FBD

Manual riggers are OK. They get old, but if you don't fish a lot, you can generally start with some used ones then sell them for as much as you paid for them and upgrade. As for tackle, that can get stupid in a hurry. My best advice on that would be to pick a species / area / time frame you want to fish, then gear up for that. Browns in Milwaukee in April is going to be different than coho farther south in May which will be different than looking for lakers and / or kings in June / July which will be different than coming half way to Michigan to look for steelhead (rainbows on your side of the pond) way out but up high in the water column. We had a day prefishing a tournament where we started for kings at the pier heads trolling planer boards, slide divers, and downriggers with spoons on all of them. Ended up not working, so we ran about 10 miles south and out to 80' and pounded the bottom with dodgers and flies on riggers ad wire divers picking away lakers. Then we heard a rumor of steelhead on the beach, so we ran to shore and fished all planer boards with flat lines (no lead core, no weight) in 6' of water limiting out on steelhead on mostly rapalas and thin fish and losing a lot of gear. And my wife wonders why I have so much gear...

Welcome! Hopefully this spring is as stupid as the last spring. Everyone was a hero in South Haven in May last year. Guy I know kept pointing out how great he was, he entered the Holland tournament later in the summer and in four days of prefishing and the tournie never hooked a sliver fish! Rumor is South Haven is getting a new fish cleaning station, so that'll be a huge plus for a beautiful port that doesn't get the attention it deserves.

I'll be there selling, but don't have too much any more. I've pretty much got all I need. But I'll be looking for a few reels too. Usually lots of good stuff there. Come with a plan else you can spend a pile of money before the second or third table!

Strip both reels clean. Put as much braid as you want on the first reel. The add mono until the reel is full. Tie the tag end of the mono off to the second reel and reel the mono then braid onto that reel. Repeat if you have a third empty reel of the same capacity.

There's a swap meet in Holland on March 2 that has plenty of salmon gear.

Anywhere in the UP, I recommend Gustafson's. Road trip!

Yes, while the king salmon fishing was spectacular this spring as the limited fish were concentrated in SW Lake Michigan, after June 15 I never caught another king salmon. Due to fewer fish being planted and no fish being planted around Holland, where we used to take time off to fish as the fish came back into the harbor, now I don't even bother. Three trips this year around the harbor and not a king taken. Contrast with Labor Day afternoon in 2012 when we caught 27 kings, three coho, and a walleye in about 7 hours. July 28, 2012 we caught 17 fish in an hour in a half and had to throw the last two back and quit as we were in a catch 15 tournament, who knows how many fish we could have caught that day. My buddy in four days of pre-fishing for and then fishing in a tournament out of Holland this year caught one (1) king. Lake trout are present, but not very exciting. The lake is cleaning up - we could see the bottom of Lake Michigan easily in 26', due to fewer nutrients getting into the lake, and the mussels continuously filtering the water. No knowledge of the micro plastics.

Two things come to mind: the introduction of invasive species, namely the mussels that filter the water, and the cleaning of the lake. We don't get as much run-off from farm fields, storm sewers, and fertilizer as we used to. I know around me there's been a huge effort to put buffer strips around fields, to grass the water ways that drain the fields, to not till fields in the fall. When I started salmon fishing you ran your plugs 4' behind the downrigger cannonball to use the noise of the cannonball to attract the fish. Last time I was out we could easily count rocks on the bottom in 26' of water. On beach days we find a little bit of every thing. Lots of water bottles. Plastic bags.

I don't think that plastic pollution is affecting fish populations on the lake - I think there's many other variables that have a greater impact on fish than plastics. However, having participated in beach and river clean ups, I can see shore birds and the like being affected. We camped on the south shore of Lake Superior this summer and it was virtually free of man made pollution. I can take my 14' boat on the Kalamazoo River and fill it with garbage in any one mile stretch. Any more questions drop them here. I hope my barely coherent thoughts are helpful!

Seeing where kings are planted and what rivers hatch all the natural fish, you can pretty much forget nature kings south of Muskegon after mid August.

Never seen a flip being fish to the pier at Port Sheldon.

Labor Day afternoon 2012 we landed 17 kings, three coho and a 10# walleye doing laps in the channel. Had 33 hits in five hours. 2015 no fish in harbor. 2016 no fish in the harbor. 2017 one king and one brown in the harbor, fishing for walleye in October. I've fished pretty much every cold water flip in September for three years and hooked one king. Week of Labor Day 16 years ago in the three king limit era I had a 500# week and never put my boat on plane. So my conclusion is there are next to no mature kings in these parts come mid August as of the last few years. My offshore trips follow this, good in April, great in May, June is June, July is ok and then a steady drop in kings.

5/7, a bit shallower than you, all Lakers that your 21# could have eaten. Only kept two. White paddle 240' out, mag green dolphin on a 300 copper, best where chrome dodger with a green spin and glow and a green dolphin spin doctor with a yellow spin and glow but only on flutter ups.

I won a 7 color core on a reel once, a 45 series reel, with 150 yards of backing. I had a steelhead, not a king mind you but a 13# steelhead take that thing all the way to the knot in the spool. We had to spin a 180 and run the fish down to keep it from breaking off, making a mess of the spread but we landed the fish and my daughter got her trophy in the youth tournament we were in. I now have 250 - 350 yards of backing on all my junk lines.

I'll run j plugs and jointed rapalas up to 5 mph for steel. I run flashers 15-20' from the ball, spoons usually 25-50'. I tend to only run two riggers. More isn't better.