Adam Bomb

Very nice Frank. Im sure they learned a thing or two and had a hell of a good time as well....Way to to go.

I say take half of what we had Saturday, mix it with today and itd be about perfect!

Those flat calm seas sure killed that shallow bite. It was like night and day from yesterdays fishing. As I was on my way to deeper water I seen you out on the 19'/21' break i believe it was.....I was just a bit SE of you and to the west of that big pack about 3/4 of a mile when i set down. There were allot of fish there, i just wish we woulda had more time to work them...I think we could have done quite well there given the chance. Im only going to squeeze in a few more walleye trips, then its off to the west side. Ive been watching the Ludington web cam and theyre running allot of Kings through the grinder there. Couple that with some good reports from friends who have already made some trips and its more than i can take!....So, it looks like the week of the 11th im gonna head west.....Hopefully these upcoming temps dont warm the water too much and ruin the fishing on the inner bay for those of you who stick it out till the end. Otherwise itll be some tough fishing unless you go for a ride.

Thanks Gents. Yup it sure was flat, too flat. Franks right on, its either four footers or dead calm...cant we get a happy medium.

I hear ya there. Killed my shallow bite....Nice job Dan.

Sorry you didnt get your big one, but hey, at least you got some nice eaters!...Nice job out there and i must agree...it was ROUGH and i was down in the bay, i can only imagine up there.

....a few hours this morning. We started in tight again. As soon as we set up we got a double on the starboard side. We ended up losing both fish, one of which was a dandy. Id guess it to be 27-28"...nice fish. After that and battling the little bit of a roll from yestedays wind, we pulled lines, ran up and got a better angle on things. After setting up we trolled right down the same line as the day prior and didnt touch a fish until we got all the way to the south end of it. Hit another double, this time a cat and nice 4# eye. We reset, got another eye, another cat...then another eye. Then things slowed down again. We kept working the weed edges trying to make things work, but they just wouldnt go. I think the water was just too clear and too flat in there, so we made a decision to move out to deeper water to try and get our limit. So, we ran out to 21', set down and there were fish on the graph. They were tight on bottom for the most part, with a few up around 17-18' down. We set 1 oz inlines at 35-45 back on my side and Dad ran 7/8 oz. Pygmies on his side 48-55' back. It wasnt long and we hit a double, then two singles bringing our total to 7. We turned the boat around and headed back down our line. We had a couple more rips and a few more hook ups, but lost those. By the time that run was over it was time to go in. So, we headed in with our 7. Heres a pic of the double we had once we moved to the deep water. I got my board to the boat first, so i took it off, got the fish in and netted it myself. Just as i set my rod down Dad had his to the boat, so i just scooped it up instead of scurrying for the other net. Thats how ya double down!

Yup, theres definitely fish up shallow, thats for sure. I agree that the cooler water temps are what have held our fishing this year. The past couple years we'd be up towards the end of the shipping channel or further north yet for consistant action. Lets hope the weather stays mild and keeps the fish in the inner bay...Its allot easier on the gas tank too, unless you get stupid like i did today and go for a boat ride.:lol:

get rid of some gas in the boat today....So, we decided to try a new location, but in similar waters to where we fished yesterday. We caught one fish in four passes along a stretch of shore line and that was it.. So, just as we're gonna head up to the north to yesterdays stomping grounds my Uncle calls and said someone he knows was doing good on the other side of the channel. So, ah what the heck, we'll go try it. So, away we go, about an 8 1/2 mile run. We get over there and it looked like the Spanish Armada had arrived. Man there were allot of boats!...So, we get to the outside of everyone and set up. It wasnt long and more boats came and we were engulfed. So we're trolling along, not marking much at all when i finally caught one about 15 1/2". Theres not much meat on those, so we tossed him back in. Just after i reset my outside line my inside board just burries. It pulled it right under water. I grab the rod and theres just a heavy weight on there. No irratic jerks like sheephead, or that thumping cats do, just a nice heavy pull. I thought i had a nice walleye. Anyways, im fighting the fish and it pulls the board under and starts heading to the opposite side of the boat. Next thing i know, my board pops up about 5' in front of my Dads board. Finally i get the board to the boat and unhooked and begin bringing the fish in the rest of the way. All of a sudden i see my inline weight, then my harness....and to my harness is a fishing line. I get the line to the boat and get a hold of it. I tell Dad, man theres something big on here. So i begin hand over handing it. Finally i see an inline weight, then i see a big brown body with a chart. crawler harness burried in it...It was a carp that someone had snagged just behind the gills. Just as i get it about 20' from the boat the line breaks. Keep in mind the fish is high in the water column, but way out to the starboard side now. So, its gone...or so we thought...Next thing i know, my Dads inside board burries...Im like no way, we got that carp again! And sure enough we did. The remaining line some how managed to get hooked in his harness. After a pretty good tussel...again....we finally got the beast in the boat....Whats the chances of hooking a fish on one side, losing it and getting it on the other...Just unbelievelable. I snapped a couple quick photos, removed his jewlry and sent him on his way. After that phiasco we boated another eye and things slowed right down and the wind picked way up. So, i give my buddy Gary a call. I said Gary, how you doing? He said, ive been set up 10 minutes and got three....Im like where you at?...He says, where you should be....Remember where you told me to go?...So, away we go...10 miles later i set down and Gary hadnt boated another fish. Never the less we set up and began our troll. We didnt got far and started popping fish. We ended up making two passes and boating a dozen fish and losing four more. It was pretty good, shoulda wen there to start with! Anyhoo, we ran the same program as yesterday, Chart/orange pygmies 20-30' back. For the day we boated 15 walleye before we kept the 10 we wanted and called it a day....My buddy Gary was getting a few on tots in there, but the action quickly die on them for some reason. Once i clued him in on what i was doing he switched over and beat the pants off em using Inline weights and harnesses. And not only did he get his walleye, he aslo hooked not one, but two steelhead...at the same time! He landed one of the two which, at my estimation was probably a good 7-8# steelie....Pretty cool bonus fish. I forgot the camera on the boat, so youll have to wait for the pic of the carp. Didnt take any pics of our walleyes today. By the time we were finished with them the wind had kicked up pretty good, so we just got our stuff in and hit the trail, although we did stop and look at Gary's steelie...shoulda got a pic of that before we ran in! I didnt even think of it at the time. Hopefully he took a pic. If so, i have him email me and ill get it up for you all to see.

Wow was that wind howling. I sure didnt get the early start that i wanted and didnt arrive at the marina until after 10 am. So, we finally get under way and head out towards the stomping grounds. We set up, marked a few fish and caught a few. Just as we were discussing making another run the wind picked WAY up. So, we decided instead of setting up out in the deep water we'd go try the shallow bite. So, we bucked the waves in to 10' of water and set up. To my delight we were actually marking a ton of fish in shallow! We switched our harnesses out for pygmies. We set them 20'-30' and began our troll. It wasnt long and the first board goes back...BIG CAT!...We didnt go too far and hit a walleye. Turned out to be a pretty nice fish measuring just over 25"....We continued trolling east until we hit 13'. After the first pass we had the fish narrowed down to a smaller area. From then on we shortened up our passes and finished up our limit in no time...then got the heck outta there! You know its windy when you have solid 3's and 4's in that tight! Anyway, heres a few photos my Dad took. Tried to get his mug in there, but the pot licker wasnt having any of that.

Nice job, thanks for the report.

Thank you gents. Dad and I are heading out in the morning, ill try and remember the camera, and if i do, ill try and remember to use it. We've had some great fishing again this year and havent snapped but a few photos. Been really lax about that this year for some reason....too bad.

...I bet, that wind was whippin pretty good here at the house. I suspected it may have got a bit choppy this afternoon. Thanks for the report, im headed out in the AM providing its not too windy. Looks like SW 10-20, so im sure itll get up to 3's if hits 20...Guess we'll just have to get em early and get in! ...Ok, back to the tigers.....Its a nail biter, but we're up 5-4 at the moment.....Lets hope Rodney can hold em.

Nice catch Dan. Did the weeds clear up any since yesterday? Those weed mats and debris in the water was just terrible.

Fished out of Linwood today. Water was a bit dingy compared to what its been. Lots of stringy weeds to foul up your lures down below as well as massive weed mats floating on the surface. They varied in size from just a couple feet in diameter to som that were 4'X12'....It was like an obstical course. ...Anyhoo, the fishing started out slow, i think because of yesterdays blow. Caught a few here and there. By noon it was dead flat and i had 8 fish...I couldnt believe it. I havent had to work that hard in a long time...it was actually fishing again. The water continued to clear up and the wind switched to the SW. I moved to a deep break and set up. The wind was perfect for this break. It wasnt long and we found a pod of suspended fish around the 15-18' mark with bait as well as a few on bottom. So we spread things out a bit and ran 4 boards high with 1 oz inlines 25-35' back and ran 2 bb off the corners. It wasnt long and things started poppin. In no time we boated 17 fish. We brought in our limit and sent the rest on their merry way. Early on when the water was dirty the fish seemed to want a flasher in front of the harness with a #2 inidana or colorado blade. As the day wore on and the sediment settled, the fish seemed to go better on plain harnesses behind in lines. We also had a shift in the productive colors. It switched from the Chart/organes to Red. We ran flourescent red beads with either a silver macks smile blade, or metallic pink tommy harris spider blades in #5 colorados, although i did take a few in this time period on the flasher rigs. Fished in 21-24 fow. Speed around 0.8-1.0 today was best. Good luck out there.

Oh, i can imagine your nervousness when you dropped them over the gunnel for the first time....and with good reason. But, your results arent all that surprising to me judging by the forage ive been finding in the bigger fish. Makes me wonder about breaking out some #18's again. I did that a few years ago to try and get away from those little fish....The results were pretty mixed though...Bigger diameter may be the key here though.

I wonder if those smaller fish were keying in more on an insects to start with and have now shifted their sights to the maturing fry, whatever they may be...Perch, Shad, Shiners etc....Wonder if that could be the reasoning? On the flip side I have a feeling that the larger Mini streak or even standard size spoons may be a better option for bigger fish right now as theyre bigger than the jr. streak and stinger scorpions. Reason i say that is because many of the bigger walleyes ive been catching have had good sized perch in them. Im talking perch of the 4-7" variety. I might have to send some of the bigger spoons down next trip and see what shakes out. Could have similar results to your little ernie experiment....But, its like working in reverse, going back to the old days again!

Ok, gotcha...The spoons have defiitely come a long way and running spoons alone sure wasnt in my vocabulary either. It was a three way or an attractor period. Im not sure why it took us so long up here to adopt a great presentation like that, but boy were we missing the boat. Although my primary weapon is inlines with harnesses, either bare or with a spoon as an attractor, i have experimented more with bare spoons. I was skeptic at first, but once i caught a few fish on them, i wasnt so affraid to put them down. Dad and I fished em not too long ago and bopped em pretty good. Kevorkian 60-70' back with the 1 3/4" mini disk was HOT!...only thing ive noticed is overall, the size of my catch has been smaller. Why, im not sure....Never the less, it was money and time well spent as its another tool in my bag. Sometimes it bails ya out.

Yup, I remember experimenting with three ways w/rattle tots and standard salmon spoons as well. The succsess was definitely limited, and for us became more of a hassel than it was worth...which is why we quit doing it years ago. Since then there has definitely been big changes in the bay, as well as the refining of the spoon to moreso fit the tastes of a walleye, wouldnt you agree Dan? Do you think that if we had the little Stingers, Silver Streaks, Moonshine spoon etc, that we would have been more succsessful in the past with our presentations or do you still believe the succsess would still have been limited?

Hey Guys, i know we used to have the Ludington Pier cam and Parking lot cam, but lost it for awhile. Well, its back up and running again. I found it today and its even better. Now you can actually control and zoom in the cam for a 2 minute sessions. Heres the link if you want to post it in the web cams section. This cam is provided by the Ludington Daily News and is located on top of the hotel by the parking lot in Ludington. You can watch the guys clean fish!...Pretty cool. http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/webcam/harbor.php

Gotta love spoon harnesses. I remember way back at the PWT out of Linwood when Norb Wallock broke out the spoons and put them in front of the harness to win the tournament. It started out as hooking the spoon to the rear of a bead chain keel weight, then a leader to a harness. From what i understand he had just returned from salmon fishing with dogers and squid and decided to adapt a version to fit the walleyes niche...Man did that start a fire. Since then it amazes me how its morphed into so many different variations, none of which ive used that walleye dont like. IMO this idea also sparked the creation of the Bass Pro XPS weights as an attractor, as well as many of its predacessors since. Thanks Norb, and God bless your soul, you left behind some good stuff before you left us!

I usually run mine 6' in length and hold them in place by half hitching a rubber band. Anyone ever try those free and fixed slider clips from Legendary Tackle in Frankfort? Ive had some for years, but theyve never made the water.....I always have the rubber bands out, so i just grab one and half hitch it on when i want a fixed.

I normally start fishing Ludington this coming weekend, but i have a walleye outing on Saginaw Bay to attent on Saturday, so itll be two weeks before i get over there. As good and fun as the walleye fishing is out of my home port of Linwood, im ready for fish that know how to swim.:lol:Ive got everything ready, all i have to do is swap out the walleye gear for the salmon gear and im off....Cant wait!

I dont run sliders when i run flashers/flies off the riggers. Just asking for trouble IMO. Those rotators can sure wind things up in a hurry.

Hey Dan, I took a look in my blade box today and my "Holy Rollers" are size 4 as well. Must be something to it. I noticed he spiced yours up a bit with those silver diamond shaped eyes. Not sure itd make much difference, but it looks cool. Frank, I also like the single/treble combo on harnesses. That combo really seems to hook and hold fish well for whatever reason. On my harnesses i run a #2 Mustad Big Red Beak bait hook and on the rear i run a #8 Mustad Triple Grip. By only having two hooks and hooking the lead hook laterally through the nose of the crawler allows it to run strait(not spin) and allows the crawler to have a natural fluid swimming motion. As far as the outlook, Dan's spot on about that. If the winter was any indicator at all about how this summers fishery will shape up, its gonna be a barn burner. Things will get underway here shortly in tight with stick baits...Thats if the wind ever quits blowing!