mrhookup

Russell, really enjoying the content you've been putting up this winter. I can't speak for others but thanks for helping to keep me sane while waiting for spring! Interesting you mentioned putting out a couple plugs first thing in the morning at any point during the year as we did this as well on about 75% of our morning trips this past summer and it worked great. A Green Lightning Ace High back 50ft on a downrigger in the top 40ft of the water column first thing in the morning was a great producer for us.

Mike, update for you. I stopped by vans yesterday and the electric starter conversion kit was around $450 for the parts. They ball parked an additional $250-350 to do the conversion for me.

Mike, I'm about to go through the same thing with a 1996 40/30 Johnson jet myself (same as an Evinrude), but I also need to convert it from pull start to electric. Not 100% sure on what it will cost just yet but I'm hoping to keep it under $1000 if I go with brand new components. I plan to talk to the guys at Vans Sports Center to see what the cost of having them do it is versus just purchasing the necessary parts and then go from there. They work with a ton of Jet motors and do good work from what I've heard, they're just not always the cheapest. http://www.vanssports.com/

I'd highly suggest checking out the Dowagiac river if you don't have a boat. Steelhead can literally be caught out of it 12 months a year because of the large Skamania run it gets. I fished it a lot while living in South Bend for a year. The only real access for walk in anglers is at the Pucker street dam like was mentioned. One thing to keep in mind is that the Dowagiac has the highest gradient of any river in Southwest Mi. The current is very fast compared to other rivers in the area, in particular up by the dam. The better holes are a bit of a hike downstream and there is quite a bit of private property but it's a pretty easy river to stay in the water. Good luck!

We did the spring Coho thing for the first time last year and its a blast when you get into a bunch of them. For body baits, the thin fins work well and every color has their day, but red with black squiggles is probably most peoples favorite. Many types of body baits will work though, an orange jointed J9 or J11 Rapala is another classic bait. The dodgers and peanut flies work well too, but that rig starts to shine as the water starts to warm a little more, its not as consistent when the fish first show up after ice out. Don't underscore small spoons though as these took most of our fish. Stinger, Dreamweaver Super Slims, or Silver Streak Mini size all work great. You can run all these rigs on everything, boards, dipsies, riggers, but I tend to put the dodger rigs on riggers and dipsies and the spoons did very well for us 50-80ft back on riggers set only 5-8ft down.

I think if you added a catch and release division with total length of your catch as the measuring stick that would get a few more folks interested. I know myself, I'm 95% catch and release in the river as I get my meat out on the lake in the summer. Just my 2cents. Sounds like a fun time though if I were free this weekend.

Great job. How deep were you?

Great job, thanks for the report. We got out for a couple hours last night in Grand Haven and decided to fish the mud/channel. Mark a ton and saw a few caught casting off the pier but nothing going for us. At sunset a guy on the radio said they had 3 on in 5 minutes out in 80FOW and there was a pack of charter boats out at least that far all night. We were already committed to sticking it out in close by then so we just toughed it out. Not sure if they were hitting any adult fish out there, but at least there was biting fish somewhere.

I think it's safe to say this has been a weird year for most, it seems like it's been difficult to stay on the fish if you're not out their everyday. Is this because there's less? It's hard to say but I definitely think the cooler water temps this year had some effect. I know I can count on one hand the number of fish we hooked deeper than 55ft down in the water column (not including lakers) all summer, that tells me there's been a lot of cold water out there meaning more area for the fish to spread out into. As for size, I don't think it's fair to compare any year after the late 70s to last year; I think average weight may be a bit down compared to the last 10 years but nothing drastic. We had 3 over 20lbs on 8/16 fishing the mud in Grand Haven when everyone else ran offshore http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36642 and pulled a 19lber in April in St. Joe http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34641. I personally think there is a below average year class out there that shows up every few years. I typically gauge things by the run in the Pere Marquette river which is 100% wild and not effected by stocking numbers. Every few years there seems to be a late run that is a bit of a dud IMO followed by a spectacular run the next year. (see BBT guide Steve Fraley's report on http://www.fishbaldwin.com/). DNR studies show a large number of the fish in the lake are wild so maybe this pattern on the PM is occurring on other systems as well. Either way, there always seems to be an ebb and flow to the run quality from year to year, but with the reduced stockings beginning to take their effect next year, we may just see the peaks be a bit lower than we are traditionally accustomed to.

Mike, are you getting out of it or downsizing?

Good job Mike! Did you try in shallow at all down there? Fish were sniffing the edge of the mud in 40-60 FOW at Grand Haven last night

Sorry forgot to mention, I'm in Grand Rapids, cascade or kentwood/caledonia areas.

Will only let me post a couple pics at a time for some reason... Two Willie Sideliner planer boards with OR17 clips, $20 pickup, $25 shipped used Penn 209 loaded with 20lb Trilene Big Game, $10 regular size dipsy diver no ring, $5 [/url

22 J Plugs (bodies only) with box, $50 pickup or $60 shipped Row 1: (Silver Hordes) spatter back glow, spatter back glow, blue spatter back glow, chrome green back w/red gills Row 2: (Luhr Jensen) chrome redhead, chrome redhead, chrome green back, purple black back Row 3: (Luhr Jensen) gold and green, yellow green ladderback, black raspberry ladder back, glow wonderbread Row 4: (Luhr Jensen) gold chrome (#5), chrome green ladderback, orange glow crush ladderback, white redhead glow spots, Row 5: (Luhr Jensen) green glow ladderback, blue glow w/glow spots, yellow ladderback glow, yellow glow w/glow spots Row 6: (Luhr Jensen) white with crush glow ladderback Row 7: (unknown) chrome rainbow

Took my fishing buddy Alex and his girlfriend Madison out last for what ended up being a beautiful night on the water. This was her first time on the lake let alone fishing it so we were hoping to get her on a fish or two. Started setting lines at 6pm in 100FOW straight out and put it on a North troll through the majority of this year's waypoints. No hits for us while heading North for the first 1.5hrs so we made an outside turn and spun it back south. Now in 115FOW we took our first hit on a rigger and Madison landed her first lake Michigan king, about a 6lber. Continued on that South troll at 2.2-2.5 SOG the rest of the night and finished up 5 for 5 with a double at sunset. It was an all spoon bite for us, couldn't get flies, meat, or plugs to fire. Here's what worked: DW Carmel Icicle - fixed slider 50ft down on Rigger set at 60ft - 6lb king Stingray UV Mixed Veggies - 4oz torpedo 40ft down off board - 6lb coho Stinger Steelie Stomper - 2oz torpedo 25ft down off board - 14lb skamania Stingray Nitro Twister - 4oz torpedo 40ft down off board - 8lb king Mag Flounder Pounder - rigger at 50ft - 15lb king Madison's 2nd big lake fish ever, a nice skam that gave us an aerial show Alex's coho on the always consistent UV mixed veggies

Dirty Dog, is this first hand info from this morning ? We're thinking about heading out later today

Pretty slow morning for us out of PS this morning. Finish 1 for 2 with a nice 15lb laker and a lost king. Fished from 5:30-10am, 100-150 FOW with the fish coming on riggers 80-100ft down in 135-145. Laker took a Green lightning Ace High plug and the king hit a 11" crush/blue holo paddle with blue bubble glow fly. Took both hits on a NW troll. Water is warm!

From the launch heading out the lake makes a slow turn to the right. Stay down the middle (don't cut the corner) as it gets pretty shallow in there (4' at the deepest). After you get past this area stay to the left along the docks and you'll have nothing to worry about. As for the fishing, we're thinking of heading out in the morning as well and I'm planning on dropping in at 100' and trolling west with baits spread from 40-90'. The buoy which is located in 90 FOW is reading 68deg 70' down right now so there's a lot of warm water out there.

great job Mark!

Yeah I'm personally not a fan of the $10 fee or the 25-30min channel ride to the lake, both are reasons I fish Port Sheldon most of the time. I really only head to Grand Haven when there is the potential for fish in the mud (since Port Sheldon doesn't have that) or if it's late in the season and I think there are more mature kings staging closer to port. I do think you can get a yearly pass for $50, so your committing to fishing it more than five times if you want to save money. I believe I've fished it 4 times now and I didn't get the season pass so I've reached my limit for saving money there ....I do wish they had a cleaning station as well though.

Thanks Grant. This is our first year running meat and it's been very hit or miss for us, although this isn't exactly a "normal" year for water temps out there right now. They've worked best for us on divers running 50ft down or deeper, nothing shallow on them so far.