mrhookup

more pics... each of us with our biggest fish on the day the catch

more pics... Jake with the big fish of the day and his biggest ever the only steelhead we managed to get to the net

Decided to hit Grand Haven Saturday morning with a couple of my good fishing buddies Alex and Jake. With the cold water in tight having warmed ten degress to 55F on the surface, we were hoping that despite the less than stellar reports throughout the week, the fish had finally found the bait in the mud. Having heard the bite in there has been short lived at first light, we decided to get there extra early and fish in the dark for a bit. Started setting lines at 4:30am with the place to ourselves in front of the pier heads. About 10min after getting our 6 rod spread in the water we had our first fish on. We were 2-4 with a couple smaller kings in the net by 5:30am before another boat had even broke the pier heads . As it started to lighten up a little bit and the parade of boats was exiting the channel, the bigger fish started to bite. Our next 3 passes across the mud line included a double of 18lb and 21lb kings, a 25lb king, and a double of two very large skamania steelhead that were both lost near the back of the boat after an amazing aerial display. To our surprise, most of the boats headed deep with only about 4 others staying in tight and a couple of those bailing after about an hour. Finished the day at 1pm going 9 for 15 (7-10 on kings, 1-4 on steelhead, and 1-1 on coho). North and South trolls in 25-35 FOW across the front of the pier heads accounted for almost all of our hits and we never went deeper than 45 FOW. A couple things we noticed throughout the morning: anytime we put a flasher/meat rig down it killed the king bite on our riggers and divers, and most of our hits came in the clear water just before or just after crossing the mud line, no hits trolling alongside the mud line on either side. It was an all spoon bite for us except for one small king early on a plug. Here's what worked: Stingray Nitro Twister - 175' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - 6lb king Stingray Nitro Twister - 175' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - lost king Stingray Nitro Twister - 175' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - lost king Green Lightning Ace High - rigger @ 14'- 8lb king Stingray Michael Jackson - rigger @ 24' - 18lb king DW Carmel Icicle - Slide Diver on 4 out 30ft. - 21lb king Stinger Gold Dbl Orange Crush - 125' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - lost steelhead Stinger Jawbreaker - 125' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - lost steelhead Stingray Carmel Dolphin - rigger @ 16' - lost steelhead Stingray Michael Jackson - 24' down on rigger - 25lb king Stingray Michael Jackson - 24' down on rigger - 8lb king Stinger Steelie Stomper - 125' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - 9lb steelhead Stinger Steelie Stomper - 125' back on board with 1oz dive bomb - 4lb coho DW Carmel Icicle - Slide Diver on 4 out 60ft. - 23lb king Stingray UV Green Dolphin - Magnum Slide Diver on 3 out 45ft. - lost king Jake with our first fish of the morning Alex with his first fish to the net The result of our first double of the morning

Great job on the first place finish Ben!

20lb big game on pretty much everything, although I keep a couple board rods rigged with 12lb leaders for those glass calm days. All mono, no fluoro for us

Go wire and you won't go back. We put wire divers on our boat this year (we have a small 16') and they've probably caught half our fish. You can run them shallow or deep it doesn't matter they just plain catch fish! We rig ours with slide divers on 50ft 30lb mono leads with a short segment of 65lb braid to connect the wire to the mono.

Mike, we haven't hand too many issues with fleas, yet to need to pick them off while reeling in a fish at least. On my board rods I actually have 30lb mono filling up most of the reel, then a 250ft section of Power Pro Depth Hunter (metered braid, each color is 25ft with 5ft tick marks throughout), and then a 50ft 20lb mono leader. I use the metered braid because I'm running mooching reels on everything but my dipsies so I don't have counters. This allows me to know exactly how much line I've let out so I know exactly where my baits/torpedos are off our boards....or at least close enough to catch fish . I stick the torpedo on the braid about a foot up from the junction knot with the leader. We also run Yellow Birds (that I've painted orange, Ken Neidlinger style) set to trip with an OR16 clip on the back so they hang in place rather than sliding down the line. Oh and did I mention we use $25 6'6" med spinning rods from Meijer? You get a great fight out of the fish with this setup

Yes, it runs like a magnum dipsey diver then.

Yes on our planer boards, but we don't run lead core or copper, just not a fan of the fight with the weighted line. So on our planer boards this year we've exclusively run dive bombs and torpedo weights to get our baits where they need to be. With the charts that come with the torpedo weights you can really dial in how deep they're running based off your speed and how much line you let out. We use the 1oz dive bomb when the fish are in the top 10ft of the water column because the lightest torpedo weight is 2oz and it sinks too fast to target that range very well, unless you don't want your baits running very far behind your boards. Depending on speed, the 2oz torpedo has been working well to target the 10-40ft range, and the 4oz the 40-60ft range. Haven't needed to go heavier or deeper than that this year with the cold water.

Great job! How long are your leads from diver to flasher/spoon/plug? All I run now are the clear slide divers on wire with 50ft leads (with the only exception being for cohos sometimes in the spring). We connect 2-3ft of 65lb braid to the end of the wire then 50ft of 30lb mono to that with the diver sliding on the mono section. down to a bead/swivel. We have a short 4ft 20lb leader off the swivel to the flasher/spoon/plug. We use the 7oz weight and mag ring to convert the diver to a magnum when not fishing the skinny water. These setups have been taking about half our fish on recent trips.

Had lines down by 5:30am and two kings in the box by 6am. Finished up 4 for 6 with all our hits before 8am. 100-120 FOW, North and South trolls. A lot of current out there, was going 3.6-3.8 SOG north and 2.6-2.8 SOG south to get the right bend in the diver rods (no probe for us). Here's what worked for us: MS Flounder Pounder - Rigger 30ft down, 14lb king Green Lightning Ace High plug - Magnum Slide diver out 70, 12lb king 11in white paddle w/glow fly - Rigger 50ft. down, lost king White glow meat rig - magnum slide diver out 180, 10lb king Stingray Mixed veggies - 40ft down off board, steelhead Stingray Mixed veggies - 40ft down off board, lost steelhead

Great job!

Nice job Kevin, sounded like most of the steel that were being caught that morning were in the 90ft range.

Pretty slow morning but still a bit better than a couple weeks ago. Set lines at 6am and headed in at 11am just before the rain hit our area with two lakers and a king. Work 90-160 FOW with the most marks being in the 140-150 range, but all three of our fish came in 115 FOW with a north troll at 2.4-2.6 SOG being best. The king and the larger of the two lakers came on a low diver with meat out 200ft. and the smaller laker took a MS Happee Meal 55 down on a rigger. First time for us this year having to pick fleas off the line.

Thanks Kevin, great job with the kids!

Hey all, been trying to add targeting lake trout to our bag of tricks this year when the silver fish aren't interested. I've picked up a tin can and spin n glow setup per suggestions found on this site and tried running it for the first time last Saturday. We were bouncing bottom with it in 95-105 FOW running 1.9-2.1 SOG for a bit but didn't manage any hits. We were pretty much straight out to slightly south of the pier heads. Any suggested areas around PS for targeting these things? Are you typically marking fish on bottom in these areas when you're catching fish? Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks Brett! Yeah, we put in a solid 10 hours on the water Saturday knowing that it wouldn't be fishable for our little boat on Sunday.

Took Dad out of Port Sheldon on Saturday morning from 6-11am. Slow morning out there for us and those we spoke with. We finished up 1 for 2 with a small steelhead off a board in 108 FOW and lost a king in 125 on a meat rig off a diver. Had planned to take my roommate and our friend Tom that had never been on the lake before out in the evening. With the morning we had in PS we decided to head up to Grand Haven. Fished from 6-11pm, 45-140 FOW with 120-140 FOW being the only area we took hits anywhere from 35-50ft down. Had a diver with a Moonshine Widow Maker go around 8pm in 120, Tom landed a nice 10lb king for his first salmon ever. Got reset and had the other diver go with a spindoctor and pickled sunshine fly in 135, put a nice 4-5lb coho in the box. Got reset and decided to clear a couple boards to simplify our spread before dark and found a couple shakers on the line. Tossed those back then hit a triple at 9:45 just as the sun went under the horizon with both boards and a rigger firing. These had on Stingray Nitro Twister, Happee Meal, and Blue Flounder. Landed 2 of the 3, 13lb and 8lb kings. Finished up going 6 for 7. Beautiful night on the water and glad we decided to stay late as most of the boats seemed to get of the water before we had most of our action. Tom's first king salmon.... The "Witching Hour".... The catch....

Nice last minute trip Ben!

Good job Brian

thanks, great job Bob

Thanks for the report Gary, we had similar fishing last night and with only 4 other boats out, the radio chatter was more helpful than some other places when there's 50 boats. Guys out of PS have been very helpful this year so I now always try to give updates of what's working for us to add to the pot.

Water cooled significantly with the North blow so we dropped lines in 55 FOW heading NW into the waves. Worked out to 120 FOW with nothing going but noticed there was a strong North current so we made the turn to troll back SE with the waves. Hit and lost a king at 105 FOW on a low diver out 90 with a white pearl and green spinnie and pickled sunshine fly. Worked south the rest of the night in 95-105 FOW until 10:00pm and finished up going 2-6, just couldn't keep them buttoned tonight (I blame my roommate for being rusty, went 0-3 so he kicked himself out of the rotation ). Here's what worked: - Low diver out 90 -White blade, glow pearl crush and green spinnie and pickled sunshine fly --> lost king - Board with 2oz torpedo down 20ft - blue flounder pounder - lost king - Rigger down 28 - Happee Meal - lost King - Board with 2oz torpedo weight down 25 - Stingray Nitro Twister - 5lb king - Board with 2oz torpedo weight down 25 - Stingray Nitro Twister - 8lb king - Board with 2oz torpedo weight down 25 - Stingray Nitro Twister - lost something small Marked A TON of bait especially near sunset in the top 30ft in the 85-105 FOW range.