kal77

Nice video! If you're ever in Wisconsin shoot me a pm and I'll take you out in Milwaukee.

Fished Milwaukee harbor on Christmas Eve from 8-11AM. Only brought the jig rods along. Ended up with 6 along with a few that were lost kayakside. Gulp, shiners, spawn, and zips all took hits with nothing working particularly well in the dirty water after all of the rain. Here is a video of one of the brownies on my panfish rod. http://youtu.be/61RvQPOup9s I put together another video from two days of fishing in November as well: http://youtu.be/JuOewt1nlLI Let me know if the links don't work. Merry Christmas Everybody!

Launched from McKinley Marina around 8:30 Friday morning with two other friends from Illinois chasing some cold weather brownies. Air temp was in the mid to high teens with water temps hovering around 34 in the marina and 36 in the main harbor. I picked up one spawned out buck on a spoon in the marina before heading out into the main harbor. It took about 15 minutes for the first hit but once I found a school there was plenty of action. Ended up 7 for 16 with most in the 6-8# range. I had first triple out of the yak but only ended up landing one and having something rip out 100 feet of line before popping off. Green spoons on inline weights were hot early but long lined flicker shads and shad raps took 5 of the last 6 hits.

Finally had some time to put a few videos together from kayak fishing for fall kings. Here's the first video: http://youtu.be/axDzpeRD__o

It won't be long now. My favorite time of the year is when the first kings are at the pierheads!

Thanks guys. Yes it is a blast getting towed around in the kayak. I just bought a go pro so hopefully I will have a video in my next report.

Launched off of a beach near Port Washington this morning at 3:45 with two other kayakers. Had a dandy steelhead at 31" smoke a spoon in the dark to get the day started, then a flat lined crankbait took another 29.5" steelhead and a small king. On the way back to the launch another small king took a mag spoon. Deepest I made it out to was about 95 fow. Water temp was 69-70 degrees on the surface everywhere I went.

Well Port Washington is nice because 100 fow is only two miles out. Best depth seemed to be 65-80 fow most days. They were in 50 fow for a day or two in mke but started moving out deeper later in the week although a few shore fisherman plucked a couple.

Few pics...

Salmon A Rama 2014 Report - Kayak Division I spent both weekends in Port Washington and a few weeknights after work fishing out of Milwaukee. The fishing was pretty good once I narrowed in on a few areas that ended up holding fish for most of the week. Size was decent but I snapped two fish off that would've easily put me in the top 5 in my division and lost a few more. Overall I ended up 17 for 30 in 7 trips putting on over 92 miles in the yak. Finished in 7th place with a couple of 14#ers. Saturday 7/12 2:30-9 AM: 2/6 with a 14.34# king on a 6 color green dolphin spoon in 75 fow and a 10.5# steelhead while cranking in the same setup in 160 fow. Snapped off one other fish and lost two decent ones in the first 30 seconds of the fight. Sunday 7/13 3:30-9:30 AM: 3/4 with a 9#, 12# & 14# king between 55 & 85 fow on moonshine spoons Tuesday 7/15 6-9 PM: 3/4 with 3 smaller kings on 3 & 6 color leadcore 60 fow on two kings and a shaker in 30 fow on the way in. Snapped off a dandy. Wednesday 7/16 6-9:30 PM: 1/3 with a 13.5# king on a 6 color sooperfly spoon 65 fow Thursday 7/17 5:30-9:30 PM: 2/3 with 2 kings around 4-6# one on leadcore and one on a moonshine spoon behind a torpedo diver Friday 7/18 5-9:30 PM: 1/3 5# coho on mag moonshine up high Saturday 7/19 overnighter 6:00PM-8:00AM: 5/7 4 kings right at dark on spoons, one drive by overnight and one 12.5# king along with a 8# king lost next to the yak on flasher flies. My buddy Don landed a tank of a 27# king right next to me on Saturday night which was the closest a kayaker has ever been to winning the grand prize in SAR. He registered it in the offshore division and took 2nd place. Overall a fun, exhausting week on the water. Plenty of action but I blew a couple of chances at big fish. Looking forward to the rest of the season and can't wait for SAR 2015! Phone won't let me upload pics right now but I'll try to get some up tomorrow.

I have kayak fished on the big pond 60+ times in the past year. As long as you watch the weather and don't push it you should be fine in that boat. There are many days when the lake is flat calm and you easily can run 5 miles out. Just make sure you have all of the proper safety gear and are prepared to pull lines and book it back to shore at the first sign of danger.

After seeing some good wave forecasts all week for today I was excited for my first trip on the big pond in almost a month. Of course yesterday the wind forecasts jumped up to 10-20 out of the north. Showed up at Bender Park at around 6:30 and after surveying the winds crashing onto the beach decided to wait it out on shore. Ended up launching off of a beach just south of the shelter of wind point with two other fellow kayakers at about 10:00. No big bait balls to be found but I managed to go 2-3 in two hours, both coho which I invited home for dinner. Both fish caught on a silver dodger/blue green peanut fly and a drive by on a wonderbread flicker shad. It wasn't quite the day I had hoped for but it was nice to get some time on the water. For a side report - my buddy went out midday yesterday on a beach right along the state line and went 22 for ~30 in less than three hours from his kayak. Tons of bait and lots of coho along with a few big steelhead mixed in. He was fishing 8-16 fow. I would imagine that the harbors north of that area will be on fire soon if they aren't already.

Red, if you're looking for a reasonable way to get on the water I would look around for a kayak that you can set up for fishing. I'd be happy to send you pics of my setup along with rigging help.

No eating in the Fox River this time of the year. They have a one fish limit over 28 inches to protect the spawners

After flipping the yak on my first trip to De Pere a few weeks ago I had to get back for some payback. Waited out the strongest part of the storm and launched around 11 pm. Took about two hours before my first hookup but after that it was steady action. Ended up 20 for 23 trolling cranks before heading back to the launch at 7. Fish ranged from 16 to 24 inches with most being males in the low 20s. Best baits were sz5 flicker shads in green/white & wonderbread.

Thanks guys. It's been a great winter/spring but it has slowed down for me lately. Zach - I have a Wilderness Systems Tarpon 120. The cohos and brown were caught trolling and the laker casting.

Late report. Snuck out Saturday from around 1:00-4:00 and pulled my first coho of the year less than 100 yards from the launch. The forecasted west winds were actually southeast so I took a pounding out there. Tried jigging gulp at the power plant discharge but the water was a mess. Right before pulling my anchor I decided to take a few casts across the discharge current and on my 3rd cast I got drilled right as the lure entered the current. Thought it was a nice brown until I finally pried it off the bottom and into the net and realized it was a 29" lake trout, my first from the yak. On the way back to the launch I had a double on another coho and a small brown. Both cohos were caught on a wonderbread flicker shad, the brown came on a small white reef runner, and the laker came on a large green flicker shad. Sunday was much slower and I ended up only going 1 for 2 with a 9# brown. The wind and waves were brutal and I had a hard time maintaining anything over 1 mph going into the wind.

Nice work!

Was happy to see those west winds push the ice away from shore on the west side of the pond. Milwaukee harbor was still frozen for the most part but there was a lot of open water at Bender. I had yesterday afternoon and today off so I decided to give it a try. Yesterday my buddy and I towed our yaks out and launched off the side of the ice near the beach. I picked up one brown on a spoon trolling to the powerplant and we set up about 75 yards from the discharge. I tried cranks, spoons, blade baits, spawn and minnows without a hit. Then switched over to jig & gulp (which I should have started with) and started landing them. I ended up going 15 for ~26 and my buddy landed 5 including a dandy 29 incher. Today I went out in the rain and waves and it was fast action. Ended up landing 30 fish between 1:35 and 4:00. There was a mudline where the discharge current and waves intersected and I landed the majority of my fish on the downwind side right along the transition. Most of the time I was sight fishing as they were close to the surface in the clear water. Wish I would've been able to stay longer but the waves were getting nasty and I didn't want to take a chance falling in the cold water with nobody else around. The northeast waves made for a rough landing on the ice sheet. Here are some pics. The actual harbor area is still about 50% covered in ice and it's think but honeycombed. This cold weather that we are supposed to get tonight won't help but I'm guessing it'll be open by the middle of next week.

Thanks guys. And yes that's the biggest king out of the yak at 29.12#, 43-1/4" long, 24-3/4" girth. Goal this year is a brown over 20#. Had one in the upper teens in December but nothing else has been very close since.

Made it out to the harbor both yesterday and today for a short afternoon trip. Yesterday I fished from 2:45-5:30 and the bite was pretty hot. Landed 12 browns with the biggest being just over 10 pounds. Also lost a ~15 pounder that was always just a hair out of the reach of my net and after spinning the yak around twice he got caught in the anchor rope and snapped me off. Lots of other misses and spit hooks as well. Most were caught jigging and a few on spawn sacs. Went out this afternoon 1:30-5 with a couple other kayakers and it was a bit slower but we still found a few. I don't think the discharge was on as the water temp was much colder than yesterday and the fish weren't stacked up. Still found a few nearby jigging along the breakwalls and mouth of the river. Landed 9 browns, mainly on the small side. Had to use the kayak as an icebreaker in order to get back to the launch due to all of the skim ice that had formed while I was out there. Not a fun thing to do with a plastic hull

Just a 1/8 oz darter jig and 4"white gulp for shallow water. Mainly casting cranks but a few on short trolling runs.

National ave launch opened up a bit with the warm weather the last couple of days. I'm gonna try to get out tomorrow afternoon. Will post report if I go.