banner charter with my customers taking 20 nice keepers in about three hours of fishing. Same program and location as yesterday. The bite started off red hot, then when the wind picked up a little from the south, the bite slowed big time for an hour. Eventually the fish started to bit good again and we limited out with a few extras to throw back as we trolled into a active school of fish at the end of the trip. Our biggest fish today was about 25 inches with more smaller fish in the catch than yesterday.

Yup, I agree totally. Every time we catch one of those undersized fish, and some days it's many, I smile from ear to ear as our future walleye fishery looks amazing good. At the ramp the other day, I noticed thousands of fingerling walleyes chasing small minnows around the docks. If that is any indication, it looks like we had another big walleye hatch once again this spring. Let the good times roll. In the 20 plus years I've been fishing the Bay, this year has been the best ever.

My group from Illinois finished up their five day stint fishing with me. In five days on the water, they experienced world class walleye fishing every day and have they have eaten a lot of fresh walleye this week too. The fishing was so good that they have already booked five days for next year, but due to spreading the word, next year we will be running a two boat, five day charter trip for their group. Today we first ran out to deep water and finding rough conditions there, we came back in closer to shore and set lines at about 8:00. By 9:30 my customers were limited out with a dandy box of walleyes. Several of the fish were in the 26 to 28 inch range and we lost several more whoppers in the choppy conditions too. We ran a mixed spread of Hot N' Tots (middle and outside boards) and crawlers with bottom bouncers (inside boards and flat lines). They hit every lure I put in the water this morning as long as it was close to the bottom so no presentation dominated. Our trolling speed was very inconsistent in the surging waves ranging from 1 to 2 mph. I had to throw in a drift sock a couple times when the wind really kicked up. The best part is that we caught the fish on one big, long, down wind, trolling pass. Our fish were caught non-stop over a two mile area. Capt. Mike Veine

There is a log sticking in the bottom of the river with the tip of it just at the surface of the water right at the mouth of the river. It's on the north side of the river (left side as you go out) about 40' from the bank. A guy hit it today and wrecked his prop. There are also lots of trees in the river sticking out along the south side of the breakwall that you need to watch out for. Also, the ice this winter must have pushed some rocks up along the south side of the channel between the pier heads and the buoys. I talked to a repair shop in town and over a dozen boats have hit those rocks, so don't stray right when you are heading out. Go out very stright between the buoys. A boat hit those rocks this morning going out in the fog and he was done for the day. By the way, the fishing is red hot all over around Au Gres now. We fished deep water this morning away from all the boats and limited out in very short order on fish from 15 to 25 inches. Lots of short fish to sort through on the crawlers, but when I fine tuned a Hot N' Tot presentation those rigs took all bigger fish. I fished the Tots 90' back with a 1.5 ounce weight at 1.7 mph in deep water. Capt. Mike Veine

Thanks Robert. I had almost as much fun as you two did. I do enjoy fishing the Bay.

We had a nice day on the Bay today with limit catches of some nice walleyes. Only a few of the keepers were under 20 inches. We first headed to the spot where we caught fish yesterday non-stop at the end of the trip, and in the first hour this morning we caught fish non-stop again and it looked like it was going to be quick limits. Then the wind switched from the west to the north and the bite died quickly. We trolled in that area for another two hours, but only caught a few walleyes. We then moved to another spot in deeper water where we had caught limits on Sunday and picked away at the fish until we limited out. This morning, most of our fish came on crankbaits with Shad Raps being best. At the second spot we fished though, we pulled the fish off the bottom with crawlers behind bottom bouncers with Fire-Tiger harnesses being best. I have the same crew from Illinois for the next three days, so they should experience some awesome fishing on the Bay indeed. Capt. Mike Veine

My dog looks just like yours. The fish we've been catching look similar too. Good job.

We had some rough water and tough fishing conditions on today's charter, but my customers really wanting to fish, so we gave it a try and they managed to catch their limits of nice walleyes. We had three to five foot waves all day, so the area we had been fishing was not productive. We did hit a spot though on the way in yesterday close to port and picked up a couple quick fish there at the tail end of that trip. As it turns out, that spot still held fish today too, which is where we caught most of our fish. We had to sort though some undersized fish today, but there were also some bigger fish mixed in with the small fish too, Our biggest walleye today was 26 inches. Because we were fishing in such tough conditions, I ran four crawler harnesses, two off the boards and two flat lines. I also ran four Hot N' tots off the middle and outside boards too. We took more fish off the crawlers, but the Tots did produce an equal number of keeper sized fish. The winds are predicted to die down some for tomorrow, so we should have a much better day then. Capt. Mike Veine