2MD

trolled saugatuck again midday today but this time longer and had less kids with me - got 7 sheephead and a catfish - had 5 chinook on but somehow they all got off... usually after going airborn!?!?need to retire some of my old worn out jplug harnesses or at least sharpen everything apparently... funny and random video included here where I somehow captured one of our pierhead doubles and accidentally dropped my phone diving for the other dipsey! gotta love that sound of drags screaming double off saug.mp4

have the whole fam now with me now and we did the dunes and just got done making a couple passes on the saugatuck piers at 4.30pm - on pass number 3 right out front in 12fow a huge male just smoked the rigger- fought him for 20min we did only to have the heart break of having the jplug pull out! this one jumped completely out of the water 6 times and will long be remembered

1 for 3 trolling Holland Harbor with the kids today. Once we learned that the kings weren't out front but instead deep into the channel and even into Lake Mac we did better and managed our big fish of the year and my son's largest ever (he reeled it in). 38.5 inch male weighing 23.5 pounds came on size 4 chrome red head jplug in 26 fow down 15 on rigger inside Lake Mac directly out from Parkside Marine at around 3.00pm. 20180911_150334_001.mp4 20180911_150334_001.mp4

Moonshine Green Jeans Hologram version (pic attached)

4 for 6 last night the boys and I were - trolled 90-110fow from PS to Holland - lost nice kings on rigger 59 down that was a heartbreak - big steelhead copper 200 - solid coho mag dipsey 125back dialed on 2 - a couple lakers on copper 300 moonshine hologram green jeans best bait hands down - two years running

was out with the kids for the first time on TUES night - Aaron from Lakeshore Tackle said a guy before had 15 kings in 105fow on Mon night so despite it being June we hadn't been out at all this year and had to try.... off the sliders TUES night in 80-105fow we went 9 for 14 with 6 solid kings and 3 lakers - biggest king being just over the 20# mark - everything came on moonshine mag spoons with green jeans being the very best - lots of copper 200 action and 10 color action and also riggers in the that 40-50 down range - was a great start and had over 45 pounds of fillets to show for it

great job finding fish!

yesterday/Friday yet another and I fear our final fall fishing skunk trollin the Holland channel and pierheads for 2.5hrs - nothing like going out with a bang oh well... a pretty certain sign the season is dwindling when my son netted a 40"+ completely spawned out and dead buck off the low dock along the seawall on the far east side of Macatawa. Put the fall trolling gear away and will be looking forward to next year and while I suspect there will be less kings from planting reduction hopefully there are some REALLY big ones!

yep that was us fall fishing is always FUN but certainly a lot of work - fortunately my 11year is so good at pulling and deweeding and setting riggers, dipseys, and boards because without that it would be sheer chaos between tue sailboats and kayaks and channel floor snags... I am always telling him what to do and not do but I swear I tangle things and make more mistakes than him out there!

Warm water and lots of weeds for me and my kids as we trolled the mud off Holland Thursday from 12noon-3pm. Only one release. Lots of kings still jumping around in there... frustrating

Thanks guys! And I will definitely shorten up my leads and run em deeper with the riggers. Bummer there is only about a week left to try to tag the graduating class of 2017 four year old kings!

Kevin, maybe I am not running my plugs deep enough. I normally only put the rigger down 9 or 10 feet but have em 80-100 feet behind the ball. I have gotten jacksquat on plugs this year and maybe I am simply too high up. Question: how far behind the ball do you run yours and are you normally size 4 or 5 or do you run smaller ones? Thanks, Ryan

good luck and let us know how you do on your outing - I am not sure what the wind will do this weekend but yes boat traffic is less especially with fisherman but holland still has so many sailboats - hopefully it will be calm enough where you can just make passes back and forth through the mud in front of the pierheads in that 22-35fow - trolling the channel itself is a hail mary suckers bet with boat traffic and all the weeds - today was especially bad with weeds with the east wind and go figure our hits came just outside the pierheads

we have luck running SpinDocters behind 5 colors and also off dipseys with the rings off em dialed to 3.5 with about 40 feet of braid out when trolling Holland's mouth - it was the dipseys that went this AM - last week got em deep in the channel on this same setup and in prior years even get em as far in macatawa as in front of Parkside Marina on the flashers. Nothing like seeing a big king go airborn with a dipsey and flasher attached

and just your typical 8inch spindoctor with fly - blue bubble got it done this AM - also a green jeans spindoctor with a green fly

sorry meant SUNRISE - trolled from 6am-9am with nothing happening and then right before we were gonna head in tried flashers and boom they were there. they were there all morning jumping all over just couldn't get em to bite until last 30min.

2 matures in the mudline just outside the pierheads in holland this AM. Ran plugs from an hour before sunset til 9am anf got no takers - turned out they wanted SpinDocters instead b/c switched to those and took one on each of our last two passes - dark males

that sounds like some fast and furious fall fishing - wish you had a youtube video of that trip - i remember back in 2004 hearing about a guy who went 30 for 40 in the Saugatuck mud - no joke

Buddy of mine checked Allegan Dam this morning and the tubes at the farm and both had salmon... this seems kind of early... another guy I know who lives downtown GR days they are showing up decent at 6th Street.

I hope Dr. Hook is not right but I fear he is... at least we got one yesterday though to remind us of tge ole days. We didn't weigh it... it wasn't that big just really long being a male. If I had to guess I bet it weighed somewhere in that 19-21# range and yes my son knows how to hold em out and trick the camera

the run has begun - Holland Harbor Had the boat out in West Olive overnight camping on the shore so come 10.30am the kids and I decided to troll on back to Holland to return the boat to the lift. We zig-zagged in that 30-40 fow the entire way running almost all flasher flies even on the cores but only got one release. We did see a big Chinook jump out of the water about off Riley Street so that was kind of neat. Anyways, when we got to the Holland pier heads at 1pm we seen the channel just full of boats and figured it to pretty much be a lost cause trying to troll since even without poles it was a nightmare circus squeezing through all the traffic. So we pulled all the orange boards in and just left out a couple riggers and dipseys. Then about 3/4 way through the channel where you get into the rocks on the southside our inside dipsey with 42 feet of braid out and a blue bubble spindoctor on it just got crushed. Big ole male. First big male we have taken of the season. An insane fight ripping out line and nearly getting run over by several clueless boaters. Eventually after fighting it well into Lake Mac we finally netted it while in neutral bobbing around in front of the old Piper Restaurant. How random and bizarre to catch this hog at high noon in the heat of the day with all the engine noise and commotion in the channel. The fall run of 2017 has begun. Let's cross our fingers and hope what we ran into today wasn't just a fluke but that this year will more closely resemble 2013/2014 verses 2015/2016 where the run was almost non-existent!

hey this is great info! thank you

plantings Anyone know what year it was that the DNR in effort to control fish population stopped planting chinook in Holland and Saugatuck? Just trying to gauge what the fall run may or may not entail this year... thank you

beautiful fish! way out and down deep they were - IMPRESSIVE I was out there last night too and workrd that 130-160 fow but didn't do as well... just 1 for 2